Discover Movies

Red Berlin from the 1910s to the resistance against National Socialism comes to life as a proletarian family history. The siblings of Ernst Knaack, a communist who was executed in 1944, talk about their childhood and youth, which they spent with their grandparents. Their grandfather, a former sailor who took part in the November Revolution and was a member of the Workers' and Soldiers' Council, ran the Zum Kuli pub in Prenzlauer Berg—a workers' pub that was also frequented by the unemployed and homeless, where party meetings were held and leading KPD members such as August Bebel and Hermann Duncker were regulars.

Documentary that blends dramatized reconstructions, personal reminisces and newsreel footage to tell the story of the flight of German refugees through occupied France to Marseilles in 1940. In 1977 Ingemo Engström and Gerhard Theuring embark on a journey through France. They trace the escape route of the German emigration in France 1940/41, documenting the places, talking to witnesses, relating the temporal layers.

The film addresses the problem of industrial emissions of heavy metals that cannot be stopped by treatment plants. This is happening on a grand scale along the Oslo Fjord, but especially at Herøya from the Hydro plant and in Odda. Who is responsible? In Japan it is worse, but can we avoid the same fate?

Performance by Valie Export.

Interview-based documentary about the conditions for gays and lesbians in Danish society.

A more experimental aproach to labor protection films. In the line of Săucan's style, the soundtrack is as important as the image, the threatening music, full of shrillness, composed by Ion Dumitrescu potentiating the visual construction that mixes - in a montage reminiscent of the Soviet avant-garde school of the 1920s - all kinds of shooting techniques and frame combinations.

Ironic portrait of the strong men of the Chilean military dictatorship commanded by General Augusto Pinochet after September 11, 1973. As a counterpoint, the families of the victims and the missing bear witness to a different reality.

The life and career of the great cartoonist Winsor McCay is warmly recalled by his former film assistant, John Fitzsimmons, with clips of classic McCay animated films.

Inspired by the testimony of an American technician who, examining the São Paulo dump, stated: "Sao Paulo rubbish is the richest in the world." The film shows the misery of those who live on this garbage and the police repression on the scavengers.

Alan Whicker meets Chinese film mogul, Run Run Shaw, at his Hong Kong studios and sees examples of the swordfight films, of which he is producing more than sixty a year.

Shot over six weeks in December 1971, and January 1972, the film consisted of interviews with Protestants, Catholics, politicians, and some soldiers, combined with TV news clips of bombings and violence. The deaths of four individuals formed the central focus of the film, which Ophüls described as ‘an old, middle-aged, humanistic, social-democratic attempt to give people an idea that life after all is not that cheap’. The BBC refused to transmit the completed film on the grounds that it was ‘too pro-Irish’ (Sunday Times, 5 Nov. 1972). (via http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/media/docs/freespeech.htm)

A butchered cow is decapitated in this short film by Hollis Frampton.

This film portrays the dead day festival in Alahualtitla, Chicontepec Township in the state of Veracruz, and highlights the dependence of small communities of the town merchants and lenders, who allow the financing of these traditional festivals.

A drama documentary of the life and death of the poet Dylan Thomas, who died in New York 25 years ago at age 39. Alcohol and a doctor's injection of morphine were the immediate causes. Ever since his childhood in Wales his life was a spectacular attempt - comic at times, serious below the surface, tragic at the finish - to survive on his own bizarre terms as the poet to end all poets. By the 1950s, that first postwar decade of uneasiness and change, Dylan Thomas was a legend to his admirers but a burnt-out case to himself. As he tours America to read poetry to rapt audiences, his past crowds in on him, the fractured memories of a man at the end of his tether.

George Carlin's first ever comedy special, filmed live at the University of Southern California. Here, he talks about monopoly, flying on planes, random thoughts, walking, and other things.

Short film about the life and work of the poet Murilo Mendes.

Personal diary-style documentary of German Gay rights activist Von Praunheim's sojourn in the US.

Documentary covering the famous Wigan Casino northern soul venue and the working class kids who spend all their money not on alcohol but on records and dancing all night.

Ossie Davis narrates a history of "race films," films made before 1950 which catered to a primarily black audience.

Portrait of Professor Wilhelm Heinrich Tenhaeff (1894-1981), a pioneer in the field of the experimental science of parapsychology. From 1953, Tenhaeff held the special chair in parapsychology in Utrecht. He addresses questions regarding clairvoyance and commerce, and whether there is life after death.

This is the debut documentary made by Alexis Krasilovsky, author of "Women Behind The Camera" (Praeger, 1997). Shot on 16mm in 1971, the film covers much of the New York avant-garde of the time.

Bosnian documentary film.

A documentary about a rodeo family in Nebraska.

Life and art of Carlos Cruz-Diez.

Sara is a 4-year-old mentally deficient living with her parents and a little sister. Sara was never institutionalized as her parents decided that it had to be possible to live an everyday life with the child in spite of the doctors' warning that it would ruin their lives if she was not sent off to an institution.

A BBC-produced docudrama reconstructing the trial of the Chicago Eight, using courtroom transcripts as its primary source. Directed by Christopher Burstall, the film dramatizes the prosecution of anti–Vietnam War protesters charged with conspiracy and incitement, presenting the proceedings as a precise trial reenactment grounded in documented testimony rather than fictionalized narrative.

This is a very unusual and original film, breaking new ground in filmmaking methods as well as in ways of viewing things. All the usual facts about Sweden have been given a hundred times over, and often in better forms than film can offer, but in this film the director has launched into a form of cinematic observation and commentary that offers an entirely new experience of things Swedish.

Exploring the impact of the now defunct Steinberg supermarkets on the urban environment.

A short documentary about a 70s Roman film club.

The film tells the cultural story of Berlin during the Weimar Republic through interviews with a number of persons who were involved in literature, film, art, and music during the period. It includes interviews with Christopher Isherwood, Louise Brooks, Lotte Eisner, Elisabeth Bergner, Francis Lederer, Carl Zuckmayer, Gregor Piatigorsky, Claudio Arrau, Rudolf Kolisch, Mischa Spoliansky, Herbert Bayer, Mrs. Walter Gropius, and Arthur Koestler.

The events of two days of life of the pilgrims in Mashhad Ardalan city near Kashan. In first day the pilgrims arrive in the city to pilgrim the holy shrine there. In the second day the Ghali Shouyan tradition is taken place.

Rolf and Susanne visit an indoor swimming pool. They learn how to buy tickets at the ticket office, how to find and use the changing rooms and showers and how to behave correctly in the pools for swimmers and non-swimmers.

It portrays young people from different social and political classes, and collects their impressions of the context in which they live. The documentary offers a critical view of the youth of the Unidad Popular period, through an audiovisual essay.

"…elegant yet rustic in its simplicity of execution; tugged gently toward different sides of the set by hints of color and motion interactions, positive and negative spaces, etc., and the unyielding delivery on one of the great apotheoses of poetic cinema at fade-out time." – Tony Conrad

O Aleijadinho, a study of the work of Antonio Francisco Lisboa, the architect whose cathedral de Andrade had assisted in the restoration of more than 20 years earlier. de Andrade dedicated the film to his father, who had sent him on the expedition.

This adventure film features Scott McVay, an authority on whales, and filmmaker Bill Mason. The objective was to film the bowhead, a magnificent inhabitant of the cold Arctic seas brought to the edge of extinction by overfishing. With helicopter and Inuit guide, aqualungs and underwater cameras, the expedition searches out and meets the bowhead and beluga.

Reflections of the Dandelion the computer on the future of cinema.

This film is about the traditional puffin catch in the Westman Islands and shows the fowlers in action, often performing breathtaking feats in the soaring cliffs to accomplish their goal. Ancient hunting techniques are shown, and the extreme dangers that men faced to secure their livelihood. These techniques have passed on basically unchanged from generation to generation.

A short lyrical document about an ancient Oriental discipline, this film moves from the streets of China, where the people practice Tai-Chi daily, to North America, where the same movements are executed by a solitary figure in a park.

The work of several Brazilian musicians is illustrated through images from different regions of the country in various segments.

Short documentary about allotment-holders in East London.

Peter Gabriel is among the rockstars performing the music of Lennon and McCartney against a montage of World War II newsreel footage.

Documentary exploring the origins and proliferation of Buddhism throughout Chinese history

We begin with a fragmented portrait of Činča, between the stories she tells and the thoughts of those surrounding her. In The Head, a girl is confronted with the possibility of dying. Intermezzo focusses on the moments of abstraction amid the hustle and bustle of a city. In Our Stock Exchange, unemployed people seek work. Second Floor, Basement shows us a hospital where only two floors separate birth and death.

Documentary about Cape Verde and the island of Fogo produced by the revolutionary government of the new country. A culture learning to live without tutelage.

Directed by Bolivian-born filmmaker Humberto Ríos (working from Argentina, where he was based), this 65-minute color documentary chronicles the struggle of Bolivian miners and peasants in the period leading up to the de facto government of dictator Hugo Banzer, who came to power with U.S. backing. The film offers a critical warning about the rise of dictatorships across Latin America, situating Bolivia's social conflict within the broader wave of imperialism and military repression sweeping the region at the time.

A documentary about life in a fishing village showing the people's dependence on the sea (filmed in Ólafsvík).

Chicago. In the first part of the film, the author tries to answer the question: "Did the African Americans who traveled to the north, including to Chicago, succeed in finding human conditions of existence and human rights?" To the song of the American blues musician George "Buddy" Guy, the streets of the American metropolis of Chicago, black residents are shown. Dick Gregory, one of the best actors in America of the time, commenting on the conditions of life for blacks when they first moved to Chicago. Comments by African American Families on Current Conditions. Video footage of a huge Negro ghetto. Directed by Anatoly Semyonov. 1973 year.

Documentation and experimentation in real time, "Orbital Obsessions" is an example of early video self-portraiture, eerie and calm in its radical implications for the medium. The Vasulkas were interested in the building of control systems for the manipulation of electronic signals, resulting in their collaborations with several designers and engineers. One such example was the Multi-Level Keyer, a tool designed in 1973 by George Brown at the request of the Vasulkas, who were interested in expanding their range of source imagery. Steina’s manipulation of the image through keying, layering, and the manual control of luminance is seen here.

Documentary about malnutrition in Costa Rica

Carlin recorded his only network special, The Real George Carlin, in 1973. Featuring bits about growing up in New York, the material is neither profane nor squeaky clean – but has a slice of life element obviously lacking in the cuddly Carlin of the '60s. There’s a gold star moment of longhaired George mocking a cardboard cutout of the suit and tie version, and so take-em-or-leave-them musical appearances by BB King and Kris Kristofferson. Certainly, worth a modern glance.