Isle of Flowers(1989)

The Mad Masters(fr)

The subject of the film was the Hauka movement. The Hauka movement consisted of mimicry and dancing to become possessed by French Colonial administrators. The participants performed the same elaborate military ceremonies of their colonial occupiers, but in more of a trance than true recreation.

Sunday Lunch(fr)

It's Sunday. During the course of the meal, Jean observes family members. They ask you questions without listening to the answers... It is normal, Sunday dinner.

Caroline(en)

In the middle of a Texas summer, plans for a babysitter fall through and six-year-old Caroline is left in charge of her two younger siblings.

The Flower Corner(pt)

An Explorer travels through a small town in the United Kingdom in the 60s. However, after getting lost, he ends up finding a mansion full of plants and flowers, where he decides to stay. However, as the days go by, he begins to have illusions, which may or may not be true.

Contra-Filé(pt)

A runaway runs out of time to save his life. But it depends on the butchers...

Atlantis(fr)

Atlantis is filmmaker Luc Besson's celebration of the beauty and wonder of the world beneath the sea, expanding upon themes touched on in his film The Big Blue. Combining stunning underwater cinematography and a hypnotic score by Eric Serra, Besson's singular vision defies dialogue or narrative structure to explore ocean life as you've never seen it before. Following the colossal success of The Big Blue, Luc Besson crisscrossed the world's seas and oceans to film the beauty and diversity of marine life: from the giant octopuses of Vancouver to the manta rays of the Pacific (New Caledonia), and the grey sharks of Tahiti. A film with no actors or sets other than the underwater world. A breathtaking view of marine species: sharks, dolphins, manatees, octopuses. An exploration of the seabed in the Bahamas, the Galapagos, Vancouver, and Tahiti.

The Rounders(en)

Two drunks fight with their wives and then go out and get even drunker.

This Is Not Your Life(pt)

Noeli lives in a suburb of Porto Alegre, is a housewife and has two children. She was born in a country town, went to the capital, worked in a bakery, got married. She's an ordinary person. But there are no ordinary people.

Barbosa(pt)

Thirty-eight years after the 1950 World Cup, a man went back in time to prevent the goal that defeated Brazil, destroyed his childhood dreams and ended goalkeeper Barbosa's career.

Salaam Cinema(fa)

Makhmalbaf puts an advertisement in the papers calling for an open casting for his next movie. However when hundreds of people show up, he decides to make a movie about the casting and the screen tests of the would-be actors.

Creature Comforts(en)

A humorous and thought-provoking view of what animals in zoos might be thinking about their captivity and surroundings.

The Ambulance(en)

When the woman of his dreams is snatched by a strange ambulance, a young man risks it all to find her and tracks down a trafficking ring.

Love for Sale(pt)

In northern Brazil, Hermila patiently waits for her husband. However, he has abandoned her. Sexy, restless and resolute, she raffles off "a night in paradise" with herself. This beautifully-shot portrait doesn't shy away from the burdens of a young scarred woman, but it also celebrates her courage to live according to her own rules.

Polina(fr)

Polina is a young dancer from a modest family. After years of ballet academy, she is accepted by the Bolshoi; still, she decides to try and audition of a modern dance company in France. She makes it, but her journey will not end there...

Scandal in Sorrento(it)

Back to his hometown, a former marshal finds his house occupied by a young woman working as a fishwife.

Kinsey(en)

Kinsey is a portrait of researcher Alfred Kinsey, driven to uncover the most private secrets of a nation. What begins for Kinsey as a scientific endeavor soon takes on an intensely personal relevance, ultimately becoming an unexpected journey into the mystery of human behavior.

Pixote(pt)

10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.

Good(en)

When John Halder's latest novel is enlisted by powerful political figures in the Nazi party to push their agenda, his career and social standing instantly advance. But after learning of the Reich's horrific plans for the future and the devastating effects they will have on people close to him, John must decide whether or not to take a stand and risk losing everything.

I Don't Want to Go Back Alone(pt)

The arrival of a new student in school changes Leonardo's life. This 15 year-old blind teenager has to deal with the jealousy of his friend Giovana while figuring out the new feelings he's having towards his new friend, Gabriel.

I Needed Color(en)

Jim Carrey exhibits his talent as a painter and reflects on the value and power of art.

Vanilla(pt)

Look around. Everything you see and touch can taste like vanilla.

Kid City(en)

Documentarian Jon Boorstin follows architect Frank Gehry and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, as they attempt a new method of teaching elementary school children in Los Angeles. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the siblings work together on a pilot program of “design-based learning” that would restructure the typical classroom curriculum, replacing rote math or civics lessons with an imaginary city designed and built entirely by the students themselves. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive.

Stop for Bud(da)

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

The Return of the Living Dead: The Decade of Darkness(en)

A look at the horror movies of the 1980's.

China Strikes Back(en)

Raw footage received from photographer Harry Dunham revealed never before seen images of Mao Tse-Tung and the Eighth Route Army, inspiring Frontier to collectively shape a new film from desperate images, and to refine its dialectic editing.

Gunda(en)

A glimpse into the raw and simple power of nature through encounters with farm animals: the eponymous Gunda, a mother pig; two cows, and a one-legged chicken.

Hold on Tight(en)

A short documentary exploring the ways LGBT couples show affection, and how small interactions like holding hands in public can carry, not only huge personal significance, but also the power to create social change.

Screen Snapshots (Series 1, No. 20)(en)

Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.

The Silence(en)

There are children. There are those who abuse them. And there are those who know, but never tell.

9000 Laps(fr)

Cuba and the Cameraman(en)

This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.

The Costume Designer(en)

This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The costume designer must design clothing that is correct for the film historically and geographically, and must be appropriate for the mood of the individual scene. We see famed costume designer Edith Head at work on a production. The Costume Designer was part of The Industry Film Project, a twelve-part series produced by the film studios and the Academy. Each series episode was produced to inform the public on a specific facet of the motion picture industry. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Little Potato(en)

Wes Hurley's autobiographical tale of growing up gay in Soviet Union Russia, only to escape with his mother, a mail order bride, to Seattle to face a whole new oppression in his new Christian fundamentalist American dad.

Calçada(pt)

How to Blow Up a Helicopter (Ayako's Story)(en)

Interview of Ayako Fujitani and her dad Steven Seagal.

Passaic Mosaic(en)

A short documentary, looking at life in Passaic, New Jersey, whilst the film Be Kind Rewind (2008) is being shot there.

Declutter(en)

One Saturday morning, filmmaker Madison Thomas has a revelation: she’s just like her mother. As she thinks about a friend going through tough times, she feels the sudden urge to clean. Through the scrubbing and wiping and rinsing, Madison's thoughts drift to her mother — and her obsessive need to tidy. Madison’s mother survived a traumatic childhood: her own mother never reconciled what she went through at residential school. Cleaning offers moments of control that she didn’t have as a child. She’s fought hard, against all odds, to become a strong woman. They say trauma is in the genes, that it’s passed from one generation to the next. But strength is inherited too. Through rituals as simple as spending time together and smudging, Madison and her mother are beginning to mend the cycle of pain in their family. Declutter is an intimate look into a private moment between mother and daughter and the strength that carries them both.

Karihwanoron: Precious Things(en)

Yagorihwanirats, a Mohawk child from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, attends a unique and special school: Karihwanoron. It is a Mohawk immersion program that teaches Mohawk language, culture and philosophy. Yagorihwanirats is so excited to go to school that she never wants to miss a day – even if she is sick.

Strudel Sisters(hu)

Two elderly sisters share the delicate art of making traditional Hungarian strudel and reveal a deeply personal family story about their mother, who taught them everything they know.