
Dive into "Brat and the Culture of Addiction," a thought-provoking video essay by Alexander Avila that unpacks how society glamorizes excess while stigmatizing addiction. Through sharp analysis of media, history, and cultural norms, Avila explores the cycles of dependency fostered by consumer capitalism and challenges the oversimplified narratives of recovery. Perfect for anyone looking to understand addiction as a broader sociocultural issue, this essay offers fresh insights and calls for systemic change. Watch now to reframe your perspective and spark meaningful discussions.
Self

Dive into "Brat and the Culture of Addiction," a thought-provoking video essay by Alexander Avila that unpacks how society glamorizes excess while stigmatizing addiction. Through sharp analysis of media, history, and cultural norms, Avila explores the cycles of dependency fostered by consumer capitalism and challenges the oversimplified narratives of recovery. Perfect for anyone looking to understand addiction as a broader sociocultural issue, this essay offers fresh insights and calls for systemic change. Watch now to reframe your perspective and spark meaningful discussions.
2024-11-21
10
What is your box?
7.9Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
7.5Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
6.5In a hypercompetitive world, drugs like Adderall offer students, athletes, coders and others a way to do more -- faster and better. But at what cost?
6.4A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
6.1A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
6.5Film adaptation of French economist Thomas Piketty's ground-breaking global bestseller of the same name: an eye-opening journey through wealth and power.
7.6A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
6.5A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
6.2SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
7.0A documentary special that explores the power of identity behind the iconic superheroes we know and love today. These legendary Marvel creations and stories have not only reflected the world outside our window – they have become a reflection of our own identities and who we truly are.
6.0A night of drunken chaos rocks a quiet Dutch town in this shocking documentary about a teen's birthday invite that accidentally went viral on Facebook.
6.6A documentary about the sport of boxing, as seen through the eyes of champions Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Bernard Hopkins.
7.6A filmed version of David Byrne's Broadway show, a unifying musical celebration that inspires audiences to connect to each other and to the global community.
7.0Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.
8.4A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.
8.0Go behind the scenes and witness how the "Squid Game"-inspired reality show transformed from a scripted drama to a cutthroat, nail-biting competition.
5.9Serial killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his life and horrific crimes via a series of chilling audiotapes recorded from his jail cell.
7.4The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
2.0Joan Crawford's close-up in Humoresque. Michelangelo's David and Boticelli's "Birth of Venus". Stendhal was overwhelmed by the cultural overstimulation in Florence, which Graziella Magherini described scientifically in 1979 as Stendhal syndrome. Mark Rappaport describes his fascination for the Austrian actor Turhan Bey, who made a career in exotic roles in Hollywood in the 1940s. A very personal essay about the effect of close-ups, the canvas idols of the dream factory and the role of their admirers and fans.
0.0Letter to My Tribe started with a question: Why don’t more Jews and Israelis speak out about Palestine? Over many years my mother, who represents a more messianic perspective, and I have had numerous arguments, some recorded, some not. These form the backbone of this video essay in which Israelis and Jews, journalists, activists and a rabbi are interviewed, and in which documentation of actions on the ground, in the West Bank, are woven with more personal family histories and journeys to Iraq and to Poland.
A short documentary that emerge at the center of round table debate, participating in it there's three students from the Superior School of Arts and Design, Caldas da Rainha - Portugal. This conversation go along with a video essay about Afrofuturism and Pop Culture. Also, during the debate, an interview with another student gives some real example of how afrofuturism can be applied when it comes to in taking control of the colonial narratives into a black person perspective.
0.0Video essay about reflections in identities, spaces, using comparisons with the people in her life. How do we express ourselves? What influences us? Are we reflections of what we experience? Of what we see? Of who we know?
10.0"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." A 7 day vlog during the summer of 2023, a story of dreamers and drowners.
0.0The film follows journeys of observational tours solicited by the Palestinian Museum and conducted by two professors from Birzeit University to collect photos of and information on the Palestinian Flora. The title is adapted from a collection of 123 images (circa 1900 to 1920) of wild flowers in Palestine found in the Matson Collection in the Library of Congress. Despite the tendency to trace the wild plants, the text in general aims at questioning the territorial extension of what is meant by the term “Palestinian”, while standing on insignificant topographical features of the (postcolonial) landscape in West Bank. Furthermore, it addresses photography as a practice and a tool of distributing and restricting information at once.
0.0Ten years after the death of iconic French filmmaker, Chris Marker. A filmmaker, hoping to rediscover that unique sensibility against the uncertainty of the new century, returns to the places synonymous with those incomparable and unforgettable films-- From the cat cemetery of Sans Soleil, to the mausoleum of The Last Bolshevik; The caves of Level Five to the rooftops of The Case of the Grinning Cat. A biographical portrait of one of the 20th century's greatest and most misunderstood filmmakers.
0.0Dedicated to the Children of Ukraine, victims of the brutal Russian invasion...Let everyone ask themselves and the leaders of their countries: what else has to happen, what arguments are needed that Ukraine is finally given the necessary military aid for Victory?
2.5A tribute to actresses, approaching their presence in and out the screen, humanizing the icons. From the Ukrainian Anna Sten to the French Anna Karina, we can see some close-up faces that marked the history of the cinema, and whose demand is more relevant than ever.
4.0Near Munich, in Bavaria, Germany, is the Schleißheim Palace, where French filmmaker Alain Resnais shot his film Last Year at Marienbad in 1960. Nearby is the Dachau concentration camp, where thousands of people were killed between 1933 and 1945. An essay about the present and the past, beauty and horror, life and death.
1.5What could have happened – what should have happened – if two giants in film history, like Greta Garbo and Sergei Michajlovič Eisenstein, could have declared their love for each other? The world's most famous actress, an honorary Russian citizen of cinema for her many performances; the world's most radical director, who could have immortalized her face in one of his famous close-ups? Sphinx Garbo did not want to be alone: she just wanted to marry the great Sergei. Perhaps she could have played Trotsky or Pancho Villa in one of his films. Perhaps their friends Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney and Josef von Sternberg would have approved their love. Maybe they could have had a child together. Maybe all this could still have happened, in a Mark Rappaport film.
0.0A desktop documentary that focuses on the Golden Record that NASA sent into space in the late 1970s. The piece reflects on issues such as the power of scientific discourse to produce revisions of the world, the evolution of the concept of the archive and the resignification of borders in the rhetoric of space colonialism.
0.0Swimming, Dancing examines audiovisual representations of the Yangtze (1934–present), from silent film to video art to the contemporary vlog. Inspired by the city symphonies of the 1920s, Swimming, Dancing pieces together a “river symphony”, evoking the images, sounds and contradictions that make up the river’s turbulent history.
0.0A psychotic filmmaker named Philip summons a manifestation of Stanley Kubrick into his apartment to confront him on the depiction of mental illness in his filmography. Kubrick's obsession with 'crazy' characters who meet an untimely death disturbs Philip, who wishes he could see Kubrick characters who manage their illness. The two directors go on a journey into Kubrick's films to understand insanity in our modern era.
0.0Travel diary about a vacation, without going anywhere. This travel diary is a reflection on past vacations and what one observes in their daily life when one goes out, even if it's to the same place as always: home.
2.5A video essay by Mark Rappaport, which spans René Magritte and Michelangelo to Bonnie & Clyde. Let’s mask up to rob a bank! But make sure that you are home before the curfew.
1.0A fictional biography of Hollywood actors Martin Kosleck and Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, both of whom fled Hitler-era Germany to live a long-lasting relationship.
0.0A filmmaker reconstructs a common memory about the formerly industrialized Lake Constance region, which was also largely built up by migration – and in recent years has mainly attracted people who do not like to pay taxes. The imprints speak, the fog. Without talking heads, in perspectives beyond the memorialized self-image of this region, classism becomes comprehensible.
1.5A fictionalized biography on John Dall who was in two great movies - Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950).