The Flat

Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land(en)

When many people think of Israel, it is often in terms of modern war or ancient religion. But there is much more to the Jewish state then missiles and prayers. In his debut as a documentary filmmaker, adult-film entrepreneur and political columnist Michael Lucas examines a side of Israel that is too often overlooked: its thriving gay community. Undressing Israel features interviews with a diverse range of local men, including a gay member of Israel's parliament, a trainer who served openly in the army, a young Arab-Israeli journalist, and a pair of dads raising their kids. Lucas also visits Tel Aviv's vibrant nightlife scene-and a same-sex wedding-in this guided tour to a country that emerged as a pioneer for gay integration and equality.

Bauhaus Spirit: 100 Years of Bauhaus(de)

Founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius, Bauhaus was supposed to unite sculpture, painting, design and architecture into a single combined constructive discipline. It is a synthesis of liberated imagination and stringent structure; cross-medial concepts that embellish and enrich our existence, illumination and clarity, order and playfulness. But Bauhaus was never just an artistic experiment. Confronted with the social conditions of that particular time, as well as the experience of WWI, the movement concerned itself with the political and social connotations of design from the very outset. Hence, Bauhaus history is not just the history of art, but also the history of an era that stretches from the early 20th century to the modern day.

Lullaby to my Father(fr)

The film intertwines historical events and intimate memories. I observe how architecture represents the transformations of society and those who give form to this architecture. We follow the journey of Munio, my father, born in 1909 in Silesia, Poland, the son of a tenant farmer of a Prussian junker. At the age of 18, Munio goes to Berlin and Dessau to meet Walter Gropius, Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus. In 1933, the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, who accused Munio of treason against the German people. Munio was imprisoned, then deported to Basel. He left for Palestine. Upon his arrival in Haifa, he began a career as an architect and adapted European modernist principles to the Middle East.

Bauhaus: The Face of the Twentieth Century(en)

Bauhaus - The Face of the 20th Century, written and narrated by Frank Whitford, is an art documentary depicting the visual science generated from the outpouring of avant-garde ideas of this innovative educational undertaking.

Kelvin and His Friends(en)

A closely observed portrait of a single man in his 40's who lives in St. Kilda. Although he has none of the trappings of conventional existence, Kelvin's obsessive interest in born again Christianity, physical culture and recent German/Jewish history has given him a way of making sense of the world and led him to a number of people, friends through whom we see something of his life and beliefs.

Dawn of the Nazis(en)

How Germany was when its people entered the nightmare of World War II? Despair and fear lead a hungry population to follow the chilling call of just one man to world domination. A real-life horror story, an ominous tale of violence and deception, which takes place from 1919 to 1934. (Entirely made up of restored, colorized archival footage.)

Temporary Identity(he)

What does it mean to belong to a place, a country? In a south Tel Aviv elementary school, that question is addressed head-on by a fourth-grade class and their teacher. The children are asylum seekers whose families mostly do not have a legal status in Israel, yet learn, sing and play in Hebrew all the while examining their identity and sense of belonging.

Tamar(en)

Tamar, a 33-year-old Tel Aviv comics artist, watches passersby, listens to their conversations and translates her impressions into comics with an ironic expression. She peels off the mask from a society, in the eye of the storm, that claims to be liberal and in which everyone has an opinion about everything. Secure between her four walls, she touches the darkest spots of her life- a bomb attack, a failed marriage, coping with depression. A young, modern woman in today's Israel.

Max Bill: The Master's Vision(de)

The film about Max Bill (1908-1994) moves between the dynamic fields of art, aesthetics and politics. Max Bill was probably the most important swiss artist of the 20th century and the most famous student to come out of the legendary Bauhaus in Dessau. He was an ardent anti-fascist and all his avant-garde work as an artist, sculptor, architect and typographer showed a social responsibility and environmental awareness right through his life. His views have become incredibly topical.

Lucia Moholy, la photographe du Bauhaus(de)

As a Bauhaus photographer, Lucia Moholy (1894-1989) was a pioneer of New Objectivity. Her husband László Moholy-Nagy was appointed to the Bauhaus in 1923. They worked there together and László became famous as the inventor of the photogram, a photo without film. Lucia's contribution to this only became known later. When the Czech-born Jew was forced to leave Germany in 1933 after the Nazis seized power, she was unable to take her most important possession, her glass negatives, with her. She struggled to keep her head above water in London and worked for the British secret service on the microfilming of valuable documents. With her vision of microfilm as freely accessible information for all, she is now regarded as a pioneer of the Internet. After the war, Lucia set out in search of her glass negatives.

To Open Eyes(en)

The genesis of To Open Eyes: A Film on Josef Albers developed from Arnold Bittleman's appreciation for Albers while Bittleman was a student at Yale University in the 1960s. Wanting to preserve Albers’s teaching method—learning by doing—Bittleman set out with filmmaker and editor Carl Howard to make a visual record of Albers teaching students how to see and use color as a visual grammar. The film includes archival footage of Josef Albers at home in conversation with Bittleman, as well as footage from Black Mountain College and Yale University.

Central Bus Station(en)

The architects' plans for Central Bus Station to swallow visitors has turned into an endless maze of corridors. Once a gift to the citizens of Tel Aviv now serves to the immigrants. Yonathan has been a guide there for 17 years and is able to show the other side of the station's significance to those who walk with him. Yonathan knows that the purpose of going down to the building is to find not only himself, but also a society that harbours its values, protects its original traditions and wants to defend its home.

Keepers of Hope(he)

"For the sake of the neighborhood, for the sake of the children of the neighborhood. lets go Bnei Yehuda ." There are films that cannot be forgotten, that have become the soundtrack of Israeli football. One of them is "Shomrim Al H'tikva", which accompanied Bnei Yehuda in the survival campaign in 2000. Shia Feigenbaum, Yossi Medar, Hezi Shirazi and others on a heroic journey in the Hatikva neighborhood. 40 minutes of a cult film, which every Israeli football fan must see.

40 Jours d'errance : La Traversée du Saint-Louis(fr)

Gerhard Bohner: Dancer and Choreographer(en)

Short documentary on the reconstruction of the Bauhaus dances of Oskar Schlemmer by Gerhard Bohner.

Oskar Schlemmer and Dance(en)

Original film material from the Bauhaus dances of Oskar Schlemmer.

The Triadic Ballet(de)

A film in three parts after Oskar Schlemmer's Triadische Ballett (Triadic Ballet).

Man and Mask, Oskar Schlemmer and the Bauhaus Stage(de)

Documentary on the design and choreography of Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943), an artist and teacher associated with the Bauhaus. After a discussion of his artistic philosophy and goals, illustrated by his drawings, reconstructions of his choreographic works are seen in action, each with a brief introduction.

Modulaciones en la Terraza(en)

Film made with two photographs taken at the Unité d’Habitation, built by Le Corbusier in Marseille. For the editing the film are used a film adaptation of the rules of the Modulor, measurement system designed by Le Corbusier himself. Includes a tribute to Paul Sharits and another to Agnès Varda.

Al Tira: Diary from a Nation at War(en)

A young Jewish professional visits Israel amid a multi-front war and creates a short film entirely on his iPhone to help his community better connect with the current mood of the Jewish state.

Night Will Fall(en)

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

My Mom Jayne(en)

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

The Last Days(en)

Five Jewish Hungarians, now US citizens, tell their stories: before March 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April 1945.

Salinger(en)

An in-depth investigation into the private world of the American writer J. D. Salinger (1919-2010), who lived most of his life behind the impenetrable wall of a self-imposed seclusion: how his dramatic experiences during World War II influenced his life and work, his relationships with very young women, his obsessive writing methods, his many literary secrets.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story(en)

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad(en)

A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.

Gilbert(en)

The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.

Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story(en)

Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.

The Captains(en)

The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.

McQueen(en)

Alexander 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.

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present(en)

Performance artist Marina Abramovic prepares for a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward(en)

A presentation of a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'.

Unknown: Cave of Bones(en)

Scientists examine underground clues from over 250,000 years ago that raise questions about our early relatives — and what it truly means to be human.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball(en)

Hollywood veteran Bing Russell creates the only independent baseball team in the country—alarming the baseball establishment and sparking the meteoric rise of the 1970s Portland Mavericks.

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin(en)

Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown(en)

A chronicle of the life, work and mind that created the Cthulhu mythos.

The Wolfpack(en)

Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch. Nicknamed ‘The Wolfpack’, the brothers spend their childhood reenacting their favorite films using elaborate home-made props and costumes. Their world is shaken up when one of the brothers escapes and everything changes.

One of Us(en)

Penetrating the insular world of New York's Hasidic community, focusing on three individuals driven to break away despite threats of retaliation.

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon(en)

Supermensch documents the astounding career of Hollywood insider, the loveable Shep Gordon, who fell into music management by chance after moving to LA straight out of college, and befriending Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Shep managed rock stars such as Pink Floyd, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass and Alice Cooper, and later went on to manage chefs such as Emeril Lagasse, ushering in the era of celebrity chefs on television.

Voyeur(en)

Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.