'La Mamma Morta’ is an aria from the opera Andrea Chenier that is also well-known for its use in a memorable sequence in the Oscar award-winning Philadelphia. Thirty years on, this new short film from WNO includes a brand-new recording of the aria featured alongside recreated scenes that better encapsulate the perspectives of people living with HIV today. To mark World AIDS Day 2023, the Welsh National Orchestra released a special new version of La mamma morta, featuring WNO Orchestra, soprano Camilla Roberts and Nathaniel Hall from Channel 4’s It’s a Sin. Released as part of the last rendition in the Three Letters project, this film aims to tackle societal stigma around HIV.
2024-10-09
0
0.0At underground film of the 1st Popular Festival of Catalan Poetry filmed in the Proce Theater in Barcelona on May 25, 1970, in solidarity with political prisoners. The participating poets were: Agustí Bartra, Joan Oliver (Pere IV), Salvador Espriu, Joan Brossa, Francesc Vallverdú and Gabriel Ferrater.
8.0Although he is unanimously credited with having democratised opera, making it accessible to the greatest number, focus is rarely put on the strategy he devised and implemented in order to carry out his actions, nor what his actions reveal of the man and artist, and of the resulting metamorphosis from opera singer to pop artist. Through this angle, this film sets out to pay tribute to the man who summed up his credo, obsession and life’s work, in the following way: “They led the public to believe that classical music belonged to a restricted elite. I was the way to prove to the world that was wrong.
10.0The creative processes of avant-garde composer Philip Glass and progressive director/designer Robert Wilson are examined in this film. It documents their collaboration on this tradition breaking opera.
sucking on words is a documentary film that features interviews with, and extensive performances by, the American poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It also features critical commentary on his intense and ground-breaking conceptualist practice from three of North America’s leading voices on avant-garde poetics. Shot on location in New York in 2007, the lively conversations featured in sucking on words are an ideal introduction to Goldsmith’s witty and provocative works, which are already regarded as hallmarks of 21st-century literature. The film showcases readings from some of his notorious books: No.111 (found phrases ending in the ‘r’ rhyme and filtered alphabetically by syllable count); Soliloquy (a transcription of every word Goldsmith spoke for a week); Day (a retyping of one day’s New York Times newspaper); Traffic (one day’s worth of hourly radio traffic bulletins); and The Weather (one year’s worth of radio weather bulletins).
0.0Daily spleen, drunkenness among friends, conversations and the passage of time: the video diaries composed by Lionel Soukaz chronicle the early 1990s, the comet tail of those never-ending winter years and the nightmare of the AIDS years. But edited thirty years later with Stéphane Gérard, they are also a tribute to Hervé Couergou, the beloved partner at the center of all the filmed scenes. Slowly, in conversations between couples and friends, the dandy spirit and intimate confession overlap. What emerges is a portrait of a way of dealing with the times and their pain, which, beneath the act of commemoration, seeks to inscribe a living presence.
0.0An event organised by CND pits the bomb against poetry. Hear artists who hoped that words and rhymes could put an end to destructive times.
8.0The film follows the staging of the opera Olimpiade while at the same time exploring the dramatic life of its composer Josef Mysliveček, a friend and teacher of W. A. Mozart.
9.0This documentary highlights the evolution of Brazil's Circo Voador venue from homespun artists' performance space to national cultural institution.
8.1Letter Beyond the Walls reconstructs the trajectory of HIV and AIDS with a focus on Brazil, through interviews with doctors, activists, patients and other actors, in addition to extensive archival material. From the initial panic to awareness campaigns, passing through the stigma imposed on people living with HIV, the documentary shows how society faced this epidemic in its deadliest phase over more than two decades. With this historical approach as its base, the film looks at the way HIV is viewed in today's society, revealing a picture of persistent misinformation and prejudice, which especially affects Brazil’s most historically vulnerable populations.
0.0Different experts make a stand against today's putatively criminal and harmful health system, focusing on Anthony Fauci and his role in the shaping of the AIDS and COVID-19 epidemics.
0.0Lucien Francoeur, rock poet of the French imagination of North America, lives the destiny he has chosen for himself at 200 miles an hour.
A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.
7.0The story behind the Uganda-based YouTube dance sensations who have endured devastating personal loss from famine and war, and use the power of dance and song to overcome hardship.
7.0At the height of the AIDS crisis, many gay men sold their life insurance policies to investors for quick cash. This documentary charts the rise and fall of the hundred-million-dollar “gay-death-profiteering” industry that grew out of their desperation, and spotlights one of its earliest investors: the filmmaker’s father.
0.0Love Opera provides an inside look at Brisbane’s world-class Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program as it prepares a production of Carmen with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Nestled inside Griffith University on Brisbane’s South Bank, the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program is the brainchild of its eponymous leader, whose singular qualities as an opera singer have taken her from The Met to Covent Garden and all across Europe.
Voices of Positive Women is a ground-breaking documentary examination of the impact of HIV and AIDS on the lives of women working from material published in the book "Positive Women", a collection of personal accounts of women from all over the world living with AIDS and HIV. Bravely sharing their experiences publicly in what until now has been a void of information and support, and in some cases medical and bureaucratic denial that women are even at risk, the nine women presented in Voices of Positive Women speak compellingly on their own terms of their personal struggles for survival and voice.
0.0Dvořák's "Rusalka" in a production by David Pountney at the English National Opera in 1986. Mark Elder conducts the orchestra, accompanied by the English National Opera Chorus in English.
0.0Therese Frare's photograph of the AIDS activist David Kirby on his deathbed incited international controversy when it was used in a United Colors of Benetton advertisement in 1992. This short documentary, commissioned by TIME Magazine for their series 100 Photos about the most influential photographs of all time, features photographer Therese Frare, former Benetton Creative Director Oliviero Toscani, and the artists and AIDS activists Tom Kalin and Marlene McCarthy.
0.0Gabriel Drolet-Maguire, a designer living in Montreal, takes us into their artistic world to discuss their HIV diagnosis. This is a timely and hopeful look at past and present day HIV/AIDS activism in Quebec.
5.6A 1-hour Documentary looking at the Manchester post-punk group and its infamous leader Mark E Smith. The Film follows the current band recording their final Session for the John Peel Show (they were his favourite group and recorded more sessions than any other band) as well as chronicling the chaotic history of the band & its numerous line-up changes.
7.1Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.
6.9In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.
7.6The extraordinary story of the planet’s most famous contemporary scientist, told in his own words and by those closest to him. Made with unique access to Hawking’s private life, this is an intimate and moving journey into Stephen's world, both past and present.
6.7The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
6.1A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
6.8Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
6.5This compelling Documentary moves beyond the spotlight and past the attention-grabbing headlines to give pop superstar Chris Brown a chance to tell his own story. New interviews with the international phenomenon reveal long-awaited answers about his passion for making music, his tumultuous and much publicized relationships, and the pitfalls of coming of age in the public eye. Also included is new concert footage, behind-the-scenes access, and special interviews from Usher, Jennifer Lopez, DJ Khaled, Mike Tyson, Jamie Foxx and others.
7.5With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.
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.
7.3An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.
7.5A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.
7.3Performance artist Marina Abramovic prepares for a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
6.8Though legendary lyricist Howard Ashman died far too young, his impact on Broadway, movies, and the culture at large were incalculable. Told entirely through rare archival footage and interviews with Ashman’s family, friends, associates, and longtime partner Bill Lauch, Howard is an intimate tribute to a once-in-a-generation talent and a rousing celebration of musical storytelling itself.
6.5Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.
7.2The lives of the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and Lorraine, one of her daughters, and the community of Bradford, in the 30 years since the 18-year-old Andrea penned a play about growing up in the community titled "The Arbor".
7.4Kevin Smith interacts in Q&A sessions throughout various college stops in the USA.
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.
6.6A comedic, brutally honest documentary following self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon as he takes his live podcast on a national tour.
7.6When 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".