We Were the Scenery

Vive la crise !(fr)

The Road Movie(ru)

Anything can happen on Russian roads and is precisely shot by the dashboard camera. Super-objective video registration grows into the strong image of Russian national character – with its permanent awaiting for the miracle and habitual approach to real dramas. A forest on fire as a symbol of Russian hell, a military tank at a car wash and car chase in the vicinity of Kremlin shot with a dashboard cam at the same time when Boris Nemtsov, the leader of political opposition, was shot dead near Kremlin. Dashboard cam depicts life in it’s purity as an unbiased observer.

Tokyo Poltergeist(ja)

I have captured something unbelievable. Are you brave enough to see real ghosts? 1. The smell of incense sticks in a room 2. Curtains and whiteboards swaying in an empty room 3.vibrating and flashing lighting fixtures 4. wall clock blows 5. don! Don! and the sound or voice that hits the wall violently 6. a mirror that spouts water 7. Human voices and bells that shouldn't be there 8. A ball suddenly thrown from the ceiling 9. white human hand floating in the mirror 10. and finally! A white hand appeared in front of us from a place no human can enter! ! *No CG or editing has been added to the ghost images in this movie.

Afro Promo(en)

Co-curated by Jenni Olson and the late Black gay activist Karl Knapper, this entertaining showcase of vintage movie trailers traces the evolution of African American cinema through its most crucial period, 1952-1976. Filled with insights on race and social dynamics, this fascinating compendium of coming attractions explores an extensive range of stylistic approaches—Blaxploitation, Comedy, Music Bio, Plantation Drama and more—offering an outrageous joyride through motion picture history. Beyond mere camp, these marvelously condensed gems crystallize a range of African American identities and personalities, tracking the meteoric careers of Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, Pam Grier and others through their bold performances in movies both hugely popular and practically forgotten. Afro Promo provides a compact glimpse at the representation of African Americans through twenty-five dynamic years of American cinema history.

Meeting with President Ho Chi Minh(fr)

This brief interview film, released in 1970, is one of the last given by Ho Chi Minh, and one of the rare ones in colour.

Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution(de)

The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.

Raise the Bamboo Curtain: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Burma(en)

This is the original version of the much heralded "Raising The Bamboo Curtain" narrated and produced by legendary travel filmmaker Rick Ray. (Rick later sold partial rights to this program to another producer who hired Martin Sheen to narrate - that cut down and rewritten version is not the same). Sneaking his cameras past Burmese and Cambodian customs officials and getting around the country to produce one of the best travel docs ever made, Rick has outdone himself - again!

Motherland(en)

The planet’s busiest maternity hospital is located in one of its poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. There, poor women face devastating consequences as their country struggles with reproductive health policy and the politics of conservative Catholic ideologies.

Le regard de Georges Brassens(fr)

An atypical portrait of singer, songwriter, poet Georges Brassens.

Appointment in Tokyo(en)

Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Synonymous With(en)

A student's increasingly intimate line of questioning causes his interview with a local horror host to take a vulnerable turn.

Man of War: A Journey With My Grandfather(en)

A young filmmaker accompanies his grandfather– a veteran of the Vietnam War– to Fairbanks, to dedicate his unit flag to a new generation of helicopter pilots.

Faces of Death II(en)

A face-to-face confrontation with Guerrilla death squads in El Salvador, napalm bombings in Vietnam, the drugging of a monkey, a dolphin slaughter, a train disaster in India, Cambodian lepers, a death museum, a driver high on PCP and a boxer going down for his “final” count.

Faces of Death III(en)

Gory real-life footage of blood and guts on the German Autobahn, drug smugglers getting blown away, a parachutist landing in a crocodile pit, torture and murder in El Salvador, a PCP addict getting stoned, a videotaped rape/murder, a car thief getting ripped apart by two junkyard dogs, and much more.

Faces of Death IV(en)

Contains more than 50 separate scenes of blood-chilling horror, none of which have ever been seen by the public, depicting a cremation, an electrocution, a terrorist destroyed by his own bomb, the massacre of a Columbian wedding party, the drawing and quartering of a Russian peasant and a man-eating tiger turning on its trainer.

Faces of Death V(en)

A direct-to-video compilation of the highlights of the earlier films in the Faces of Death series.

Faces of Death VI(en)

A direct-to-video compilation of the highlights of the earlier films in the Faces of Death series.

The Stand(en)

On a misty morning in the fall of 1985, a small group of Haida people blockaded a muddy dirt road on Lyell Island, demanding the government work with Indigenous people to find a way to protect the land and the future. In a riveting new feature documentary drawn from more than a hundred hours of archival footage and audio, award-winning director Christopher Auchter (Now Is the Time) recreates the critical moment when the Haida Nation’s resolute act of vision and conscience changed the world.

The Fall of Saigon(en)

In April 1975 -- despite a ceasefire agreement -- the North Vietnamese communists took Saigon and the world by surprise, mounting an offensive that ousted the South Vietnamese government. This enlightening documentary recounts the last two years of America's military engagement in the country and the U.S. role in Saigon's fall. Interviews with former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese officers provide context.

Vougas of the Ria de Aveiro(pt)

“In a meeting between history and the present, this docufiction takes us on a unique journey through the Ria de Aveiro, through the curious eyes of a child who discovers, for the first time, the Vouga Class boats. Guided by an adult, a symbol of the generations that preserve this centuries-old tradition, the child enters a world of memories, knowledge and traditions that resist the test of time. Between workshops and shipyards, conversations with master builders and walks along the waters of the estuary, the story unfolds like a bridge between generations. This docufiction interweaves reality and fiction, testimonies and dramatization, showing how cultural heritage is transmitted, not only through words, but through lived experiences. More than telling the story of the Vougas, this film celebrates those who keep them alive, and those who will one day carry them forward.”

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse(en)

A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.

Naqoyqatsi(en)

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Unknown Dimension: The Story of Paranormal Activity(en)

A deep dive into the making of the Paranormal Activity films with first time ever interviews with cast and crew, never-before-seen footage from the movies, and a preview of the seventh installment in the franchise.

The Fog of War(en)

Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Einstein and the Bomb(en)

What happened after Einstein fled Nazi Germany? Using archival footage and his own words, this docudrama dives into the mind of a tortured genius.

For Sama(en)

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

Ghosts of the Abyss(en)

With a team of the world's foremost historic and marine experts as well as friend Bill Paxton, James Cameron embarks on an unscripted adventure back to the wreck of the Titanic where nearly 1,500 souls lost their lives almost a century ago.

Val(en)

For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country(en)

Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country.

Hiroshima(en)

The documentary recounts the world's first nuclear attack and examines the alarming repercussions. Covering a three-week period from the Trinity test to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the program chronicles America's political gamble and the planning for the momentous event. Archival film, dramatizations, and special effects feature what occurred aboard the Enola Gay (the aircraft that dropped the bomb) and inside the exploding bomb.

Life in a Day(en)

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.

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".

Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies(en)

The definitive documentary on the history of nudity in feature films from the early silent days to the present, studying the changes in morality that led to the use of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that shaped that history. Skin will also study the gender inequality in presenting nude images in motion pictures and will follow the revolution that has created nude gender equality in feature films today.

I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story(en)

A documentary about Caroll Spinney who has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969. At 78-years-old, he has no intention of stopping.

Koyaanisqatsi(en)

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

78/52(en)

The most famous murder scene in movie history comprises 78 camera settings and 52 cuts: the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. 78/52 tells the story of the man behind the curtain and his greatest obsession.

20 Days in Mariupol(en)

As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.

Last Days in Vietnam(en)

During the chaotic final weeks of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon as the panicked South Vietnamese people desperately attempt to escape. On the ground, American soldiers and diplomats confront a moral quandary: whether to obey White House orders to evacuate only U.S. citizens.

The Age of Stupid(en)

Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man(en)

One man’s journey to find meaning in Bill Murray’s many unexpected adventures with everyday people, rare and never-before seen footage of the comedic icon participating in stories previously presumed to be urban legend.