Drawing on the Smithsonian’s archive of the “living exhibits” of Phillipinos at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the only film from Marlon Fuentes nests a narrative of discovering family lore, ethnography of the Bontoc people, and stylized enactments in a far-reaching inquiry into historical erasure. "Marlon Fuentes’s only feature to date, from 1995, belongs to a genre unto itself—the …

Part of the mediamaking movement that first gave centrality to the voices and experiences of African American women during the late Seventies and early Eighties, these two re-releases are no less groundbreaking today. KILLING TIME, an offbeat, wryly humorous look at the dilemma of a would-be suicide unable to find the right outfit to die in, examines the personal habits, socialization, and complexities …

An older man walks through piles of rubble—stone heaps and the remnants of walls. Like a host giving guests a tour of his home, he points out where kitchen, bedrooms, and other rooms once stood. “This is where I was born and grew up,” he says. “I lived here from the day I was born until they deported us.” IN MANSOURAH, YOU SEPARATED US tells the story of some of those deportations. It starts …

In TINGHIR-JERUSALEM, filmmaker and historian Kamal Hachkar goes in search of a community that has vanished - and confronts fundamental questions of his own identity in the process. A Berber Muslim born in Tinghir, Morocco and raised in France, Hachkar says 'the only thing that I was sure of is that I came from elsewhere.' While he would return to Tinghir every summer with his family, it would be …

"You're just a street kid, you'll never be a Party Secretary!" "Maybe you don't even exist, you don't want this life anymore!" "Communist drug, no seduction needed!" When the Hungarian punk band QSS launched into their anthemic song "Communist Drug" from the 1984 album Kommunista Kabito (or "Communist Stunning"), these explosive lyrics resonated in hearts and eardrums across the country. How do those …

A locked door inside a Belgrade home has kept one family separated from their past for generations. An intimate conversation between the director and her mother, the dynamic activist and scholar Srbijanka Turajlić, reveals a house and a country haunted by history. What begins as the chronicle of a childhood home grows into an elegant portrait of a charismatic and brilliant woman in times of great …

The youngest protagonist of the documentary is Wartburg, an automobile over 50 years of age. The car is still on the road, driven by Bogdan, who is inside it with his mother Kazimiera. This road movie which takes place between the concentration camp of Majdanek, Poland, and a former Nazi labor factory in Germany is actually a journey into the past, retracing the memories from the war. It is also a …

Anne Clark, English poet and spoken word-artist, has been celebrated worldwide on stage for more than 30 years. She set standards as an iconic eloquent, yet modest rebel and is a pioneer of electronic music. Shaped by the punk scene, Anne Clark's career started in the early 1980s. She achieved fame and success with her new wave classics “Sleeper in Metropolis” and “Our Darkness”. By creating …

Years before the Beats arrived in San Francisco, the city exploded with artistic expressions: painting, theatre, film, poetry. At its center was the groundbreaking filmmaker and poet James Broughton. Big Joy explores Broughton's passionate embrace of a life of pansexual transcendence and a fiercely independent mantra: 'follow your own weird.' His remarkable story spans the post-war San Francisco Renaissance, …

In 1993, artist Anselm Kiefer left Buchen, Germany for La Ribaute, a derelict silk factory near Barjac, a town in the south of France. Like a strange, sprawling village, La Ribaute extends over 35 hectares and is composed of old industrial buildings and working studios. From 2000, Kiefer began constructing a series of elaborate installations and paintings, creating pavilions to house them, while also …

The daily life of the Dalai Lama is brought home with remarkable intimacy in Sunrise/Sunset. Granted total access to His Holiness for 24 hours, this is a day in the life of the Dalai Lama from when he wakes up at 3AM until his bedtime at dusk. Starting with his morning fitness routine and continuing on through the private audiences, press conferences, and blessings he imparts every day, it is a comprehensive … More

On December 31, 1999, Russian president Boris Yeltsin went on live television just before midnight. He announced he was stepping down, and his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin, would take over as acting president. Putin promised a presidential election in three months. Vitaly Mansky spent the evening filming his family on the eve of the new millennium. They sing and eat candies, but there is worry … More

In Roska Camp in Slovenia, Bosnian refugees, deprived of their belongings, decide with the technical help of an N.G.O. to create a way to share information. They decide to make a television program, edited with equipment to make it look like actual TV — with anchorpersons, jingles, and pirating of shows that talk about them.

For six months in 1994, François Crémieux served as a French UN peacekeeper near the Bosnian town of Bihać. He never saw combat, barely even experienced physical discomfort—but he was left deeply shaken by the experience. In BLUE HELMET, director Chris Marker keeps the focus squarely on Crémieux, an eloquent young veteran who recounts his experiences rapid-fire, as though he’s been desperate … More

Some months after the fall of the Berlin wall, Chris Marker shot this passionate documentary, reflecting the state of the place and its spirit with remarkable acuity. It is a complete version of a film that was created for French television in 1990, during the first free elections in East Berlin.

1864: as war ravages the nation, on the outskirts of the civil War, it is business as usual for slave-owners and traders. The Retrieval follows Will (Ashton Sanders), a fatherless thirteen-year-old boy who survives by working with a white bounty hunter gang. They send him to earn the trust of runaway slaves in order to lure them back to the south. On a dangerous mission into the free north to find … More

A young couple settles down in a large abandoned industrial warehouse. An orange strip, glued to the floor, partitions the area in two equal portions: to the right, his sculpture atelier; to the left, her dance studio. PENDULAR takes place in this setting, where art, performances and intimacy mingle together, and where the characters slowly lose their capacity to distinguish between their artistic … More

Please note that this film starts with 3 minutes of black while the overture plays. Also, since this was recorded for television in the late 70s, some sections are quite dark. No ballet has such deathless appeal as Swan Lake, a haunting fable of a young man’s naivety and a beautiful girl’s entrapment in swan’s feathers, all swept up in Tchaikovsky’s emotional music. Prince Siegfried, celebrating … More

This moving and picturesque work of French romantic ballet caused a sensation in 1841. With music by Adolphe Adam and choreography by Jules Perrot (the solos) and Jean Coralli (the ensemble), Giselle featured the new ethereality possible on pointe, ghostly lighting effects with gas light, and a ballerina role whose mad scene is famous for its dramatic demands. Giselle is an innocent peasant girl who … More

The Nutcracker speaks to the child in everyone, with its happy dreams of snow, presents, adventures, toys and wishes fulfilled. Despite Tchaikovsky’s most addictive score, the original 1892 ballet was considered a failure, too much plot in the rst act, not enough plot in the second. Yuri Grigorovich’s 1966 staging at the Bolshoi, designed by Simon Virsaladze, revised the incomplete scenario to … More