Reason for Seeing: Correspondence I

Phantoms of the Sierra Madre

September 2024 •English

A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.

Monsieur Mayonnaise

July 2016 •English

Artist and filmmaker Philippe Mora (Mad Dog Morgan; The Howling II; Swastika) is producing a graphic novel about his late father, Georges, widely known in Melbourne as a beloved contemporary art patron and owner of bohemian eateries Mirka Café, Café Balzac and the Tolarno Restaurant and Galleries. Less known, however, is Georges' astonishing history as part of the French resistance during World War II, his friendship with renowned mime Marcel Marceau (Philippe's godfather), and how together they saved thousands of Jewish lives with a fiendishly simple trick involving baguettes and mayonnaise.

Faces from Home

February 2024 •Portuguese

In an empty house, we see the memories of a home, from those who once lived and filled it with joy and love.

Bright Nights

November 1990 •English

In an experimentally compiled film review, Danielle Jaeggi, Paule Baillargeon and Claudia von Alemann reflect on their work as filmmakers and life as mothers. Just as the title is based on Michel Leiris' book of poems Bright Nights and Many a Dark Day, the film has its own poetry, which is also evident in shots of everyday activities, such as hands washing dishes. “Just the hair or the relationship of the hands to each other or gestures, and then words come in between and film clips that we talk about, and we were amazed to find that the women we portray in the films always have a lot of trouble with theirs Identity, their search for something, for lost people or lost things. “They are usually looking for something that has been lost, forgotten or gone,” said Claudia von Alemann in the 1992 interview conducted by Renate Fischetti, A Pioneer of Female Film Language. An essay about desire, doubt, contradictions. (fib)

Sheila, toutes ces vies-là

December 2022 •French

The portrait of a woman who remembers. Sheila tells the story of Sheila, without concessions or evasions. Her childhood, her parents, her beginnings, the rumors, her love affairs, her marriage, her son, her successes, her farewells, her return, her mourning. The journey of an extraordinary popular icon who never stopped fighting. The courage of an artist who never gives up. "Sheila, toutes ces vies-là" is also a journey through time. 60 years of pop music, punctuated by numerous archives, personal films, timeless hits and illustrations by Marc-Antoine Coulon. But also 60 years of fashion, through a legendary wardrobe (her TV show outfits) that Sheila invites us to rediscover.

The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam

January 2003 •English

Long Tack Sam was an internationally renowned Chinese acrobat and magician. He overcame isolation, poverty, cultural and linguistic barriers, extreme racism and world wars to become one of the most successful vaudeville acts of his time. His showmanship was unrivalled, yet he refused to appear in movies because of the way Chinese were portrayed at the time. A celebration of the spirit of Long Tack Sam's magic and art, this richly textured first person road movie is an exhilarating testament to his legacy and a prismatic tour through the 20th Century. It all begins in a small village in China... https://www.nfb.ca/film/the_magical_life_of_long_tack_sam/

No Father, No Mother

November 2018 •Portuguese

Three young people circulate in different mobility categories. The newly emancipated city goes through its everyday experiences.

The Giacomettis

October 2023 •German

The rugged Swiss mountain valley of Bregaglia has produced an entire dynasty of artists: the Giacomettis. Alberto revolutionised the art world with his slender sculptures. Before him, his father was an Impressionist of the first hour. What makes this valley the birthplace of so many artists?

Caribou in the Archive

November 2018 •English

In Caribou in the Archive, rustic VHS home video of a Cree woman hunting caribou in the 1990s is combined with NFB archival film footage of northern Manitoba from the 1950s. In this experimental film, the difference between homemade video and official historical record is considered. Northern Indigenous women hunting is at the heart of this personal found footage film in which the filmmaker describes the enigmatic events that led to saving an important piece of family history from being lost forever.

Villa Madjo

November 2023 •French

Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution

February 2008 •German

Cómo vivir toda una vida con apenas un te quiero

Invalid date •Spanish

Kindergarten

September 2020 •English

A childhood story is narrated while home movie footage is displayed. The narrator recounts her assimilation experience: moving to America, learning English, giving up your culture and a part of yourself.

Corpo Presente

October 2024 •Portuguese

A hybrid feature film that investigates contemporaneity through the body and its countless possibilities of expression and meanings. The film puts the body and the idea of the body in evidence, through metalanguage, articulation and confrontation of documentary, fictional and performative languages. The film follows the trajectory of the main character who uses her own body to formulate universes and investigate the meanings that are drawn in it. In a kind of subjective diary written on her skin, she records sensations and reflections, building relationships with thinkers, performances and archival materials, which lead her to other bodies and other stories.

La folle traversée de Philippe

September 2022 •French

Wanda Gosciminska – A Textile Worker

June 1975 •Polish

The life of a female weaver is thrown onto the socio-political canvas of pre-war and post-war communist Poland through the use of expressive allegorical and symbolic imagery in this imaginative take on the documentary form.

Lost in the Bewilderness

March 2014 •English

Lost in the Bewilderness is a feature-length documentary about the filmmaker’s cousin Lucas, kidnapped at age five from his native Greece, and found on the eve of his 16th birthday in the US. This story of international parental abduction, filmed for over twenty years, chronicles Lucas’s journey of growth and self-discovery, and culminates with Lucas becoming a father himself. Lost in the Bewilderness is not only a detective story but also a lyrical meditation on childhood, lost and found, and an exploration of how the themes of ancient Greek myth and tragedy, with the family at their center, are still very much alive in the modern world.

Up the Yangtze

September 2007 •Chinese

A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river's edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.

Ines, Memories of a Lifetime

March 2014 •English

When Ines died, she left a very particular legacy, 10 books that read 'For my children'; it was the story of her life. Marked by a youth idyllic love, Ines was forced to marry a violent and womanizer man with whom she had 20 children. In the 50s, she managed to get divorce and 20 years after her death, Luisa, great-granddaughter of INES, reads, rescues and makes visible her history.

Parque Necrópolis

December 2023 •Spanish