A Trip to Paramountown

Documentary short film depicting the filmmaking activity at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood, featuring dozens of stars captured candidly and at work.

1922-07-10 | en

Art as a Weapon

Street art, creativity and revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The story opens on the politically charged Thailand/Burma border at the first school teaching street art as a form of non-violent struggle. The film follows two young girls (Romi & Yi-Yi) who have escaped 50 years of civil war in Burma to pursue an arts education in Thailand. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the girls use spray paint and stencils to create images in public spaces to let people know the truth behind Burma's transition toward "artificial democracy." Eighty-two hundred miles away, artist Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and in support of the students' struggle in Burma. As these stories are inter-cut, the film connects these seemingly unrelated characters around the concept of using art as a weapon for change.

2014-06-12 | en

A Fire

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), formed upon nationalization of the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, employed film systematically, producing many films on oil and petrochemical subjects. It also made films depicting Iran's progress and modernization, highlighting the role of the Shah and NIOC in that direction. Under its auspices, Ebrahim Golestan directed A FIRE (1961), a highly visual treatment of a seventy-day oil well fire in the Khuzestan region of southwestern Iran. This film was edited by the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad and won two awards at the Venice Film Festival in 1961.

1961-04-01 | fa

Night and Fog

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

1959-04-27 | fr

Land Without Bread

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

1933-12-01 | es

Brasilia, Contradictions of a New City

In 1967, de Andrade was invited by the Italian company Olivetti to produce a documentary on the new Brazilian capital city of Brasília. Constructed during the latter half of the 1950s and founded in 1960, the city was part of an effort to populate Brazil’s vast interior region and was to be the embodiment of democratic urban planning, free from the class divisions and inequalities that characterize so many metropolises. Unsurprisingly, Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova (Brasília, Contradictions of a New City, 1968) revealed Brasília to be utopic only for the wealthy, replicating the same social problems present in every Brazilian city. (Senses of Cinema)

1968-01-01 | pt

Daybreak Express

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

1953-01-01 | en

Post Traumatic: An American Nightmare

This thirty minute documentary features interviews with Giovinazzo's key contemporaries discussing the continued impact and influence of Combat Shock twenty-five years later.

2009-07-28 | en

Running Waters

A portrait of the daily life of Zé de Sabino, a fisherman who works and lives in the breathtaking village of Regência, Espirito Santo (located near the Rio Doce, which suffered one of the greatest environmental tragedy in Brazil's history). The vastness of man is a place suspended in time, bordered by sky, land, river, and sea.

2016-02-12 | pt

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

1895-03-22 | fr

Cigar Box Blues: The Makers of a Revolution

The passionate advocates of the ‘Cigar Box Guitar Revolution’ express their love of making unique hand-made instruments and the democratic, re-cycling ethos of the movement. Many of these musicians are from northern, post-industrial British towns, and create a self-identity through making these three-stringed guitars. Born from the Blues, the emotional connection they feel for their instruments creates a unique and evocative sound that transports musicians and audiences alike. Screened on BBC1 & BBC4 & iplayer

2020-01-21 | en

Ayra Starr: Dare to Dream

At just 22 years old, Nigerian superstar Ayra Starr has toured the world, bagged a Grammy nomination and captured the hearts of millions. The short docu-film chronicles her rise to fame and her journey across London, Los Angeles, Lagos and Cotonou as she shapes the future of Afrobeats and becomes a globally recognised artist.

2024-08-02 | en

Hakob Hovnatanyan

Exploring the art of Armenian portraitist Hakob Hovnatanyan, Parajanov revives the culture of Tbilisi of the 19th century.

1967-01-01 | hy

Fanalysis

Actor/cult icon Bruce Campbell examines the world of fan conventions and what makes a fan into a fanatic.

2002-03-05 | en

Ellis Island, une histoire du rêve Américain

In 1892, Ellis Island, in New York Bay, became the main gateway to the United States for immigrants arriving increasingly from Europe. The story of immigration to the United States from 1892 to 1954, an enthralling polyphonic narrative that embraces both small and great history.

2014-03-11 | fr

Scum Manifesto

Delphine Seyrig reads passages from a Valerie Solanas’s SCUM manifesto.

1976-01-01 | fr

To the Devil... The Death of Hammer

A short retrospective documentary looking at the making of the final Hammer Films production of the 1970s, "To the Devil a Daughter."

2002-10-08 | en

The Boat Show 2020: Riva in the Movie

2020-09-05 | it

Rebuilding Coraline

A behind-the-scenes featurette explaining the process to make new Coraline puppets fifteen years after the film's release.

2024-08-15 | en

Birdman

A portrait of Robert, a troubled but poetic soul struggling with his purgatorial existence in a hackney scrapyard.

2015-07-01 | en