Blue Vinyl

Germans & Jews - Eine neue Perspektive

June 2016 •German

Following Germany's transformation as a society from the Holocaust to becoming the moral leader of Europe as the country embraces hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Cat Daddies

October 2022 •English

Man has a new best friend in this heartwarming portrait of nine men whose lives have been forever changed by their proud love of cats.

Kuxa Kanema: O Nascimento do Cinema

January 2003 •Portuguese

Kuxa Kanema: The Birth of Cinema is a 2003 documentary by Margarida Cardoso on the National Institute of Cinema (INC), created by President Samora Machel following the 1975 independence of Mozambique.

The Do Gooders

October 2013 •English

British documentary filmmaker Chloe Ruthven’s grandparents were aid workers in Palestine. Growing up, she had avoided getting too involved in the subject, recalling how mention of the country made all the adults in her life angry. In her forties, after revisiting her grandmother’s book on the subject, she starts to research a documentary on the effects of foreign aid in the area and is shocked at the continued reliance on it there. Along the way she meets Lubna, a Palestinian woman who acts as her driver and fixer, and who is fiercely critical of Western aid efforts in her country. What begins as a quest to better understand her family history turns into a deeply emotional account of two women trying to understand one another. Ruthven’s determination to focus her film on deeply subjective analysis results in a unique joining of the acutely personal and complexly political. (Source: LFF programme)

My Prairie Home

November 2013 •English

A true Canadian iconoclast, acclaimed transgender country/electro-pop artist Rae Spoon revisits the stretches of rural Alberta that once constituted “home” and confronts memories of growing up queer in an abusive, evangelical household.

Flor Brilhante e as Cicatrizes da Pedra

October 2013 •Portuguese

The Last Impresario

October 2013 •English

Michael White might just be the most famous person you’ve never heard of. A notorious London theatre and film impresario, he produced over 300 shows and movies over the last 50 years. Bringing to the stage the risqué productions of Oh! Calcutta!, The Rocky Horror Show and to the screen Monty Python’s The Holy Grail, as well as introducing Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch and Yoko Ono to London audiences, he irrevocably shaped the cultural scene of the 1970s London. Playboy, gambler, bon vivant, friend of the rich and famous, he is now in his eighties and still enjoys partying like there’s no tomorrow. In this intimate documentary, filmmaker Gracie Otto introduces us to this larger-than-life phenomenon. Featuring interviews with 50 of his closest friends including Anna Wintour, Kate Moss, John Waters and Barry Humphries and, of course, the man himself, Otto pays a vibrant tribute to a fascinating entertainer.

Late at Night: Voices of Ordinary Madness

October 2013 •English

‘You have no choice about being here, you’ll have no choice about when you leave’ proclaims a woman in Xiaolu Guo’s latest film, a documentary about the personal and physical journeys of the people of London’s East End. Herself an immigrant to the area, Guo’s sensitive character studies hint at an affinity with the push and pull of feelings of alienation, a theme she has previously explored as a filmmaker (She a Chinese, LFF 2009) and novelist (A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers). This empathy is also apparent in her playful stylistic approach that layers Warhol-esque news reports, archival material and a soundtrack including Linton Kwesi Johnson and Fela Kuti, to comment on the human cost of capitalism. The resulting film is both a penetrating portrait of a frenetic place that feels deeply authentic, and a powerful piece of protest film.

Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love

October 2013 •English

When Marvin Hamlisch passed away in August 2012 the worlds of music, theatre and cinema lost a talent the likes of which we may never see again. Seemingly destined for greatness, Hamlisch was accepted into New York’s Juilliard School as a 6-year-old musical prodigy and rapidly developed into a phenomenon. With instantly classic hits ‘The Way We Were’ and ‘Nobody Does It Better’ and scores for Hollywood films such as The Swimmer, The Sting and Sophie’s Choice and the Broadway juggernaut A Chorus Line; Hamlisch became the go-to composer for film and Broadway producers and a prominent presence on the international Concert Hall circuit. His streak was staggering, vast, unprecedented and glorious, by the age of 31 Hamlisch had won 4 Grammys, an Emmy, 3 Oscars, a Tony and a Pulitzer prize: success that burned so bright, it proved impossible to match.

Taşkafa, Stories of the Street

October 2013 •English

Taşkafa is a real dog and also a legend on the streets of Istanbul. John Berger begins Taşkafa’s story, reading from his novel, King, the story of the disappearance of a community told from a dog’s perspective. The area’s ordinary people – taxi drivers, shopkeepers, street traders – care deeply about the welfare of the city’s street dogs and they tell us stories about Taşkafa and their other canine neighbours. The animals are a symbol of community living, where people (and dogs) look out for each other, but this is a community in transition; one from which dogs are starting to be expelled. Eccentric, amusing and very warm, the film is a powerful indictment of the impact of global politics and the economic appropriation of public space but, even more, it is a tribute to both the spirit of resistance and to city life that can accommodate people and dogs together.

Breaking the Frame

September 2012 •English

Breaking The Frame is a feature–length documentary portrait of the New York artist Carolee Schneemann by Canadian filmmaker Marielle Nitoslawska. A pioneer of performance and body art as well as avant-garde cinema, Schneemann has been breaking the frames of the art world for five decades, in a variety of mediums, challenging assumptions of feminism, gender, sexuality, and identity.

Joe Papp in Five Acts

April 2012 •English

Joe Papp, the founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival and, subsequently, The Public Theater—arguably the most important theatre in North America—is profiled in this documentary that neither sanctifies nor vilifies him. He brought us free Shakespeare in the Park, Hair and A Chorus Line, and nurtured many of America’s greatest playwrights, directors and actors. His complex personality and mercurial behavior are much in evidence and spoken of with frankness through interviews with some of America’s most celebrated artists, including Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Kevin Kline, and James Earl Jones.

The Price of Kings: Shimon Peres

April 2012 •English

“I don’t sleep at night... What we call experience the younger generation calls a chain of mistakes,” reflects Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres. Here, his life and career are chronicled, in all their contradictions: his arrival in Israel, his experiences with Ben-Gurion, the Oslo Accords, his rivalry—and eventual cooperation—with Yitzhak Rabin, and his current status in Israel. “Ultimately, there is something very melancholy in this portrait. Peres, it seems, is both the dream and its shattering. Aware of his achievements, pained about his failures, he continues to look forward with eternal optimism.” (Jerusalem International Film Festival)

Suitcase of Love and Shame

March 2013 •English

A forbidden love story played out in a decade that would soon spawn the sexual revolution. Part historical documentary and part experimental narrative the film reconstructs a mesmerizing and erotic narrative from 60 hours of reel-to-reel audiotape discovered in a suitcase. Recorded in the 1960's by a Mid-western woman and her lover they chronicle the details of their adulterous love affair. Reliant on recording devises to document and memorialize their affair the tape recorder evolves as a confidant, witness and participant, always omnipresent creating a welcomed threesome. Mirroring the compulsion to confess ones indiscretions in today's Internet world these captivating recordings speak to an audience that can remember Bert Parks as well as one who has never set finger to a rotary phone.

Crocus / Strelka

September 2010 •Russian

In September Zemfira organized a mini-tour in honor of the re-release of the first three albums. Solo performance at the Moscow concert hall "Crocus City Hall", September 17, 2010.

Fall to Grace

January 2013 •English

In 2004, New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey resigned his office on national television, coming out as a homosexual and admitting to an extramarital affair in the process. This documentary follows him in the near decade since that moment as McGreevey struggles to find his path in religion and serving the community he still loves.

Elsa the Rose

October 1966 •French

Images and poems of the celebrated couple Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet. Elsa’s youth as recalled by Aragon, with commentary by Elsa.

Women Reply

February 1975 •French

What does being a woman really mean? How do women live the status society reserves for them? A group of women, beautiful or not, young or not, gifted with motherly instinct or not, answer before Agnès Varda's camera.

14 Women

July 2007 •English

Documentary that explores the lives of 14 female U.S. senators and the uniquely feminine challenges they face, including the sometimes difficult balance between their roles as public servants and wives and mothers.

Emmanuel's Gift

October 2005 •English

Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, this is the moving and inspiring story of a disabled orphan who overcame poverty and prejudice to become a world hero after he rode a bicycle with one leg across the nation of Ghana.