Beauty of Fatherland

JonBenet's Tricycle

December 2018 •English

A unique individual who collects almost everything reveals some of the darker things he has acquired, including JonBenet Ramsey's Tricycle. An investigation of pop culture, media, tragedy and the items we possess.

The Codes of Gender

October 2010 •English

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

Beauty Factory

February 2014 •English

From oratory classes to operating room, Beauty Factory follows five girls for four months as they compete for the coveted Miss Venezuela crown; revealing the process that has won Venezuela more international beauty pageants than any other country.

Beauty Will Save the World

January 2003 •English

BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD charts the journey of 19 year old Tecca Zendik, a contestant in the Miss Net World contest, Libya's first every beauty competition. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi hosts this competition and the film includes extraordinary footage of the Colonel. Tecca's story reveals an incredible conclusion no-one could have guessed when private jests transported the beauties to the country feared by the West in the 1980's.

Pretty Old

January 2012 •English

When 30 women aged 67 - 84 from across America and around the world descend on Fall River, Massachusetts to compete in the 30th anniversary Ms. Senior Sweetheart Pageant, hilarity and heartbreak ensue.

Le soleil a pas d'chance

January 1975 •French

The Bikini Open 5

January 1991 •English

THE BIKINI OPEN is a special-event, retro series featuring the best swimsuit, fitness, bikini, and modeling competitions from the early 90s.

Olympia: Part One – Festival of the Nations

April 1938 •German

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. This first half of her two-part film opens with a renowned introduction that compares modern Olympians to classical Greek heroes, then goes on to provide thrilling in-the-moment coverage of some of the games' most celebrated moments, including African-American athlete Jesse Owens winning a then-unprecedented four gold medals.

We Chose Skegness

July 1961 •English

A pools winning family with over Ј8,000 to spend can have a holiday anywhere they like. But they forgo the Costas for Skegness - but decide to do it in style.

Served Like a Girl

November 2017 •English

Five women veterans who have endured unimaginable trauma in service create a shared sisterhood to help the rising number of stranded homeless women veterans by entering a competition that unexpectedly catalyzes moving events in their own lives.

Beauty Exists Within Our City

July 2024 •English

A proof by example of the existence of beauty within Seattle.

Mabel

January 2016 •English

Feisty, fiercely independent and firmly rooted in place, 90 year-old Mabel Robinson broke barriers back in the 40s when she became the first woman in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, to launch her own business—a hairdressing salon where she still provides shampoo-n-sets over 70 years later. Weaving animation and archival imagery with intimate and laugh out loud moments in the salon, the film celebrates the power of friendship, doing what you love and staying active. With no desire to retire anytime soon, Mabel gives voice to a generation who are not front and center of cinema or the pop hairstyles of the day, and subtly shifts the lens on our perception of beauty and the elderly.

Les Couturiers de l'Église

March 2016 •French

Have You Seen This Before?

April 2023 •English

A story with no (real) narrative that just takes you through a holiday in Wales to show you how great it can be, whilst also trying to explore the creativity that cinematography and colour grading can present to you.

The Queen

June 1968 •English

In 1967, New York City is host to the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant. This documentary takes a look behind the scenes, transporting the viewer into rehearsals and dressing rooms as the drag queen subculture prepares for this big national beauty contest. Jack/Sabrina is the mistress of ceremonies, and their protégé, Miss Harlow, is in the competition. But, as the pageant approaches, the glamorous contestants veer from camaraderie to tension.

American Royalty

February 2022 •English

The American Royalty docuseries showcases an in-depth perspective of the Miss America Pageant. Experience the hundred year history, influence, controversy, and evolution of this iconic institution.

Always Beautiful

July 2019 •English

Narratives are tales that unintentionally define our personality. In the case of women, being beautiful is the only way. The film shows how we learn to be obsessed by the visual itself, and how the highest compliment to a woman is always beauty.

David

May 2024 •Italian

Davide is a thirty-year-old who lives in a town in the Sicilian hinterland. He doesn't know what free time is. He wakes up at dawn to open his bar and begins the hard work. He experiences body care as a cult: protein shakes, gym, supplements, pole dancing lessons and treatments from Alessandra, his beautician girlfriend. Davide has always wanted to please and be admired. From model to Mister Sicily, today his dream comes true on the stage of a nightclub where he works as a stripper and lets himself be desired by others. A documentary focused on obsession with beauty and the cult of the body without neglecting the equally current issue of the construction of identity starting from our body and the gaze of others.

Entorno da Beleza

September 2012 •Portuguese

The film follows the Miss contest season in Brasilia and satellite cities of the Federal District in the year 2010, revealing the contradictions behind the catwalks of fashion.

Blackpool, Harden and Grange-over-Sands

August 1968 •

A colourful miscellany of footage from both sides of the Pennines.