Remembering a story his father told him when he was a child, of Perseus killing his grandfather by accident, William Kentridge reflects on the inescapability of one’s destiny. He explores the story of the Cumana Sibyl, who revealed people’s fate inscribed on leaves that fell from a tree.
William Kentridge recreates rehearsals for previous performance pieces. He reads a phonetic poem with performers Hamilton Dlamini, Mncedisi Shabangu, Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Mica Manganye. In contrast, they read John Chilembwe’s 1915 letter to the Nyasaland Times, arguing for equal standing in Malawi.
6
A remote village in the Northwest of Russia. A mental asylum is located in an old wooden house. The place and its inhabitants seem to be untouched by civilization. In this pristine setting, no articulate human voice is heard, and pain is muted. The landscapes and buildings are not so much inhabited as lightly entwined and then passed through by their anonymous residents, like some creeping mist. Phantoms half stuck, half undone in a phantom world—lost persons from a lost society?
6.5
Documentary about director/artist Nicholas Ray and his time as a University professor
6
Erasmo Chambi is a Bolivian immigrant who survives on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, giving wrestling shows at local clubs. In his home country, he was a legendary wrestler: there were trading cards, posters and action figures of his character, El Ciclón (The Cyclone), which today are only relics in a forgotten drawer. Nowadays he trains his son to be his successor.
6
An experimental exploration and celebration of the Juggalo subculture in Buffalo, New York. Long and static takes of Juggalos engaged in their favorite activities, first and foremost of which - causing mayhem. Among these seemingly random acts of the everyday, preening, sexual gratification, backyard wrestling, explosions and destruction, a tentative narrative begins to emerge.
6.1
In collaboration with Lomo, an Austrian camera company, and Mubi, a global film website, Weerasethakul was invited to make a work to launch the new LomoKino, a portable motion picture camera. Ashes juxtaposes the intimacy of his daily routine with the destruction of memories and his observations of the dark side of Thailand’s social realities.
5.5
Soft boys by day, kings by night. The film follows a group of young Bulgarian Roma who come to Vienna looking for freedom and a quick buck. They sell their bodies as if that's all they had. What comforts them, so far from home, is the feeling of being together. But the nights are long and unpredictable.
William Kentridge explores the making of a self-portrait as a way of coming to know oneself. He also welcomes the dancer Dada Masilo into his studio. As Kentridge attempts to draw his own figure with a brush attached to the tip of a long stick, his double watches the imperfect outcome from afar.
Small paper puppets and actors wearing masks endlessly dance in a fictional Soviet museum as William Kentridge documents the making of his 2022 installation Oh to Believe in Another World, made in response to Symphony No. 10 by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.
William Kentridge explores the optimism of making things—how, even in dire circumstances, there will be people who play, create, and sing. He enlists a local brass band to lead a jolly procession out of the studio and into Johannesburg. But will Kentridge’s two split parts come to an agreement?
William Kentridge investigates how memory connects to place. Using two large blank sheets of paper, the artist draws a fictional colonial landscape, like those he remembers hanging in his childhood dining room. Meanwhile, his doppelgänger draws what he remembers actually seeing in Johannesburg.
6.3
The Argentine competition winner, Gonzalo Castro’s Invernadero (Winter House), offers a stylistically elegant if overlong contemplation of the experimental one-armed Mexican novelist Mario Bellatín, a famed prankster who here engages with his daughter and friends (all fictional characters) in an interrogation of biography (itself a central conceit in Bellatín’s fiction).
5.9
Adashi, ex-member of the Japanese Red Army, narrates a story taking place in Beirut. The melancholy of war, the pain of disillusionment. A story being written and rewritten, open to interpretation. When the time comes, return to reality can only be cruel.
6.2
After initially sweeping through Asia, Korean pop music has now taken the world by storm led by the likes of SNSD, JYP and PSY. Take a look behind the scenes of the formation and debut of the 9 member girl group, Nine Muses, in a documentary that gives a glaring insight into the world of K-pop. Follow a year long journey with the Model Idols, as they have been called, and their management label, the relatively small in stature Star Empire, leading up to the group’s debut and emergence in the K-pop charts. Covering everything from dance lessons, recording sessions and the physical and psychological toll on the girls, the film reveals the lengths the girls must go to achieve their dream, to become K-Idols.
8.2
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion “houses,” from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women—including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza—PARIS IS BURNING brings it, celebrating the joy of movement, the force of eloquence, and the draw of community.
South African artist William Kentridge investigates life in the studio. He imagines his studio as an enlarged head, where multiple dialogues occur between the artist and himself. Kentridge begins interviewing his double. Soon, the whole studio is populated by Kentridge’s many selves.
5.4
Erwin Romulo, the late Alexis Tioseco’s best friend, recalls the events after the critic and his girlfriend Nika Bohinc’s untimely death in their home in Quezon City. Diaz makes use of one long take to allow Romulo an uninterrupted narration of the events. The pain of recalling is palpable.
In December 1969, legendary pianist and composer Thelonious Monk ended his European tour in Paris. Before the show, Monk appeared on French TV to perform and speak with French jazz pianist Henri Renaud. Newly discovered footage reveals the disconnect between Monk and his interviewer.
