At a rural Vermont dive bar called Babes, cribbage tournaments overlap afternoons of karaoke and nights of raucous queer dance parties. When the aging conservative townsfolk and the younger queer leftists begin sharing the same watering hole, a delicate allegiance flourishes.
Filmmaker Jack Dunphy secretly films his grandfather’s funeral, hoping to uncover the source of generational trauma in their family. Meanwhile, animated flashbacks and home-movie footage reveal the estranged nature of his extended family.
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 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.
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 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.
As William Kentridge explores metamorphosis, sounds are visualized through painting, a shadow turns into a sculpture, time morphs into a film strip, and an abstract blotch becomes an image. Meanwhile, the performers Joanna Dudley and Ann Masina act out a myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Kim’s Video, an iconic video store in New York City, mysteriously closed its doors and sent its legendary film archive to a Sicilian village for “safekeeping.” But what starts as an homage to cinema quickly becomes a rescue mission to ensure the eternal preservation of the beloved video collection.
Geoff McFetridge’s art is everywhere—on your Apple watch, in countless galleries, and in title designs for films by Sofia Coppola. Unprecedented access into Geoff’s multifaceted world reveals his obsessive quest to balance family with a creative life, and a man guided by intention and authenticity.
7.4
Elizabeth Sankey’s deeply personal documentary examines the relationship between the cinematic portrayals of witches and the all-too-real experiences of postpartum depression by utilizing footage that spans the entirety of film history alongside heartrending personal testimony.
6.8
Thousands of royal artifacts of Dahomey, a West African kingdom, were taken by French colonists in the 19th century for collection and display in Paris. Centuries later, a fraction returned to their home in modern-day Benin. This dramatized documentary follows the journey of 26 of the treasures as told by cultural art historians, embattled university students, and one of the repatriated statues himself.
6.9
Two unemployed friends have a fresh idea: they want to stage Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' in Grand Theft Auto. But even in a virtual world, reality intrudes in a wild and trippy film shot entirely inside the ultra-violent video game.
Artist Becca Willow engages in a series of phone calls to two very different sets of clients. There are the lonely men who crave female companionship, and there are the elderly who require kindness and sometimes a nostalgic old song.
Visual artist Alicia Nauta embarks on a new project, in which she is both the creator and the canvas. In her apartment-studio, the artist silently works away at her latest showstopping creation, from conceptualisation to public display.
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.
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.
6.7
Bass-heavy and neon-coloured portrait of the alternative Chinese youth in a country in constant state of change that now threatens the underground club Funky Town.
Brothers Peter and Matthew are wild about each other. They’re also constantly at each others’ throats. Peter is obsessed with the TV show Survivor, while Matthew is terrified of dogs. Their summer in suburban Maryland is filled with loving family life, brotherly fun, and furious arguments.
7.5
After documenting her pregnancy, director Eliza Capai talks with other women who have had similar experiences, creating a powerful and touching choir of voices that reverberates on universal themes: life, death, mourning and public policies that affect us all.
Filmed during the Autumn and Winter of 2012/2013 at John Calder’s – Samuel Beckett’s London publisher, collaborator and close friend – home in Montreuil. It witnesses his very particular domestic life, as well as his journey to London to visit for the last time legendary actress, Billie Whitelaw.
