The Philippines is visited by an average of 20~28 strong typhoons and storms every year. It is the most storm-battered country in the world. Last year, Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), considered the strongest storm in history, struck the Philipines, leaving in its path apocalyptic devastation.
German musician Alexander Hacke explores Istanbul's rich music culture and attempts to create a portrait of Turkey through music genres. On this journey, he encounters a mosaic that covers countless genres from rock to arabesque, electronic to hip-hop.
The time of exposure is the life span of an object in frame. In this regard, no photo is just a two-dimensional graphic composition - it always has the third, temporal dimension. A photo is a time carrier, the vessel of memory... But whose memory? Of the Face or the Thing or the Landscape which are still on the photo? Of the photographer?
The personal stories of the people from all around the world waiting for a decision in an asylum-seekers centre in one of most restrictive countries in the world, Switzerland.
A portrait of Argentine director Gastón Solnicki's family over the course of the second half of the 20th century, Papirosen follows four generations still troubled by a war that’s never spoken of. The film juxtaposes different periods with their native image formats, along with landscapes, characters and international political events, as it focuses on a singular decade of a nouveau riche Argentine Jewish family, and the new generation’s introduction into familiar traumas and vitality.
A documentary on the influential musician Scott Walker.
A deceptively simple set-up: the director and his father watch a 1988 football match which the father refereed, their commentary accompanying the original television images in real time. A Bucharest derby between the country’s leading teams, Dinamo and Steaua, taking place in heavy snow, one year before the revolution that toppled Ceaușescu.
A film on exile, revolution, landscapes and memory, Anabasis brings forth the remarkable parallel stories of Adachi and May, one a filmmaker who gave up images, the other a young woman whose identity-less existence forbade keeping images of her own life. Fittingly returning the image to their lives, director Eric Baudelaire places Adachi and May’s revelatory voiceover reminiscences against warm, fragile Super-8mm footage of their split milieus, Tokyo and Beirut. Grounding their wide-ranging reflections in a solid yet complex reality, Anabasis provides a richly rewarding look at a fascinating, now nearly forgotten era (in politics and cinema), reminding us of film’s own ability to portray—and influence—its landscape.
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?
Documentary about director/artist Nicholas Ray and his time as a University professor
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An Anthropological Television Myth is a gloriously jagged collage of fragments culled from an independent Sicilian TV station's output in the mid-90s – the period just before the 'Berlusconi era'. But whereas the Milanese media mogul's spells as president were notable for the cynical degradation of his nation's television output, with its bawdy game-shows earning much overseas derision, the small broadcaster showcased here evidently foregrounded and documented local grass-roots political shenanigans. With no commentary or captions, the film plunges us into a lively day-before-yesterday epoch when the authorities' battles with the Mafia produced an atmosphere akin to Civil War on the streets. Virtuouso editing knits together a dizzyingly wide range of sights and sounds that consistently fascinate and impress.
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.
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.