6.4
Věra Chytilová employs a mix of photographs, archival footage, and reenactment to tell the story of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the Czechoslovak politician, sociologist, and philosopher who served as the first elected president of Czechoslovakia following the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Made in the wake of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that brought about the end of one-party communist rule in Czechoslovakia, TGM THE LIBERATOR pays tribute to a national icon who has come to represent the highest ideals of democracy.
6.6
This documentary by Mira Nair explores the power of laughter through the strangely popular phenomenon of laughing clubs in contemporary Bombay.
7.1
While most know chicken as a dinner-plate staple, few pause to consider this bird’s many virtues. In this fascinating and gently comic documentary, director Mark Lewis delves into the under-recognized complexities of this seemingly simple animal. Through interviews with those who have formed unique bonds with chickens and narrative vignettes depicting the birds at their magical best, Lewis allows us to rethink our relationship to a creature we have previously taken for granted, while at the same time providing a lens through which we can view ourselves anew.
8
Terry Zwigoff’s landmark 1995 film is an intimate documentary portrait of the underground artist Robert Crumb, whose unique drawing style and sexually and racially provocative subject matter have made him a household name in popular American art. Zwigoff candidly and colorfully delves into the details of Crumb’s incredible career and life, including his family of reclusive eccentrics, some of the most remarkable people you’ll ever see on-screen. At once a profound biographical portrait, a riotous examination of a man’s controversial art, and a devastating look at a troubled family, CRUMB is a genuine American original.
6.9
A mere twelve years after Los Angeles in 1984, the Olympic Games returned to the United States for the Games of the XXVI Olympiad. Bud Greenspan's Cappy Productions was commissioned to make the film, titled ATLANTA'S OLYMPIC GLORY, the fourth of the ten Olympic documentaries that Greenspan would make before his passing in 2010.
7.3
In this powerful and poetic documentary, the legacy of the Vietnam War is explored from a perspective rarely acknowledged: that of the survivors whose lives continue to be impacted by the loss of their loved ones. Twenty years after her husband was killed in Vietnam, director Barbara Sonneborn embarks on a journey overseas to the countryside where her husband died. Her odyssey is interwoven with the testimonies of both Vietnamese and American war widows whose words reveal the devastating impact of a war that, decades after its end, still exacts a devastating human toll.
6.7
Restored in 2013 by the Austrian Film Museum and the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, LISTO laboratory in Vienna, Technicolor Ltd. in Bangkok, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Restoration funded by Doha Film Institute.
7.3
One of the most important documents of the AIDS epidemic, THE AIDS (Artists Involved with Death and Survival) SHOW deals with its impact on the community most affected by the disease: gay men. This unique work, one of the first films to deal with the subject of AIDS, was based on San Francisco’s long-running Theatre Rhinoceros stage production of the same name. It speaks to everyone who has ever thought about AIDS or any terminal disease. Excerpts from the play are combined with interviews with the show’s creators and performers, along with personal narration by the filmmakers—Peter Adair and Rob Epstein—in a powerful hybrid of documentary and drama.
7.4
This witty, charming, and unusual documentary chronicles one of the most enduring rivalries in nature: man versus rat in their endless struggle to control New York City. The war is fought on every front—in sewer and subway, tenement and skyscraper alike. RAT captures the real-life horror and humor as Gotham meets the invading vermin. Marvel at the resilience of these rodents, while hearty New Yorkers share tales of battle and, in some cases, defeat. The cameras go on patrol with the city’s famed exterminators, then behind walls, through pipes, and deep into the New York underground to reveal the hidden world of these most cunning of creatures.
7.8
Italian-cinema icon Marcello Mastroianni starred in more than a hundred films over the course of his astonishing, half-century career, though he will perhaps always be best remembered for the six masterpieces he made with Federico Fellini, who cast the actor as his on-screen alter ego in international sensations like LA DOLCE VITA and 8½. In this sprawling documentary directed by Mastroianni’s longtime partner Anna Maria Tatò, the actor tells the story of his life with philosophical humility and sly wit, offering candid insight into the man behind the dashing image.
6
In 1978, Jacques Tati traveled to the city of Bastia on the island of Corsica to document the exuberant lead-up to what would ultimately be a memorably muddy, waterlogged match between the hometown heroes and their visiting Dutch rivals—marking the first time a Corsican team had reached the European Cup finals. Left unfinished by Tati, the editing of FORZA BASTIA was ultimately completed in 2000 by his daughter Sophie Tatischeff.
6
Of all the films that the Korean Motion Picture Promotion Corporation created for the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, Lee Kwang-soo's SEOUL 1988 is the most comprehensive. The film devotes much footage to sports dear to Koreans but regarded as minor in international terms: archery, table tennis (appearing as an official discipline for the first time at the Olympic Games), and shooting. And it revels in arcane details such as the American Florence Griffith Joyner's spending sixteen minutes in makeup before each race and the need for shooters to hit the center of a target just one milli- meter in diameter.
6.7
Restored in 2007 by the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, Ahmed El-Maanouni, and Izza Genini. Restoration funded by Armani, Cartier, Qatar Airways, and Qatar Museum Authority.
6.9
For French pastry chefs, the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (Best Craftsmen in France) is nothing less than the Olympics of their trade: an intense three-day competition in which a selection of the country’s finest pâtissiers turn out a dazzling array of delectable confections in hopes of being awarded the prestigious blue, white, and red striped collar that marks them as the finest in their field. Granted unprecedented access to this elite culinary marathon, documentary legends D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus capture the high drama (there will be tears) and vivid human stories behind each sugar-spun delight.
7.9
In 1974, Leon Gast traveled to Africa to film Zaïre 74, a music festival planned to accompany an unprecedented sports spectacle: the Rumble in the Jungle, in which late-career underdog Muhammad Ali would contend with the younger powerhouse George Foreman for the boxing heavyweight championship title—“a fight between two Blacks in a Black nation, organized by Blacks,” as a Kinshasa billboard put it. When the main event was delayed, extending Ali’s stay in Africa, Gast wound up amassing a treasure trove of footage, observing the wildly charismatic athlete training for one of the toughest bouts of his career while basking in his role as Black America’s proud ambassador to postcolonial Africa. Two decades in the making, WHEN WE WERE KINGS features interviews with Norman Mailer and George Plimpton that illustrate the sensational impact of the fight, rounding out an Academy Award–winning portrait of Ali that captures his charm, grace, and defiance.
7
In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—a visit to a Frank Sinatra–loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, THE INLAND SEA is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.
7.3
This eighty-minute documentary was made by Toby Keeler in 1997. In addition to footage from the set of LOST HIGHWAY, it includes interviews with David Lynch, Patricia Arquette, Angelo Badalamenti, Robert Blake, Mel Brooks, Catherine Coulson, Peter Deming, Jack Fisk, Balthazar Getty, Barry Gifford, Austin Lynch, Jennifer Lynch, Jack Nance, Dean Stockwell, and Mary Sweeney.
6
OLYMPIC GLORY, produced by the experienced Hollywood enterprise the Kennedy/Marshall Company and directed by seasoned documentarist Kieth Merrill, was made in large format for release on the IMAX. The crisp photography and engrossing sound combine with the energetic score to present events like the bobsleigh races in spectacular, thrilling fashion.
6.9
Charles Burnett cannily blends documentary and dramatic action with this searing, savagely ironic tale of a bank employee reduced to living out of his car, in a character study that doubles as a compassionate portrait of Los Angeles’s homeless community.
7.2
Since television coverage of the Olympic Games had almost reached saturation point, Bud Greenspan made LILLEHAMMER '94: 16 DAYS OF GLORY to dwell more exclusively on personalities and champions rather than events.
7.2
Inspired by his work at Kanoon and his own sons’ schooling, the first of Abbas Kiarostami’s two documentary features about education looks in on a schoolyard of chanting, playful boys but mainly transpires in the office of a supervisor who has to deal with latecomers and discipline problems. You can almost see the boys’ personalities forming in their first encounters with authorities and peers outside the home.
7.9
UMBRELLAS takes a poignant, in-depth look at the concept and realization of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s project “Umbrellas.” The film presents the artists at their most triumphant and most vulnerable moments—from the exaltation of the project’s opening day through unexpected tragedies at the end.
7.3
Hollywood has had its fair share of power couples; husband and wife duos that have each enjoyed illustrious careers in the film industry. In France, one of the most noteworthy marital unions occurred when Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda tied the knot in 1962. Distinguished filmmakers in their own right, the couple enjoyed nearly 30 years together until Demy died in 1990. Following his death, Varda constructed a documentary paying tribute to the work of her husband and highlighting his place in the history of film.
