Documentary films
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- DirectorJoshua OppenheimerAnonymousChristine CynnStarsAnwar CongoHerman KotoSyamsul ArifinA documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
- DirectorWim WendersStarsWim WendersMichelangelo AntonioniMaroun BagdadiDuring the '35th Cannes International Film Festival' (14th-26th May 1982), German director Wim Wenders asked a sample of 15 other international film directors to get, each one at a time, into the same hotel room to answer in solitude the same question about the future of cinema, while they were filmed with a 16mm camera and recorded with a Nagra sound recorder. In social sciences the goal of standardization is that each person is exposed to the same question experience, and that the recording setting of answers is the same, too, so that any differences in the answers can be correctly interpreted as reflecting differences between persons rather than differences in the process that produced the answer. The wide sampling frame in "Room 666" included European 'auteurs' and Hollywood directors, narrative and experimental filmmakers, male and female professional film directors that presented their films or were simply present at the 35th Cannes Festival in May 1982. The directors came from France, Italy, Brazil, Lebanon, Germany, Turkey, the Philippines and the USA. This unique documentary shows the complete footage (or selected parts) of the 15 answers that resulted from this 'standardized survey interviews'. The historical value of "Room 666" has increased over time: The 5 directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Yilmaz Güney, Maroun Bagdadi, Robert Kramer and Michelangelo Antonioni have died since then in this order. Fassbinder died only a few weeks later on June 10th 1982 and gave his last 'interview' in "Room 666".
- DirectorPeter GreenawayStarsMartin FreemanEva BirthistleJodhi MayAn 'essayistic' documentary in which Greenaway's fierce criticism of today's visual illiteracy is argued by means of a forensic search of Rembrandt's Nightwatch. Greenaway explains the background, the context, the conspiracy, the murder and the motives of all its thirty-four painted characters who have conspired to kill for their combined self-advantage. Greenaway leads us through Rembrandt's paintings into seventeenth-century Amsterdam. He paints a world that is democratic in principle, but is almost entirely ruled by twelve families. The notion exists of these regents as charitable and compassionate entities. However, reality was different.
- DirectorBanksyStarsBanksyMr. BrainwashSpace InvaderFollowing the style of some of the world's most prolific street artists, an amateur filmmaker makes a foray into the art world.
- DirectorJuliano Ribeiro SalgadoWim WendersStarsSebastião SalgadoWim WendersLélia Wanick SalgadoThe life and work of photographer Sebastião Salgado, who has spent forty years documenting societies in hidden corners of the world.
- DirectorVitaliy ManskiyStarsLee Zin-MiYu-YongHye-YongA propaganda documentary about North Korea that reveals a few hidden facts because the director continues filming between the scripted scenes.
- DirectorGianfranco RosiStarsSamuele PucilloMattias CucinaSamuele CaruanaCapturing life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a frontline in the European migrant crisis.
- DirectorKent JonesStarsWes AndersonPeter BogdanovichDavid FincherFilmmakers discuss how Francois Truffaut's 1966 book "Cinema According to Hitchcock" influenced their work.
- DirectorJan KounenStarsPablo AmaringoGuillermo ArévaloMichel BoccaraThe secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism.
- DirectorLyubov ArkusThe film tells about Anton Kharitonov, a young man with autism whose mother, Rinata, dies of cancer, after which he has to live in social shelters, where he is not provided with adequate assistance.
- DirectorLise Birk PedersenStarsMasha DrokovaOleg KashinViktoria DrokovaMasha Drokova joins Nashi, a Russian ultra nationalist youth group, at the age of 16 and rapidly ascends its ranks, famously garnering a medal and the opportunity to kiss Vladimir Putin. The film details her growing disillusion with the group's leaders and her falling in with the anti-Putin opposition, especially a journalist and blogger named Oleg Kashin, who gets brutally attacked.
- DirectorTom PiozetStarsEdward EdwardsEd HarrisShirley KnightA film about the state of Chinese occupied Tibet and its history of oppression and resistance.
- DirectorFridrikh ErmlerStarsVasili ShulginFyodor Nikolayevich PetrovSergey SvistunovThis Soviet movie consists of a long interview between historian Sergei Svistunov and Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin. Shulgin was one of the organizers of the reactionary White Army, the leader of the State Duma and a staunch enemy of the Bolsheviks.
- DirectorMikhail RommStarsMikhail RommMartin BormannWilly BrandtA documentary about the rise and fall of fascism and the effects of Nazism on German society.
- DirectorDziga Vertov
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorRüdiger SuchslandStarsRüdiger SuchslandHans Henrik WöhlerFritz LangFocuses on the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and its 'collective spirit' in cinema. The purpose of film as a cultural tool is examined. Based on celebrated sociologist Siegfried Kracauer's seminal book 'From Caligari to Hitler' (1947).
- DirectorVitaliy ManskiyStarsVladimir PutinTony BlairAnatoliy ChubaysA rare glimpse at the young Putin and the vast political machine that brought him to power.
- DirectorMichael MooreStarsMichael MooreGeorge W. BushBen AffleckMichael Moore's view on what happened to the United States after September 11 and how the Bush Administration allegedly used the tragic event to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsDaniel BergmanIngmar BergmanGunnar BjörnstrandA chronicle of the making of Ingmar Bergman's Oscar winning film.
- DirectorJacques BeckerJacques B. BruniusHenri Cartier-BressonStarsJean DastéJacques B. BruniusSimone GuisinA propaganda film of the communist party of France, showing who the comrades help the proletarian people against the capitalists. It also features propagandistic speeches of leading members of the party.
- DirectorVsevolod Pudovkin
- DirectorRainer Werner FassbinderAlf BrustellinHans Peter CloosStarsWolfgang BächlerHeinz BennentWolf BiermannGermany in Autumn has no typical plot; it mixes documentary footage with standard movie scenes to present the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The film covers 2 months in 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped and murdered by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction). The businessman was kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the original leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state. The film has several vignettes, including an extended set of scenes with famous director Rainer Werner Fassbinder discussing his feelings about Germany's political situation at the time. Fassbinder's scenes almost seem to be candid documentary footage, but they aren't. Other scenes include documentary footage of the joint funeral of Baader, Enslin, and Raspe.
- DirectorSergei DvortsevoyThe story of old people living in a forgotten village. Once a week they need to push the carriage with bread for several kilometers towards their gloomy settlement.
- DirectorKim Ki-dukStarsKim Ki-dukDocumentary on director Kim Ki-Duk looking back at his film career.
- DirectorKarim AmerJehane NoujaimStarsBrittany KaiserDavid CarrollPaul-Olivier DehayeThe Cambridge Analytica scandal is examined through the roles of several affected persons.
- DirectorSteven OkazakiStarsHarold AgnewShuntaro HidaKiyoko ImoriUsing extensive interviews with survivors and archival footage, an examination reveals the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- DirectorJohn ZaritskyStarsArthur BernardCraig EwertIvan EwertFrontline investigates suicide tourism by following a Chicago native as he travels to Switzerland in order to take his life with help of a nonprofit organization that legally assists suicides.
- DirectorThierry FrémauxStarsThierry FrémauxMartin ScorsesePierre BellingardA collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaStarsAleksandr Aleksandrovitch FedotovIvan Andreevitch KalinnikowNikolai KrylenkoIn 1930 in Moscow, USSR. the Soviet government puts a group of top rank economists and engineers on trial, accusing them of plotting a coup d'état. The charges are fabricated and the punishment, if convicted, is death.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsAbel JacquinAlexandre O'NeillA surrealist film, a pseudo-documentary portrait of Las Hurdes, a remote region of Spain where civilisation has barely developed, showing how the local peasants try to survive without even the most basic utilities and skills.
- DirectorJoshua OppenheimerStarsAdi RukunM.Y. BasrunVolker HanischA family that survived the genocide in Indonesia confronts the men who killed one of their brothers.
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaStarsMarcel AchardBrigitte BardotBourvilDigging once again into the deep archives of 20th century audiovisual history, Sergei Loznitsa crafts this elegant, ironic mini-portrait of the galas of Paris's Palais Garnier in the 1950s and 60s. With his typically masterful use of montage, and a minutely reconstructed soundtrack, Loznitsa revisits a socio-political microcosm that features adoring crowds and glimpses of Bardot, Cocteau, and Queen Elizabeth II amid the pomp and ceremony of Parisian high society.
- DirectorVictor KossakovskyWater and ice are shown around the world, in all of their many powerful forms.