The Fire and the Rose

A documentary on the life and work of the composer Sofia Gubaidulina.

The Wall

Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.

Shadows

Hansjürgen Pohland's short documentary is an audiovisual study that captures events and people on the streets on film. The special feature of the work is that the people and objects are portrayed exclusively through their shadows.

The New Cinema

Between the French La Nouvelle Vague and the Italian Neorealismo, Europe had been undergoing a continuous cinema transformation since the 1950s, while the ailing American studio system groaned under its own weight and inertia. New Hollywood had arrived with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, and already by 1968 it was changing how Hollywood thought and acted. The student film scene was getting ready to explode, and it knew it.

Jacques Cartier, un Malouin au Canada

After the Ballot

After the Ballot is a full-length documentary portraying the gruelling everyday life of two Members of Quebec's National Assembly who, although at opposite ends of the political spectrum, share the fact that their sole power lies in their convictions. One is Daniel Turp, the PQ Member for Mercier. The other is Charlotte L'Écuyer, Liberal MNA for Pontiac. The film aptly illustrates that ordinary MNAs have very little authority since the real power is held by ministers who are subject to the ups and downs of a globalized economy. Meanwhile, their fellow citizens keep asking for the impossible…

Edwin

Edwin Debrow Jr. murdered a cab driver when he was 12. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Lost Contact

Aldo has always felt like a being from another planet, stranded on Earth. His autism and long struggle to speak fluently alienated him from others. Now, he searches for meaning in the esoteric and for connection with people like himself.

Memory Room 451

The subject matter of Memory Room 451 is the cultural and historical significance of 20th-century hairstyles – the Afro, the conk, dreadlocks – in Black communities on both sides of the Atlantic. Akomfrah has disguised this exploration as a science fiction story – in the manner of the groundbreaking writers profiled in The Last Angel of History – while providing a bravura display of the aesthetics of video art in the 1990s. The tale of visitors from the future who gather dreams from unwitting subjects in order to construct a history of the Black diaspora both defamiliarizes Akomfrah’s ongoing project and points to the danger that extracting history from memory can be a kind of expropriation.

George Dumpson's Place

Employing experimental techniques, Emshwiller magically moved through a collection of objects and artifacts in order to capture the spirit of George Dumpson and his backyard museum.

Summer in the City

German writer Uwe Johnson lived for several years in the 1960s on Manhattan’s Upper Westside where he got to know his neighborhood very well, observing the goings-on in the streets, cafeterias, and parks. In 1968 German Television agreed to co-produce a film for broadcast featuring interviews with various neighborhood characters.

I Was a Soldier

Three young Texans try to adjust to small-town life after experiencing the emotional toll of combat in the jungles of Vietnam.

Eastward

Shortly after German reunification, three residents of a quiet area north of Berlin talk about their plans and attempts at new economic beginnings amid the changes brought by the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Hansa

Footage of the German airship Hansa over Copenhagen.

My age, yours, and the age of the world

After the earthquake, my grandmother is facing the loss of her apartment.

Almantal Yu’un Lekilal

Twenty-two years after the massacre perpetrated by paramilitary groups in complicity with the government, the people of Acteal celebrate their martyrs and persist in their demand for justice.