The Five Obstructions

In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.

2003-11-07 | da

Weapons of Mass Disruption

2012-08-13 | en

Série 7 (Éclatements de bulles de savon)

Lucien Bull was a pioneer in chronophotography. Chronophotography is defined as "a set of photographs of a moving object, taken for the purpose of recording and exhibiting successive phases of motion."

1907-01-01 | fr

Silent Echoes: College

This visual essay by John Bengtson, author of Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton, reveals the locations where Keaton's 1927 comedy feature College was filmed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and Orange County. A compilation of short films produced between 1917-1922. Coney Island (1917), Back Stage (1919), Convict 13 (1920) and Daydreams (1922).

2013-08-12 | en

Africa, Blood & Beauty

This film speaks of archaic peoples, their customs and mores, in an attempt to make the last snapshots of their traditional lifestyles before they are gone for good.

2012-01-04 | fr

Adios amigo mío, sin gestos, sin palabras

The title comes from Sergei Yesenin's last poem before comiting suicide. Using Virginia Woolf's last letters as a base, this film is meditation on the power of the word and its undertsanding and the the last moments before saying "goodbye".

2015-10-14 | en

Duran Duran: Unstaged

Duran Duran: Unstaged is a multimedia event that takes the audience on a cinematic journey with one of the most successful acts in the world during their performance at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles.

2014-03-09 | en

December Hide-and-Go-Seek

"Ryuta is 5 years old. Even though he is my son, I sometimes wonder what this small person is to me. Even though I see his joys and sadnesses and know the feel of his warmth on my skin when I hold him, there are moments when my feelings for him become vague and blank." - Takashi Ito

1993-07-29 | ja

King Corn

King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.

2007-10-12 | en

It Is Not Enough for God to Be with the Poor

The Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy talks about his life and work. Footage of Cairo, Gharb Assouan, New Gourna, Kom-Ombo.

1978-01-02 | ar

Photodiary

"The majority of my 8-mm works were made for the three-minute "Personal Focus" film special put on in Fukuoka. This film is an animation of photographs I had taken on a regular basis as a sort of diary, and was made to have a rough feel to it." - Takashi Ito

1986-07-26 | ja

Adrift

"Adrift" is shot on the arctic island of Spitzbergen and in Norway. It combines time-lapse photography with stop-motion animation of the landscape. Through camera-angles and framing the film gradually dislocates the viewer from a stable base where one loses the sense of scale and grounding.

2004-01-01 | no

Spotlight on Merna

Taking part in The Voice Kids is already quite something, but for 11-year-old Merna it’s really something special. Her parents had to flee Iraq because they are part of the Christian minority, and IS was threatening to kidnap Merna. They now live in Lebanon, where one in three people is a refugee. The family has been waiting for two years for permission to move on. FaceTiming with her older sister, who stayed behind in Iraq, and cooking her favorite dishes with her mother make the situation more bearable. But what also really helps is singing – this calms Merna and makes her less afraid. She used to sing only in church, but since The Voice her beautiful, melancholy voice touches everyone. Because of her status as a refugee, Merna isn’t allowed to attend the foreign performances with the other finalists, but she’s now a national celebrity in Lebanon.

2016-11-17 | en

Cinema Veeran

An ode to the fighters and stunt coordinators of Tamil cinema, this documentary, with a voice-over by Rajinikanth, showcases the life of these unsung warriors.

2017-06-22 | ta

Kielings kalte Welt

Andreas Kieling, a famous German documentary film maker, explores the coldest places in the world. He observes various animals in Patagonia, the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, South Georgia and Antarctica.

2015-01-01 | de

Transitions

A look at the various modes of transportation made for the Expo '86 World Fair in Vancouver, Canada.

1986-05-02 | en

The Medal of Honor: The Stories of Our Nation's Most Celebrated Heroes

The Medal of Honor is awarded for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States. This 6-part documentary chronicles the highest award given to military personnel for their extreme bravery, valor and harrowing sacrifices. Covering the Civil War through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, learn about the most courageous acts performed by the people who fight for American freedom. These are their stories...

2012-04-03 | en

Air Guitar Nation

If your bedroom has become too small a stage for your air guitar antics, take inspiration from the competitors featured here as they battle their way from the inaugural U.S. Air Guitar Championship to the world championship in Oulu, Finland. Along the way, filmmaker Alexandra Lipsitz documents the fierce rivalries that develop as would-be rock legends vie for top honors in technical accuracy, stage presence and "airness."

2006-03-09 | en

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

2010-04-20 | en

On Nation (and other dogmas)

From the re-appropriation of archive images with various contents (war images, soccer matches, social celebrations, religious rites, historical characters, etc.) and from different sources (including films by Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Leni Riefenstahl or Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi, as well as images from ads and news...), together with reflections of Pierre Bourdieu, Zygmunt Bauman, Bertolt Brecht, Hannah Arendt, Stanley Milgram, Eric Hobsbawn, Amin Maalouf, Josep Fontana, etc., Zavan Films producer develops this complex and kaleidoscopic work on (national, religious, commercial...) identities and their relation with war, economic profit and "legal crimes".

2015-06-05 | es