Brazil's love motels are a sexual haven where fantasy becomes reality. When the filmmaker's own date never shows up, she gets a fresh idea for a film instead. The result is a kaleidoscopic insight into a parallel world of human desire.
An eye-opening film about numbness in the age of social media. The diagnosis is alarming, but it is made with understated humour and energy by director David Borenstein, himself a screen zombie in digital rehab.
"Slaughter" is an experimental short film that delves into the archival and historical footage of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, depicting a symbolic narrative surrounding the ritualistic act of animal sacrifice, known as "Besmel." It serves as an allegorical representation of a nation's sacrifice amidst the backdrop of political transformations.
My Want of You Partakes of Me interrogates digestion as the fundamental condition for being in the world, a process of physiological, psychological, spiritual, literary and scientific dimensions. Multiple storylines trace the poetics of incorporation as a matter of metamorphosis and decay, the philosophy of matter and imperial conquest, industrialisation and annihilation, poetry and parenting, love and citation.
April in France is a documentary about April, a 5-year-old English girl, who is unhappy with her family’s relocation to France. She moves to a small medieval village in southwest France where her great-grandfather lived. There, she is convinced that he is only sleeping in the cemetery and that he will come back from the dead to be with her. While waiting for him she meets his former friends, and with them she will discover her inner self while in turn transforming their lives forever.
Somewhere in the centre of Portugal, an entire village lives in harmony with the annual cycle of the cork trees. When the time is right, the cork farmers go out to harvest the cork bark from the trunks of the trees with an experienced and careful touch that has been kept alive for generations by fathers with special axes in their hands, passing on the noble craft to their sons. Strong women gather the cork in stacks and dream of a time when they didn’t have to carry it themselves, but were the cork workers’ cooks, surrounded by birdsong and scorched cork trees with nature as their kitchen. Back in the village, the owner of the plantation tries to sell the cork at ancient prices, while at the same time clashing with his daughter. Sofia Bairrão’s film is a sensuous and beautiful meditation on the Portuguese landscape, which produces more cork than anywhere else in the world.
From Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, to the University of Toronto and the Supreme Court of Israel, I Shall Not Hate follows the uncharted path of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, The first Palestinian doctor that worked in an Israeli hospital delivering babies, whose ethos of forgiveness and reconciliation is put to the ultimate test when an Israeli tank bombs his house, killing his three daughters. Against all odds, he turns his tragedy into a global campaign to eradicate hate.
In 2021, radioactive sand resulting from French nuclear bombs travelled in the winds all the way from the Algerian Sahara back to France. The bombs had been detonated in Algeria back in the 1960s. These returning winds were a reminder that the environmental legacies of colonialism cannot be forgotten or contained; it also raised the more pertinent question of how people live with the afterlife of toxic colonialism. ‘And still, it remains’ spends time with the residents of a village in the Hoggar Mountains of Algeria who live surrounded by ancient rock art and the legacy of France’s nuclear bombs.
A fencer, molded from childhood to chase after success, and devoted to the dream of reaching the top of the world. A father who serves as both her mentor, and her harshest critic. A legendary trainer, in a cutthroat competition. A rollercoaster ride, filled with thrilling ups and downs that even a screenwriter would hesitate to come up with. Touché is the larger-than-life story of fencing world champion Nathalie Moellhausen, a ten-year course featuring the participation in three Olympiads as a representative of two different countries, generous doses of drama on and off the field, and above all else a bright personality transcending the noble sport’s finite popularity by far.
Led by the good-hearted father Soso, a family of four starts a blueberry farm to secure their future together. But with a home in northern Georgia, their village is close to the troubled border with the Russian-backed region of Abkhazia, where new conflicts have been rumbling for 30 years. Soso is a retired engineer, but together with his wife Nino and their sons Giorgi and Lazare, he throws himself into the ‘Plant the Future’ programme set up by the Georgian authorities to stabilise the area. Nino is haunted by memories of the war and dreams of her children experiencing the world, while Soso wants to maintain their connection to the land. But Giorgi and Lazare long for a different future, immersing themselves in anime and dreaming of visiting Japan. In the midst of their daily lives, the family navigates between hardship, joy and contemplation of a different future.
Embark on a fantastical journey behind the scenes of Poor Things in this half-hour broadcast special. Cast and filmmaker interviews unveil the mesmerizing evolution of Bella Baxter and her uniquely crafted world.
A visual essay by filmmaker and critic David Cairns. Recorded for Arrow Video in 2023. Included as a special feature on the 2024 Limited Edition Blu-ray and DVD release of The Shootist.
"What was once unthinkable—direct conflict between the United States and China—has now become a commonplace discussion in the national security community as tensions continue to escalate between Taiwan and China. Two big indicators that cause analysts concern is Xi Jinping saying Taiwan belongs to Beijing and will be reunified and their massive military buildup over the past 20 years. "WSJ spoke with the CSIS’s Mark Cancian, who lays out the outcome of a potential war in the Taiwan Strait based on the organization's recent wargames."
In Greek prisons, thousands of refugees and migrants are convicted as traffickers. Rescuer Jason Apostolopoulos takes part in an international endeavor to save three innocent people. The first has been sentenced to 142 years in prison and the other two to 50. In a courtroom drama that lasts over a year, will their fight for justice and freedom pay off?
In their own words, this is the story of six women from the South Wales valleys and how they helped sustain the bitter year-long miners' strike, changing their lives forever.
An evocative journey to a small Slovenian village turns into an enchanting immersion into the collective memory and the backbone of a certain place through stories from the present and the past that converge, intermingle, coexist outside of time, in the plane of the unseen, in the sphere of sentiments. With photographs, taken by photographer Stojan Kerbler decades ago, of the village and its residents serving as a guide, the film crafts the portrait of a place through narrations, images, poetry and pure cinematic beauty. It may not be easy to describe how "a tree grows in dreams" in just a handful of words, but you can be sure that seeing it is nothing less than an experience beyond a mere viewing, something you experience like a dream or a caress, like a song that glides from your ears straight to your heart.
Men in prison face their experiences, their words tracing the paths of their trying lives. Time passes in impressive lengths, testing patience and sharpening the expectation of the end of their confinement. To each his own truths and convictions, capable of telling real, well-imagined stories.