Reza is a freelance journalist who accidentally finds clues from Hiwa, an Iraqi soldier who saved Reza years ago in the harsh conditions of war. He leaves for Iraq to answer the issues he has been hiding from those around him for years.
Was the legendary playwright William Shakespeare really the author of his acclaimed plays? Or was he just a straw man working for a secret society? Norwegian organist and researcher Petter Amundsen claims to have a solid theory on the subject. Shakespearean scholar Robert Crumpton decides to travel to Norway to meet him.
Set in 1776, this historical film by Petr Hvizd concerns an army deserter who takes refuge within the walls of the Convent of St. Claire. The investigation to find him soon becomes a question of morality concerning the value of human life in the context of the diversity and hierarchy of social laws.
A Terrible Beauty is the story of the men and women of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, Irish and British, caught up in a conflict many did not understand and of the innocent men and boys, executed because of what transpired in The Battle of Mount Street Bridge. The British soldiers were the last of the Great War volunteers, who joined up together to fight the Germans. They knew that there was a strong chance they would die in France, but to die in Dublin would never have crossed their minds. The Irish Volunteers were weekend warriors many of whom had no idea they were about to take part in large scale battles on the streets of Dublin.
This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew her firsthand: Jean Rouch, Jonas Mekas, Alexander Hammid, Cecile Starr etc. Maya Deren (1917-1961) was an experimental filmmaker. In the 1940s and 1950s she made several influential avant-garde films, such as Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Images from this and her other work are used in this documentary. You can also hear her voice, as well as accounts by contemporaries such as Jean Rouch and Jonas Mekas.
A festival cut/compilation of the animated segments made by Yamamura Kouji for a TV documentary by NHK, Kojiki Girl Travelogue (古事記ガール 日向路を旅する). The 4 episodes that compose The Hyuga Episode of Kojiki are: #1 The Cleansing (禊/ Misogi, 3’17”)
#2 Sun Goddess Amaterasu (天照大御神/ Amaterasu Ookami, 2’11”)
#3 Flowering Tree (木花之佐久夜毘売/ Konohananosakuya-bime, 2’31”)
#4 Umisachi and Yamasachi (海佐知山佐知/ Umisachi Yamasachi, 3’30”)
In 1914, Max Linder (1883-1925) was a great star of silent cinema, the King of Cinema. But then World War I broke out, in which Max participated, and the whole world, and his life in particular, was changed forever. His daughter Maud has fought for seventy years to regain his legacy. This is his story…
First Freedom: The Fight for Religious Liberty is the story of how the most basic of human freedoms - freedom of conscience - was codified for the first time in human history as an inalienable human right protected by law.
This is the master-crafted work of the legendary writer and artist Frank Miller. The film encapsulates, and celebrates the stunning achievement of Batman: the Dark Knight Returns, galvanizing the reason why this story ushered in the modern take of the dark and brooding protector of Gotham. This is the journey of Frank Miller, seeking the freedom that some authors only dream of in a lifetime. Narrated by Malcolm McDowell.
The dramatized biography of Margaret Sanger, the crusader who founded America's first birth control clinic during World War I and was tried in court under obscenity laws.
February 28 is Deniz Gezmiş's birthday… He would have been 75 years old today; but it only lived for 25 years, and in those 25 years, it had an impact that spanned 75 years. When you have a 25-year-old son, one feels better, what was done to him...
March 27th, 1964. The New York Times published an article headlined '37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police.' For more than half an hour, 37 law abiding citizens in Queens watched their neighbor, Kitty Genovese, being brutally killed outside their apartment building. Florel and Jack Bernstein were among those bystanders. A shirt film.
Marthas is a PBS documentary about an extraordinary rite of passage in Laredo, Texas where teenage Mexican-American girls debut in a grand Colonial Ball dressed as American revolutionaries - a tradition that goes back 114 years.
In a small rural town hit hard by the Depression, Katie Connors resides in a middle-class home with her bootlegging husband Melvin. When the opportunity arises to bump him off without getting her hands dirty, she takes a chance she may never get again. After his murder at the hands of criminal Richard Hayden, she begins to receive inopportune visits by Melvin's old business partners about a large shipment of moonshine in her possession. Contacting the FBI for help, agent Ron Sheridan is assigned to her case and develops an unrequited love for Katie. But when a full-scale war develops, she learns the FBI may not be much help to her as she thought, and Katie must take matters into her own hands to pay off her husband's debts for good.