How did a college dropout who was arrested for a DUI twice in the same year become the single-most-powerful nonpresidential political figure in American history? Filmmakers R. J. Cutler and Greg Finton answer that question and others in what is sure to be the definitive film about the fascinating life and legacy of Dick Cheney.
'Running from Crazy' is a documentary examining the personal journey of model and actress Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, as she strives for a greater understanding of her family history of suicide and mental illness.
An anonymous body in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for identity leads us back across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo.
A humorous documentary about Nicolas Winding Refn and his struggle to secure his family financially and help him get on with his life. Forced to file for personal bankruptcy after the failure of "Fear X" at the box office, Refn has only one chance to wipe the slate clean and continue his career as a filmmaker: produce sequels to his breakthrough movie "Pusher."
In June at the Nantucket Film Festival, Ben Stiller brought together three of his funniest famous friends to talk seriously about comedy. Chris Rock and Jim Carrey joined Stiller on a panel moderated by Saturday Night Live‘s Bill Hader for the 4th Annual All-Star Comedy Roundtable.
AKA Serial Killer documents the social upheaval and political oppression that roiled Japan in the 1960s, profiling a nineteen-year-old serial killer Norio Nagayama. An indictment of media sensationalism, the film humanizes the young man by situating his crimes in the larger context of his environment.
Creating The Lord of the Rings Symphony includes excerpts of live concert footage from The Lord of the Rings Symphony: Six Movements for Orchestra, Chorus and Soloists, documentary commentary by Howard Shore, and the illustrations of Alan Lee and John Howe.
Where do images come from? This disturbing and essential question is posed by Philippe Grandrieux, and he already imposed it on himself the start, via Sombre (1999) up to the portrait recently devoted to Masao Adachi (FID 2011). From where, then? Maybe from the depths behind our eyes, ungraspable visions, night in suspension, promise of the end of an eclipse, between dream and nightmare. This is the start (and in truth the programme) of White Epilepsy. In a darkness barely broken by light, a mass advances: a nude back, in a long shot entirely centred on the shoulders.
Experimental filmmaker James Benning returns with this abstract documentary about California's Central Valley, part 1 of his "California Trilogy". Consisting of 35 shots, each over two minutes long, the film quietly portrays nature's subjugation to encroaching commercial interests. This film was screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival.
Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and marginalized figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf and dumb wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family's mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile in his hometown, where he revisits old family demons. His humble story is told with chapter headings similar to Qing Dynasty popular fiction.
Winning Your Wings is a 1942 short American World War II recruitment film produced by Warner Bros. Studios for the US Army Air Forces, starring Jimmy Stewart. It was aimed at young men who were thinking about joining the Air Force.
The long log drive: a spring journey down icy streams and rivers moving logs from the forest to the mill for sawing into boards, laths, and clapboards. For more than 150 years, logging techniques remained the same. Men cut trees by hand and loaded them on horse-drawn sleds to be hauled over snow to the river. Skilled river drivers maneuvered the logs downstream, risking their limbs and lives every day. This film survives as a record of the long log business.
A documentary filmography of Howard Hawks, including lengthy footage of Hawks himself discussing his films and many clips from his best-known pictures.
The Ernst Busch Academy is one of Germany's best respected acting schools, and every year hundreds of would-be thespians apply in hopes that they'll be chosen for their rigorous program of study. Filmmaker Andres Veiel chose four students at random as they were accepted at the Busch Academy, and in the documentary Die Spielwuetigen, he allows us to eavesdrop on them as they spend four years learning their craft and growing from callow youngsters to adults in search of their big break.
It's 1945, World War II. The Place, Okinawa. The Scene, an impregnable 400-foot high cliff-AKA Hacksaw Ridge. The Engagement, a battle so fierce the odds of survival were 1 in 10. The Act, Medic Pfc. Desmond T. Doss braved intense enemy fire to rescue 75 wounded GI's over the precipice. The Story, Infantrymen who once ridiculed and scoffed at Desmond's simple faith and refusal to carry a weapon-now owed their lives to him. Director Terry Benedict tells Desmond's incredible story through the eyes of the men who witnessed this humble man's heroic acts. Winning the respect of his fellow soldiers, they recommended him for the highest honor America can bestow on one of her sons-The Medal of Honor.
It’s a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what emerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful ‘composed’ soundtrack, from quietly humming streetlights to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction.