Windjammer, the first presentation in CINEMIRACLE, is the record of a training cruise of the full-rigged S/S Christian Radich from Oslo across the Atlantic, through the Caribbean, to New York and back home again.
Trance dance and water implosion, a line drawn between secular freak-outs and religious phenomena. Shot in a single-take at a sacred site on the Upper Suriname River, the minor secrets of an animist are revealed as time itself is undone. Rites are the new Trypps, embodiment is our eternal everything.
Helsinki, Forever is a montage film about the city of Helsinki by the award-winning Finnish film director and academic Peter von Bagh. The film draws a portrait of Helsinki and also acts as an essay on Finnish culture in a wider sense. It shows Helsinki as captured by leading Finnish feature film and documentary makers over a period of one hundred years.
Pinki is a five-year-old girl from a village in the Mirzapur District, India, born into a desperately poor family, and with a cleft lip. Pinki never realized that this condition required just one simple operation until she met Pankaj, a social worker traveling from village to village gathering patients to go to hospital in Varanasi that provides free surgery to thousands each year. This real-world fairy tale follows its protagonist journey to a dream smile from isolation and shame.
The film explores familiar landscape imagery Saïto and Goldstein share in their neighbourhood at the foot of Mount-Royal Park in Montréal, Canada. Using the images of maple trees in the park as main visual motif, Saïto creates a film in which the formations of the trees and their subtle interrelation with the space around them act as an agent to transform viewer’s sensorial perception of the space portrayed
It is slow, succinct and absolutely riveting. With his photojournalist's eye, and simple but inspired camera work, Depardon plunges us into both the sounds and silences of a day and a night in the city.
Flashback on the problems, adjustments and transformations occurring in the first year of a couple's married life. Pretty surprising film coming from Coronet about the "honeymoon is over" drama that newlyweds face. The marriage between Dotty and Pete is pretty traditional--Dotty quits her job to be a homemaker once they are married--but some more modernistic ideas come out, such as the idea that the two newlyweds decide together how the money that Pete earns will be spent, and the small mentions of sex. (!!) The "educational collaborator" listed at the beginning, Lemo Rockwood, was a professor at Cornell University, and her marriage course advocated sexual frankness and pre-marital experimentation, so it's easy to see her stamp on this film.
Twenty years after peace activist Im Su-kyong swore that she would cross the border between North and South Korea on foot, Argentine documentary filmmaker José Luis García goes in search of the young woman who was once known as "The Flower of Reunification." (TIFF)
Harry, Liam, Zayn, Niall & Louis have proven they're more than a manufactured boy band by becoming global superstars almost overnight. Presented by X Factor's Sinitta, this program unleashes all the highs of the band's turbo-charged fame. From five individual hopeful singers taking part in Simon Cowell's British X Factor. the boys of One Direction have defied the odds, and their critics, by becoming the hottest British boy band in the world. With A-List interviews from Piers Morgan, Zac Efron, Katherine Jenkins and some members of the cast of Glee and many others, we explore what makes these boys a chart topping success. Smashing worldwide charts with their debut No 1 single and album, One Direction have it all: great voices, charm and good looks. proving the only way is UP for One Direction.
In 1996, Marcello Mastroianni talks about life as an actor. It's an anecdotal and philosophical memoir, moving from topic to topic, fully conscious of a man "of a certain age" looking back. He tells stories about Fellini and De Sica's direction, of using irony in performances, of constantly working (an actor tries to find himself in characters). He's diffident about prizes, celebrates Rome and Paris, salutes Naples and its people. He answers the question, why make bad films; recalls his father and grandfather, carpenters, his mother, deaf in her old age, and his brother, a film editor; he's modest about his looks. In repose, time's swift passage holds Mastroianni inward gaze.
A look at the debate over same sex marriage in the USA. The reasons behind it are illustrated with real life couples that have run afoul of current laws despite varying levels of planning. Also, the reasons against it are debunked by proponents.
In this emotionally compelling documentary, Sister Helen opens a private home for recovering addicts and alcoholics in the South Bronx after the death of her husband and two sons. The film's fly-on-the-wall technique succeeds in capturing the day-to-day existence of Sister Helen and the various residents of the home.
Spectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes’ main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction and repulsion. It manifests itself in humiliation and abuse (such Pentimento), but also in cool eroticism or natural physicality. Zwartjes’ goal is not to explain or designate this relationship. Rather it is the subject that Zwartjes uses to describe his world. In an article on Zwartjes, filmmaker and student George Schouten compares Zwartjes to the Italian writer Alberto Moravia. For both, sex is their way of dealing with reality. It is the subject by which they define their world. And for Zwartjes, it is also the subject with which he can display and develop his cinematic talent. (eyefilm.nl)
It will surprise few to discover that star of stage and screen Jerry Lewis has sought to amuse others since he was five years old. Since that early age, audiences split their sides watching his wacky antics, whilst wannabe comics aspired to his prolific career, from his solo work to his double act with Dean Martin. Indeed, many of his famous fans share stories of affection and admiration for the now 86-year-old performer and filmmaker in Gregg Barson’s documentary. Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Eddie Murphy and Jerry Seinfeld are among those waxing lyrical about Lewis’ particular brand of genius, and his place in the annals of history. Including a cavalcade of hilarious clips from eight decades in the spotlight, Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis examines the icon and his influence, and is essential viewing for aficionados of the man and his legacy.
A look into the many lives of Christa Päffgen, otherwise known as Nico; from cutie German mädchen to the first of the supermodels, to glamorous diva of the Velvet Underground, to cult item, junkie and hag. Many faces for the same woman, whom, you realize, just couldn't bring herself to care enough to live.
An indelible portrait of the complex relationship between playwright and actor Sam Shepard and his close friend Johnny Dark as they prepare forty years of their correspondence for publication, stirring up old memories both good and bad.