X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.
A short documentary about the making of Stop Making Sense featuring new interviews with Talking Heads members David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz, as well as Stop Making Sense producer Gary Goetzman and editor Lisa Day. This documentary also features never before seen archival footage and photographs.
The National Library of France is the guardian of priceless treasures that tell our history, our illustrious thinkers, writers, scholars and artists. Telling the story of the exceptional treasures of the National Library of France is like opening a great history book rich in many twists and turns. Without the love of the kings of France for books and precious objects, this institution would never have seen the light of day. The story begins in the 14th century under the reign of a passionate writer, Charles V, who set up a library in his apartments in the Louvre. But it was not until the 17th century, and the reign of Louis XIV, a lover of the arts and letters, that the royal library took over its historic quarters in the rue Vivienne in Paris, which it still occupies.
In 1975, soon after the end of the Vietnam War, Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che fled the country on a small boat. After nine days at sea, they docked in the Philippines, where they were held in a refugee camp. During this time, along with nearly 100 other refugees, they were utilized as background extras in the filming of APOCALYPSE NOW.
Explore the fascinating history of movie palaces and their significance in the entertainment industry. This documentary showcases the architectural brilliance and nostalgic charm of these iconic theaters, filled with archival footage and captivating stories.
A sock puppet explores a family history told from the perspective of a mother and father.
Despite her position at the epicentre of the Brazilian Bossa Nova scene, singer Heloísa Maria Buarque de Hollanda, known as Miúcha, has been largely underappreciated.
A feature-length documentary from Canadian Geographic Films, and presents a powerful and emotional story celebrating the 100-year history of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Through its backdrop of rarely seen RCAF archival footage and dramatic contemporary footage, the film showcases compelling stories from past and present RCAF members from across Canada.
When the strongest earthquake in a century hit Mexico in 2017, everyone had eyes on the rescue of 12-year old Frida - until the story took a very strange twist.
To index my position in popular culture, existing in scenes of Taiwanese indie youth and migrating to New York and we all exist under the umbrella of confederacy/ white supremacy/ Eurocentricism/ and patriarchy. FAREWELL asks questions about internet labor and surveillance, comments on Eastern and Western cultures and local communities, what it means to self-document through motion images, and the urge to archive (Hal Foster wrote about the archive impulse.) It is another video that will ultimately end up in the vast sea of YouTube shorts but it is a way to pass down a momentary legacy.
A 15 minute documentary utilizing archival Super 8 film footage and original animation about a father fulfilling his dream of reconnecting his 5 small children to the steps of his own father when he fought for the Canadian military in WW2 through a trip to Europe in 1973.
The Maine Frontier: Through The Lens of Isaac Walton Simpson, combines the scarcely seen turn-of-the-century photography of Isaac Simpson with both archived and current films, oral histories, and a compelling musical soundtrack performed live.
WINHANGANHA (Wiradjuri language: Remember, know, think) - is a lyrical journey of archival footage and sound, poetry and original composition. It is an examination of how archives and the legacies of collection affect First Nations people and wider Australia, told through the lens of acclaimed Wiradjuri artist, Jazz Money.
Time Keeps Marching On is a filmmaker’s journey into his family’s migration history.
The Volunteer Archivists tells the story of Srujanika, a volunteer-led collective in the Indian state of Odisha that archived some of the rarest printer publications published in the last 200 years. The archive — Odia Bibhaba — now houses over 10,000 books and hundreds of magazines, newspapers, and dictionaries that otherwise would have been lost forever due to collective negligence and the poor state of digitization by the state archives.
A darkly beautiful visual essay that explores human emotion in response to societal standards. With a lone cello providing the soundtrack, this collage of archival footage from 1950’s-era films is a superb example of manipulation via sound and image (Dorothy Woodend, DOXA Documentary Film Festival)
A 16mm experimental film that analogizes the discourse of racialized criminality and the carceral apparatus, which surveils and delimits the movements of Black people’s bodies, with the conventions and mechanics of the cinematic apparatus which regulates and standardizes the movement of the filmstrip through the motion picture camera and projector. Equal parts essay and visual art, Speaking in Tongues embodies the cinematic Black ecstatic that simultaneously re-envisions resistance defiance in the face of anti-Black state violence and subverts the conventions of cinematic realism through a manually and optically altered collage of original documentary and archival film sourced from Hollywood movies, television commercials, educational films, cartoons, European art cinema and miscellaneous ephemera.
A short documentary and character study about a woman's complex relationship with religion and family.
Cinema came to lead humanity to salvation, Christ-like, akin to a wild horse... and on this path, it faced many hardships and was ultimately destroyed by the forces of evil. However, it had previously promised a second coming; this time, in a different form and on a different path...