Documentaries 2019
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- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorWang BingThe impact of the decline of heavy industry on workers and their families in the Tiexi district of Shenyang, China, at the turn of the 21st century, documented unflinchingly by a fly-on-the-wall camera.
- DirectorArnold Fanck
- DirectorJean-Claude Rousseau
- DirectorDerek JarmanStarsDerek JarmanTilda SwintonJohn QuentinIn his final - and most daring - cinematic statement, Jarman the romantic meets Jarman the iconoclast in a lush soundscape pulsing against a purely blue screen, laying bare his physical and spiritual state.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianA man paves his own way to his own soul through an intellectual quest, tragedies of nations and personal drama. The road moving through the cosmic distances is a flight into one's internal world. This flight and this drama are revealed in this philosophical film-poem.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsFini StraubingerM. BaaskeElsa FehrerThrough examining Fini Straubinger, an old woman who has been deaf and blind since adolescence, and her work on behalf of other deaf and blind people, this film shows how the deaf and blind struggle to understand and accept a world from which they are almost wholly isolated.
- DirectorAllan KingStarsMartin FischerChronicles 7-weeks in the lives of 12 emotionally disturbed children and their therapist's experimental method of treatment at the Toronto-area Warrendale facility.
- DirectorChantal AkermanStarsNatalia ChakhovskaiaA look at life in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- DirectorJoris IvensMarceline Loridan IvensDuring some months, the Dutch movie director Ivens and some North Vietnamese colleagues filmed the life of North Vietnamese peasants under the menace of heavy American bombardments. The result is an indictment of all forms of war.
- DirectorNikolaus GeyrhalterHomo Sapiens shows stunning images of forgotten places, buildings we constructed and then left.
- DirectorPeter MettlerStarsJustine BellinskyGovindaPeter MettlerA filmmaker's inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times. From Toronto, the scene of his childhood, Peter Mettler sets out on a journey that includes evangelism at the airport strip, demolition in Las Vegas, tracings in the Nevada desert, chemistry and street life in Switzerland, and the coexistence of technology and divinity in contemporary India. Everywhere along the way, the same themes are to be found: thrill-seeking, luck, destiny, belief, expanding perception, the craving for security in an uncertain world. Fact joins with fantasy; the search for meaning and the search for ecstasy begin to merge.
- DirectorLeo HurwitzStarsPeggy LawsonLeo HurwitzA documentary about the film-maker's wife and co-worker, Peggy Lawson, who died in 1971.
- DirectorBert HaanstraDocumentary about The Netherlands shown as a reflection in a puddle.
- DirectorLeo HurwitzDocumentary examining the work of sculptor Richard Lippold, particular his sculpture of the sun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- DirectorAlbert LamorisseStarsManouchehr AnvarA tour of Iran filmed from a helicopter.
- DirectorMaciej J. DrygasStarsRyszard SiwiecMaria SiwiecInnocenta SiwiecThe story of an ordinary accountant, Ryszard Siwiec, who set himself on fire during the large harvest festival at the Warsaw stadium in 1968. He did it to protest against the military invasion in Czechoslovakia.
- DirectorPhilip GröningAn examination of life inside the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the reclusive Carthusian Order in France.
- DirectorUlrike OttingerTaiga is an eight-hour documentary directed and photographed by Ulrike Ottinger. It focuses on the life and rituals of nomadic peoples in Northern Mongolia, specifically the Darkhad nomads and the Sojon Urinjanghai.
- DirectorFranco PiavoliThe passage of time in different dimensions illustrated by biological evolution, the changing seasons and the everyday moments of human life.
- DirectorArne SucksdorffA ten-minute study of wild animal life in a Swedish forest; stoat, fox, hare, and owl, who stalk and savage one another, are photographed with extraordinary vividness and intimacy. It is perhaps the most striking of Sucksdorff's animal studies, in spite of an abrupt introduction and ending.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniSeveral stories depicting the landscapes and fauna of India are mixed with documentary footage.
- DirectorJames BenningStarsWillem Dafoe
- CreatorAnn DruyanCarl SaganSteven SoterStarsCarl SaganJaromír HanzlíkJonathan FahnAstronomer Carl Sagan leads us on an engaging guided tour of the various elements and cosmological theories of the universe.
- DirectorBenjamin ChristensenStarsBenjamin ChristensenElisabeth ChristensenMaren PedersenFictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in Eastern Europe.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWalter SteinerWerner HerzogA study of the psychology of a champion ski-jumper, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.
- DirectorBen RiversStarsJake WilliamsAfter working at sea, a man realizes his dream of moving to the middle of the forest.
- DirectorApichatpong WeerasethakulStarsDuangjai HiransriKome Kongkiat KomesiriSaisiri XoomsaiA film crew documents a folk story-exquisite corpse combination by random Thai people; the story is reenacted.
- DirectorJohn DouglasRobert KramerStarsMary ChapelleSharon KrebsJim Nolfi"A many-faceted portrait of those individuals who sought radical solutions to social problems in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. It cuts back and forth between six major story lines and more than fifty characters, and across a vast landscape, to explore the lifestyles and attitudes of the American left who faced both personal and hhistorical transitions in the period following the Vietnam War."
- DirectorHarun FarockiIn Comparison revisits issues explored in the director's 2007 two channel installation Comparison Via a Third. Spanning continents and cultures, the film focuses on the brick in its many contexts, from the collective efforts of a community building a clinic in Burkina Faso, through semi industrialized moldings in India, to industrial production lines in Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland. Through its notable structure and its captivating rhythms, In Comparison presents various methods of labor production, allowing for an assessment that changes with every layer and goes well beyond a simple binary divide.
- DirectorChris MarkerStarsAmilcar CabralFlorence DelayArielle DombasleA woman narrates the contemplative writings of a seasoned world traveler, focusing on contemporary Japan.
- DirectorFrederick WisemanShot in Frederick Wiseman's trademark blank style - no narration, no music, and minimal editing - this four hour documentary follows a cross-section of the small Maine city's workers, from lobstermen and tugboat operators working the picturesque coast to teachers, hospital workers and shopkeepers in the sleepy downtown center.
- DirectorDziga VertovHow the miners of the Don coal basin (one of the industrial regions of Ukraine) were striving to fulfill in four years their part of the Five Year Plan.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardJoris IvensWilliam KleinStarsAnne BellecKaren BlanguernonFidel CastroIn seven different segments, Godard, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy and support for the North Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianMonumental picture exploring the identity and fate of the Armenian nation.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianThe last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianStarsFelix DzerzhinskyVladimir LeninSergo OrdzhonikidzePhilosophical essay about the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, its influence on the destiny of the world in the 20th century.
- DirectorNoriaki TsuchimotoStarsKimio KawasakiThe film focuses on the taxi drivers of Tokyo in the year before the Tokyo Olympics and the difficulties they face: construction obstructing traffic, poor working conditions, numerous accidents, and bad pay.
- DirectorSu FriedrichStarsJessica MeyersonIn a series of 26 short autobiographical vignettes, Su Friedrich methodically analyzes and reflects on her childhood and the emotional scars left by her detached and self-involved father.
- DirectorPatrick KeillerStarsPaul ScofieldJohn MajorNorma MajorAn inspiring tale through London by pictures narrated by Paul Scofield.
- DirectorFrederick WisemanStarsApollonia van RavensteinAndy Warhol
- DirectorPeter Nestler
- DirectorClaude LanzmannStarsJacques BarkatSchmuel BirgerRan CohenA documentary examining life in Israel twenty-five years after the birth of the state.
- DirectorJean-Pierre GorinStarsJean-Pierre GorinIdentical young twin girls in the USA have invented their own shared language. Scientists are wanting to study the language but social workers are trying to get the twins to leave their secret language world and enter the mainstream. This means forcing them to speak normal English and lose their secret language. The filmmaker's own questions about this process run across as text at the bottom of the screen, a first use of that technique in documentary.
- StarsJean-Luc GodardAlain CunyJulie DelpyAn 8-part documentary chronicling the history of cinema, examining the history of the concept of cinema and how both relates to the 20th century.
- DirectorPatrick KeillerStarsPaul ScofieldRobinson is commissioned to investigate the unspecified "problem of England." The narrator describes his seven excursions, with the unseen Robinson, around the country. They mainly concentrate on ports, power stations, prisons, and manufacturing plants, but they also bring in various literary connections, as well as a few conventional landscapes.
- DirectorG.W. BitzerIn one long take, the camera shows us the journey of a subway train as it makes its way from Union Square to the old Grand Central Station.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWerner HerzogJean ClottesJulien MonneyWerner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France and captures the oldest known pictorial creations of humanity.
- DirectorChris MarkerPierre LhommeStarsChris MarkerYves MontandSimone SignoretChris Marker and Pierre Lhomme's LE JOLI MAI (The Lovely Month of May) is a portrait of Paris and Parisians during May 1962, the first springtime of peace after the ceasefire with Algeria and the first time in 23 years that France was not involved in any war.
- DirectorJoris IvensStarsRoger PigautScenes of life and landscape in Provence where a chilly wind called the Mistral blows down the valley of the Rhône to the Mediterranean. The Provençal terrain is dry and parched; the infrequent clouds dissolve in the sky. Farm animals and townsfolk are accustomed to a struggle with the wind and its effects on a wedding, or mailing a letter. Erecting a palisade can lessen its force but the Mistral is inescapable.
- DirectorDavid DawkinsChris HegedusD.A. PennebakerStarsAndrew FletcherDave GahanMartin GoreDepeche Mode prepares for the 101st and final concert of its massive world tour at the Rose Bowl Stadium, Pasadena, California, while a group of fans who won a contest travel to the concert through the United States on a bus.
- DirectorJiayin LiuStarsHuifen JiaJiayin LiuZaiping LiuDaily life in an impossibly cramped Beijing apartment takes on epic proportions in this, intimate portrait, with unprecedented access, of a working-class Chinese family.
- DirectorDziga VertovThis documentary film is showing the hard labor of countrymen in industrial production to strengthen the U.S.S.R. economy and turning their country into a world power.
- DirectorMerian C. CooperErnest B. SchoedsackStarsMerian C. CooperErnest B. SchoedsackMarguerite HarrisonThe struggles of a hardscrabble Iranian nomadic tribe as they journey through bleak country to reach the grasslands that will save their livestock.
- DirectorWeikai HuangFootage collected from a dozen amateur videographers woven into a unique city symphony of social dysfunction.
- DirectorFrederick WisemanStarsJohn DenverThe film documents the daily life and activities of the people who live, work, visit and play in Aspen, a town famous in the 19th century for silver mining and now known for its scenic splendor and fashionable people.
- DirectorDeborah StratmanStarsRaven Wolf C. Felton Jennings IIJoshua FriemanAnna ToborgAn experimental documentary comprised of regional vignettes about faith, force, technology and exodus. Eleven parables relay histories of settlement, removal, technological breakthrough, violence, messianism and resistance, all occurring somewhere in the state of Illinois. But the state is a structural ruse, and its histories are allegories that ask what belief might teach us about nationhood. In our desire to understand the inscrutable, whom do we end up blaming or endorsing?
- DirectorMichel BraultPierre PerraultStarsLéopold TremblayAlexis TremblayAbel HarveyAt the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.
- DirectorClaude LanzmannStarsSimon SrebnikMichael PodchlebnikMotke ZaïdlClaude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.
- DirectorJ.B.L. NoelStarsAndrew IrvineGeorge MalloryThe official record of Mallory and Irvine's 1924 expedition.
- DirectorAndrew KottingStarsAndrew KottingEden KottingBenji MingWhen British filmmaker Andrew Kotting decided to tour the perimeter of Great Britain with his grandmother Gladys and his daughter Eden, he brought a film crew along. The result is this often humorous and picturesque documentary.
- DirectorEric PauwelsBelgian filmmaker Eric Pauwles' meditation on dream, travel and film.
- DirectorMichael PilzAn epic documentary in two parts about life in the Styrian mountain village of St. Anna.
- DirectorJames BenningImages of Hank Aaron memorabilia are displayed over the handwritten diaries of would be assassin Arthur Bremer, set to a soundtrack of alternating political news clips and popular songs from Aaron's career.
- DirectorJørgen LethStarsDavid SaundersRoger De VlaeminckMarc DemeyerThe film follows the French Paris-Roubaix spring classic, notorious for the hellish paves or cobbled roads of the north "which are no longer used for traffic but only for transporting cattle - and for cycle races". We are there from the dawn preparations and rituals on the outskirts of Paris and through the rigours of the race with special focus on a number of prominent cyclists to the final outcome on the Roubaix cycle track - followed by the filthy riders taking their showers. There is also an eye for life among the spectators and the media event as such. The film alternates among different kinds of shot with a view to establishing the most suitable view of the narrative: shots from motorcycles, which are able to convey the motion of the race and provide close ups of the riders in the style of television cycle race reporting; fixed cameras stationed at strategically important points along the route, where viewers can watch riders passing in real time and thus gain a clear overview of the distance between the leaders and the main field: and the Olympian eye of the helicopter shots.
- DirectorCharles SheelerPaul StrandThis groundbreaking silent documentary captures the beauty and majesty of the New York City in its streets, skyscrapers, bridges, rail yards and harbors.
- DirectorRobert KramerStarsJesse JacksonPaul McIsaacPat RobertsonDoc (McIsaac), back from a decade in in Africa, and filmmaker Kramer, decide to follow Route 1, from the Canadian border all the way to the tip of Florida.
- DirectorSharunas BartasThe film is a day in the life that passes by, even if it seems neverending.
- DirectorRobert GardnerA look at daily life in the city of Benares, India, one of the most religious places in the country.
- DirectorJames BenningStarsRhonda BellElion SucherIn "Landscape Suicide" Benning continues his examination of Americana through the stories of two murderers. Ed Gein was a Wisconsin farmer and multiple murderer who taxidermied his victims in the 1950s. Bernadette Prott was a California teenager who stabbed a friend to death over an insult in 1984. Benning's distanced approach to such grisly material is as far removed as possible from sensationalism, however. Although the acts of murder are both bizarre and violent, Benning dwells on them only minimally, emphasizing instead the details of psychological motivation, which in both cases seem frighteningly mundane. Benning has created a script which is a masterpiece of understated colloquial writing, and the actors he employs to re-enact confessional testimony and incidents recounted in trial transcripts perform with a flatly convincing lack of affect reminiscent of Gary Gilmore. The two monologues are embedded in Benning's characteristic meditations of landscape: long shots of the Wisconsin farmlands, general stores, dirt roads and pick-up trucks, and the carefully tended lawns, swimming pools, sprawling bungalows and malls of the middle-class California suburb. These images are offered in the classically spare mise-en-scene which Benning has perfected in his work as a cinematic poet of the contemporary American environment. Here, in his most accessible film so far, the beautiful, open vistas are dense with the significance of the catastrophes they engendered
- DirectorLionel RogosinStarsRay SalyerGorman HendricksFrank MatthewsBy focusing on the lives of three down-and-out alcoholic transients, the film creates a wrenching portrait of the tragic hopelessness of life on "The Bowery" in New York City.
- DirectorForugh FarrokhzadStarsForugh FarrokhzadEbrahim GolestanHossein MansouriSet in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness", of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude.
- DirectorAllan KingStarsBilly EdwardsAntoinette EdwardsBogart EdwardsAn "actuality drama" about a real-life marriage in crisis, in which the couple attempts to identify and resolve the conflicts and resentments that have driven them to the brink of separation.
- DirectorPeter NestlerStarsPeter NestlerShot two years before the military junta began to rule the country, Von Griechenland reflects upon the instability, which has characterized Greek government in the 20th century, culminating in the victory and eventual dismissal of liberal politician Georgios Papandreou.
- DirectorDouglas GordonPhilippe ParrenoStarsDavid BeckhamZinédine ZidaneFootball match Real Madrid vs. Villareal, April 23, 2005, from the perspective of soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane.
- DirectorVittorio De SetaA documentary of Sicilian men spear fishing and women doing laundry.
- DirectorVittorio De SetaA documentary centered on the volcanic eruptions that occurred north of Sicily in December of 1954.
- DirectorShirley ClarkeStarsJason HollidayShirley ClarkeCarl LeeBlack gay prostitute Jason Holliday is rigorously interviewed on his story and character, revealing nuanced truths about life and art.
- DirectorJoris IvensStarsJoris IvensThe film is a documentary portraying a struggle as man tries to subdue nature. To prevent flooding and for purposes of land reclamation, the people of the Netherlands struggle and succeed in building a breaker, thereby eliminating the wild inland body of water once known as the Zuider Zee (now called Ijsselmeer).
- DirectorJoris IvensClose shots of a railway train underway: track racing underneath, steam escaping, cars coupling, gears ratcheting, signals changing.
- DirectorJames BenningStarsJames BenningHartmut BitomskyBilly WoodberryJames Benning's "Four Corners" uses a specific geographical location to pose larger questions about the United States. Here, the geographic and wholly imaginary place Four Corners, that favorite tourist destination where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet, becomes a kind of theoretical ground zero, the site from which Benning can give voice to other, pointedly unofficial American stories .... This is a film in which sound and image are not joined together in some sort of spurious conspiracy (the history of the United States), but one in which each sound and each image hints at a story not yet fully told (the histories of the United States).
- DirectorLav DiazOn 8 November 2013, the city Tacloban on Leyte Island, Philippines, was largely destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan, causing the death of 6,201 people.
- DirectorJohan van der KeukenJohan van der Keuken went against the grain in 1980: from Amsterdam (on April 30 with the coronation riots and squatting actions) via Paris, southern France and Italy to Egypt. He made his personal travelogue in three parts for VPRO television. Later, he fused the three parts into one long movie.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsJean-Luc GodardGeneviève PasquierDenis JadótDirector Jean-Luc Godard reflects in this movie about his place in film history, the interaction of film industry and film as art, as well as the act of creating art.
- DirectorJoris IvensStarsRoger PigautA travelogue of Valparaiso, Chile, a city built on steep hills. Life is a constant struggle against geography. Neighbourhoods are reached by series of ramps, staircases, and funicular railway elevators. The poorest residents on the hilltops have trouble obtaining water for drinking and washing. There are community dances, a travelling circus, a race course. Boys feed the harbour sealions; a fashionable woman walks her penguin. The ever-present onshore breeze provides fresh air and an ideal environment for kite-flying. The film's second half is in colour, making the switch with the tale of the city's bloody pirate past.
- DirectorEric M. NilssonA documentary. That is, a compilation, a presentation. A film about sound, a film about words, a film about interpretation and misunderstanding." A number of people are thinking about questions such as: Who is Sören? What is a nebula? What are the weaknesses of documentary film? How do we deal with suspicion? How do interstices and shifts work?
- DirectorPatricio GuzmánStarsGaspar GalazLautaro NúñezLuís HenríquezA documentary about two different searches conducted in the Chilean Atacama Desert: one by astronomers looking for answers about the history of the cosmos, and one by women looking for the remains of loved ones killed by Pinochet's regime.
- DirectorWojciech Wiszniewski
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaThe city of Leningrad and the blockade during the Second World War. No words. No music. Only sounds and black and white images of a dying city.
- DirectorG.W. BitzerThe subject is the movement of cut timber from the forest to the mill. The few scenes that make up the film are loggers performing the various operations necessary to prevent logs from jamming together. The men keep them headed with the flow of the water toward the lake on which the mill is located. The activities of approximately a dozen men were photographed.
- DirectorJames BenningStarsKevin HendersonMichael WeberJames BenningUsing experimental narrative structure as his vehicle, Benning recreates the sensationalized and controversial circumstances surrounding Lorencia Bembenek, aka "Bambi", former "Playboy bunny" turned cop, turned accused and convicted killer who disappeared after a daring escape from prison. The film shows the evolution of Benning's and Bembenek's relationship presented through their actual letters read in voice over which depict the filmmaker's curiosity with the subject as it evolves from intrigue to a love obsession.
- DirectorJosé Luis GuerínStarsMichael KillaninPadraig O'FeeneyBartley O'FeeneyDocumentary in which the camera of Jose Luis Guerín returns, almost forty years later, to the same places where the mythical film of John Ford 'The quiet Man' was shot. The locality of Innisfree still keeps alive the memory of the filming among the survivors, full of historical references in the other inhabitants, as well as the particular way of seeing the life of the deep Ireland that Ford wanted to portray.
- DirectorUlrike OttingerThis documentary focuses on the ten days after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the two Germanies when the monetary union in June 199o was scheduled to begin.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsShigeru TsuyuguchiYoshie HayakawaShôhei ImamuraPlastics salesman Oshima disappeared without a word to anyone, and has been missing for two years. Shohei Imamura and his crew follow Oshima's fiancé Yoshie and actor Shigeru Tsuyuguchi as they investigate the disappearance.
- DirectorMichael WadleighStarsJoan BaezRichie HavensRoger DaltreyOscar-winning musical chronicle that brilliantly captures the three-day rock concert and celebration of peace and love that became a capstone for the Sixties.
- DirectorDavid PerlovStarsDavid PerlovMira PerlovYael PerlovShot over a ten-year period, Diary is not only the political, professional, and personal diary of a man, but is a testimony on the turbulent reality of a war-torn country, Israel. In six chapters, Perlov travels to Tel Aviv, Paris, London, and finally to Brazil, where he was born. The film is also a family diary in which Perlov records the coming of age of his two daughters, Yael and Naomi.
- DirectorDayong ZhaoA remote village in southwest China is haunted by traces of its cultural past while its residents piece together their existence. Zhiziluo is a town barely clinging to life. Tucked away in a rugged corner of Yunnan Province, Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former Community county seat. Divided into three parts, this epic documentary takes an intimate look at its varied cast of characters, bringing audiences face to face with people left behind by China's new economy. A father-son duo of elderly preachers argue over the future of their village church. Two young lovers face a break-up over harsh financial realities. A twelve year-old boy, abandoned by his family, scavenges the hillside to feed himself. "Directed with scrupulous attention to detail by Zhao Dayong" (Manohla Dargis, The New York Times), Ghost Town is "one of the most important films to have emerged from the booming (but still underexplored) field of Chinese independent documentaries" (Dennis Lim, Moving Image Source). Ghost Town "has a strong sense of historical consciousness, an eye for unique material, and a real sympathy for the people in the film and their tough lives" (Chris Berry, Goldsmiths University). "I do not expect to soon find scenes to match Ghost Town's mountaintop funeral, the running along after a rowdy exorcism, or the scanning of faces at the town Christmas chorale. His back to prosperity, Dayong finds hallowed ground" (Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice).
- DirectorWang Bing50 men live for 12 months in a madhouse, they passing their days in a single plane and having little contact with the medical team. Every one of the inmates is not there for mental health problems but for had killing someone for committing a crime against public officials.