2014

An enthralling tale of love, temptation and betrayal, directed by major post-New Wave auteur Philippe Garrel and starring his son, actor Louis Garrel. Shot in lustrous, widescreen black and white by the great Willy Kurant (Masculin Feminin, Under Satan’s Sun).

In Norte, the End of History, one of the world"s most uncompromising cinematic visionaries, Filipino director Lav Diaz delivers an extraordinary reimagining of Dostoevsky"s "Crime and Punishment" that is both an intimate human drama and a cosmic treatise on the origin of evil.

Never before available, Thom Andersen's landmark documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself explores the tangled relationship between the movies and their fabled hometown – as seen entirely though the films themselves.Newly remastered, this kaleidoscopic tour through the metropolis' real and cinematic history, from the silent era to modern times, is an extraordinary achievement, unlike any documentary that has come before or since.

A revelatory documentary by Thom Andersen (Los Angeles Plays Itself) and film critic Noel Burch, Red Hollywood, which has been remastered and re-edited, examines the films made by the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist and offers a radically difference perspective on a key period in the history of American cinema.

A fascinating investigation into the work of photographer and cinema pioneer Eadweard Muybridge, Thom Andersen’s (Los Angeles Plays Itself, Red Hollywood, Reconversao) much-lauded documentary incorporates a biographical overview of its subject with a re-animation of his historic sequential photographs as well as concise and innovative analysis.

A master of the essay film, Thom Andersen (Los Angeles Plays Itself, Red Hollywood) surveys the work of Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura - winner of his profession's highest honor, the Pritzker Prize - whose astonishing, often-controversial projects embrace decay, the passage of time, local history, and nature.

Mixing personal stories, political history, revolutionary propaganda and film theory, artist Eric Baudelaire illuminates the idealism and radicalism of left-wing extremist movements of the 1970s by interweaving the stories of two of its protagonists: May Shigenobu, daughter of the founder of the Japanese Red Army, and Masao Adachi, the revered Japanese director who gave up cinema to take up arms.

In 1967, following the success of Blow Up, Michelangelo Antonioni planned to make his next film in Japan. The project was cancelled (Antonioni shot Zabriskie Point instead), but he did publish his ideas for the film.” In this brilliant documentary, filmmaker Eric Baudelaire remakes Antonioni’s lost film through photographs, real life anecdotes, correspondences and critical discourse.

A singular appreciation of waste processing " graceful, mesmeric, almost balletic " Single Stream plunges viewers into the steady flow of a materials recycling facility where hundreds of tons of refuse are sorted each day. Yet another revelatory documentary from Harvard"s Sensory Ethnography Lab Single Stream locates the beauty, efficiency and futurism of an industry built on our culture of excess.

Following the acclaimed Kale and Kale and Monsoon- Reflections, As Long as There's Breath is Stephanie Spray's third film documenting the lives of the Gayeks family in Nepal. Building on a deep bond of trust (Spray was eventually adopted by the family), she captures a multi-generational household struggling for cohesion after the departure of a beloved son.

A revealing one-shot portrait of two Nepali newlyweds in a moment of rest and playful interaction, Untitled challenges our perception of two themes at the very core of ethnographic filmmaking: human relationships and the ways in which they can be experienced by the viewer.

In exploring the lives of two wandering Nepali musicians, an uncle and nephew, Kāle and Kāle (pronounced kah-lay) exposes the rootless occupation of the Gaine caste and communicates both its joys and pitfalls – domestic, economic and spiritual – in their daily lives.

Drawing its title from a poem by the renowned Nepali poet Lekhnath Paudyal, which depicts the monsoon season as sublime and blissful, “joyous from start to finish,” filmmaker Stephanie Spray captures the melancholy and grit of two strong-willed female field hands (passengers in Spray and Velez’ Manakamana) as they carry out their arduous routines; a deeply felt reflection on labor, gender, and fleeting pleasures in rural Nepal.

A short documentary that captures the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, The Yellow Bank takes you on a contemplative boat ride across the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China. The film uses the eclipse as a catalyst to explore the way weather, light, and sound affect the urban architectural environment during this extremely rare phenomenon.

In northeastern China, the Songhua River has for generations served as a vital center – for leisure, commerce, and most importantly, drinking water – for the people of Harbin. Filmed only one year after a major chemical spill in its waters, Songhua depicts the enduring and complex relationship between the city’s residents and their "mother river," and considers the environmental implications of the waterway’s condition.

Focusing on a vast demolition site in the center of Chengdu, the Sichuan capital in western China, a bustling site emblematic of the rapid growth and development occurring throughout the country, J.P. Sniadecki’s Demolition is a wonderfully patient and revealing portrait of the migrant laborers who work and live in its shadow.

Filmed in an unofficial Palestinian Bedouin camp that was established in 1948 on a stretch of beach in South Lebanon, Terrace of the Sea uses a collection of family photographs taken over three generations as a prism through which to reflect on memory, loss and history.

"The Arab governments pushed us out of our homes… I was twelve years old… I’ve been here for 60 years." A beautiful, poignant, documentary, Still Life examines the effect a collection of personal photos showing life in Palestine before the 1948 displacement have on an elderly Palestinian fisherman living in exile in Lebanon.

What happens to female artists once they become mothers? A heartfelt exploration of how motherhood affects and impinges on one's creative life, Come Worry With Us! follows violinist Jessica Moss and singer/guitarist Efrim Menuck, founding member of the revered Montreal band, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, as the couple attempts to integrate their young son into their lifestyle.

Joaquim Pinto has been an instrumental figure in Portuguese cinema for over 30 years, as a director of his own films, or producer and sound designer for other renowned filmmakers. In What Now? Remind Me Pinto, who has been living with HIV, looks back at his life in cinema, at his friendships and loves, and at the mysteries of art and nature.