Merton: A Film Biography

In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.

Henry Miller Is Not Dead

In this artistic exploration of the life and work of writer Henry Miller, filmmaker Joe Kishton skillfully weaves clips of films and interviews of Miller with the music of Laurie Anderson. From Miller himself we hear of his difficult relationship with his parents, and of his need to create, even (or especially) when his message abrades social mores.

Antonio. El bailarín de España

Elmore Leonard: "But Don't Try to Write"

Elmore Leonard, author of more than 40 novels, is renowned in the literary community. From his westerns and early novels of crime based in Detroit and South Florida, right through his complex and virtually plotless later work, Elmore Leonard dissected an America whose founding sins have continued to haunt it all the days. Leonard’s depiction of America is as real as Twain’s Hannibal, Faulkner’s Mississippi and Steinbeck’s Monterey. The new documentary ELMORE LEONARD: “But don’t try to write” explores the prolific author’s legacy and his influence on generations of writers. The documentary features exclusive images and previously unseen home movie footage, family photographs, and in-depth interviews with both literary experts and those who knew him well, including colleagues, family, and childhood friends.

Thomas Hardy: A Haunted Man

Drama documentary from 1978 exploring the private feelings of novelist Thomas Hardy through the poems of love and remorse that he wrote after the death of his first wife, Emma.

Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive

How the inventor of the detective story became his own greatest mystery.

Dum spiro spero

Well-known Croatian author Pero Kvesić, who has been struggling with a severe lung disease, documents his death from his own point of view. Recording his everyday struggle, the picture resembles a peculiar blog filled with self-irony and witty comments about life and death. Although the world around continues to shrink, the hero and the director in one does not cease to fill it with sense.

José Emilio Pacheco: me llamo Nadie

Flora

A metacinematic reflection on the nature of representation and the ongoing drug war in Mexico, Nicolás Pereda’s Flora revisits locations and scenes from the mainstream 2010 narco-comedy El Infierno, exploring the paradoxes of depicting narco-trafficking on film—its tendency both to romanticize and to obscure. To screen is both to project and to conceal.

Tolkien – Die wahre Geschichte der Ringe

An analysis of the sources of inspiration that fed the imagination of the British writer, poet and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), great master of epic fantasy.

Guadalupe: Madre de la Humanidad

No mother has ever been as tender and powerful as the Virgin Mary who appeared to the Mexican Indian Juan Diego 500 years ago. Today, more than ever, Our Lady of Guadalupe shows her tenderness and power in so many places around the world. What seemed impossible happened. Why? Who made it possible? What secrets does the "Tilma" hold? Are these miraculous stories true? Thrilling historical reenactments take us to experience the apparitions as if we were actually there. Shocking testimonies from people in Mexico, the United States and other countries, add a universal dimension to Mary's crucial message. They reveal to us how the irresistible love of the Mother of God and of Humanity consoles and heals the wounds of the hearts of those who turn to Her.

The Capote Tapes

A portrait of the brilliant American writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and the New York high society of his time.

Echt Herman Koch

A portrait about the Dutch writer Herman Koch. Koch started his career with the popular TV-show 'Jiskefet' and went on to become the best selling and most translated writer from the Netherlands

Raul Brandão era um grande escritor...

This film is an attempt to disclose if Raul Brandão has left any trace, in Nespereira, Gumarães.

Edgar Allan Poe - Amerikas abgründiger Pop-Poet

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous American authors. And probably the most abysmal. In his texts, he deals with the dark side of humanity like no other. And was himself scarred by this throughout his life. The writer not only shaped the genres of horror literature and science fiction novels, but today seems more popular than ever.

I Am Alfred Hitchcock

Interviews and archival footage weave together to tell the story of the Master of Suspense, one of the most influential and studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.

Le Cerveau d'Hugo

The Hugo's Brain is a French documentary-drama about autism. The documentary crosses authentic autistic stories with a fiction story about the life of an autistic (Hugo), from childhood to adulthood, portraying his difficulties and his handicap.

Moa Martinson - Landsmodern

Documentary about Moa Martinson.

Brontë Country: The Story of Emily, Charlotte & Anne Brontë

Travel back to Victorian Britain and wander the cobbled streets of Haworth to the sites that inspired the great Brontë sisters’ classic novels.

Philip Roth Unleashed

After Portnoy's Complaint launched him as a new literary voice, not to mention a scandalous one, Philip Roth went on to be hailed by many as America's greatest living writer. Never afraid to look hard at the extremes of human experience, he has been both consistently controversial and intensely private. But now, having celebrated his 80th birthday in his home town of Newark, New Jersey, Roth, in conversation with Alan Yentob, is ready to tell the whole story in this special two-part film for imagine... Philip Roth Unleashed.