De weg naar het zuiden

Johan 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.

Delphine et Carole, insoumuses

In the 70s, actress Delphine Seyrig and director Carole Roussopoulos, both militant feminists, were the pioneers of video activism in France. They documented the demonstrations of French feminists and used the new technologies to counter the poor representation of women in the public media.

Der Imker

A documentary about Ibrahim Gezer, who escaped from war in Kurdistan to Switzerland. All is lost, except his love for beekeeping.

Daniel Schmid: Le Chat Qui Pense

When director Daniel Schmid grew up, his parents ran a hotel in the Alps, and this singular setting was to influence his film. Rather by coincidence he came to Berlin in the early 1960s and became part of the new German wave. Schmid worked with, among others, Wenders and Fassbinder, for example as an actor in Wender’s The American Friend. He met Ingrid Caven, who was to play a diva in several of his films. This is a documentation of a part of modern European film history and a good analysis of artistry and how it corresponds to the individual behind the camera. A wealth of archival footage brings us close to many directors and actors in Schmid’s circle. If you’ve never seen a Daniel Schmid film, you are sure to want to after watching this portrait of his life.

Gare du Nord : La Plus Grande Gare d'Europe

This Is Sparklehorse

An comprehensive look at the life and music of Mark Linkous, a influential figure in the alternative music scene. Critically-acclaimed Linkous had a dramatic life that saw him battle with drug and alcohol addiction, paralysis, and debilitating depression that resulted in his eventual suicide. Mark's music was heralded by his peers and critics; a mix of delicate pop, discordant punk and melodic odyssey; it has been described as defiantly surrealist with all manner of references to smiling babies, organ music, birds, and celestial bodies. The film mines Marks life and music and navigates the sacrifices and highs and lows of his art.

Notre-Dame: Our Lady of Paris

This ABC documentary special provides a detailed look into the disastrous fire that ravaged Paris' revered Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019. Firsthand accounts of firefighters, clergy, local officials and those who were inside the cathedral on April 15, 2019, as well as harrowing footage from within the inferno, tell the story of the fire watched around the world.

Ne travaille pas (1968-2018)

A year in the life of Elsa Michaud and Gabriel Gauthier, students of Fine Arts in Paris, lovers in troubled times, overwhelmed by maddening verbal and auditory stimuli, witnesses of a globalized violence more visible than ever in a chaotic digital era, in which the slow execution of simple gestures in a silent performance is an act of resistance.

TGV Paris-Bordeaux, la ligne de tous les records

Comme des lions de pierre à l'entrée de la nuit

Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

Gewalt von links — Eine Bewegung zwischen Protest und Terror

Leftist extremist groups operating in Europe have chosen violence as a political tactic: they attack the right-wing parties offices, attack the police, provoke riots in demonstrations. Although leftist violence is increasing, it receives almost no public attention. An investigation into the alleged good violence exercised in the name of a supposedly just cause.

James Baldwin Abroad

Showcasing three short films by American writer James Baldwin, wherein he muses about race, sexuality and civil rights, among other topics, in Istanbul, Paris and Great Britain.

Illégitime

Rendez-vous with Maurice Chevalier

French artist Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972), a legend of stage and screen, was an accomplished singer, actor and entertainer, who embodied the charm of his native Paris throughout a decades-long career that brought him fame in Europe and America and left for show business history a vast repertoire of masterful classic songs and captivating film performances.

Les Trésors du Paris haussmannien

Balifilm

Balifilm was originally commissioned as a stage performance, created from diary images and sounds collected in 1990 and 1992 by Peter Mettler on the island of Bali. The soundtrack is a live recording of eight Gamelan musicians playing the bronze and wooden instruments of Indonesia during the projection of the film. balifilm is a personal, lyrical observation and expression of the creative pulse of an extraordinary culture.

Life After People

In this special documentary that inspired a two-season television series, scientists and other experts speculate about what the Earth, animal life, and plant life might be like if, suddenly, humanity no longer existed, as well as the effect humanity's disappearance might have on the artificial aspects of civilization.

Er nannte sich Surava

Hans Werner hirsch aka Surava was a journalist. He wrote about the deportation of French jews, and the Swiss government chased him because the Swiss government was Nazi-friendly. The Swiss intelligence service (Bundespolizei) knew him as a "communist jew". In fact, he worked for a left newspaper, but he wasn't a jew. Surava took his courage to write about the "censored" inhumanity in Europe.

Oil Rocks: City Above the Sea

Paris top secret

The underworld (imaginary and real) of Paris, depicted through several sketches. Kaleidoscope of the immoral and nauseating aspects of the capital.