The Horror of It All

A collection of film clips from horror movies and interviews with the actors and directors who made them.

تخته سياه

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

Ouaga Girls

A group of young women from Ouagadougou study at a girl school to become auto mechanics. The classmates become their port of safety, joy and sisterhood, all while they are going through the life changing transition into becoming adults in a country boiling with political changes. In a country with youth unemployment at 52 percent, jobs are a hot issue. The young girls at a mechanics school in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou are right in the middle of a crucial point in life when their dreams, hopes and courage are confronted with opinions, fears and society’s expectations of what a woman should be. Using interesting narrative solutions, Theresa Traore Dahlberg depicts their last school years and at the same time succeeds in showing the country’s violent past and present. This is a feature-film debut and coming-of-age film with much warmth, laughs, heartbreak and depth.

Saroyanland

Saroyanland is a docu-drama focusing on the journey of famous writer William Saroyan to the birthplace of his Armenian family Bitlis, in Turkey in 1964. While retaking the same road, the film aims to understand Saroyan's unique attitude to belonging, witnessing the self-discovery of a man who followed the traces of his Armenian ancestors.

Don't Breathe

Don’t Breathe is a dark comedy set in Georgia that follows the tribulations of a middle-aged man, Levan, who is suddenly led to question his existence because of a routine medical examination. It sends him into a downward spiral of paranoia and doubt as he fumbles his way through the theatre of the absurd that we call life. Using humour and a playful tone, the film examines the fragility of human nature, when our bearings get lost and our imagination takes over, highlighting our common fears, doubts, hopes and resilience.

Le cinéma dans l'oeil de Magnum

The film tells the story of the intimate and unprecedented encounter between the photojournalists of the Magnum Agency and the world of cinema. The confrontation of two seemingly opposite worlds – fiction and reality. For 70 years their paths crossed: a family of photographers, amongst them the biggest names in photography, and a family of actors and filmmakers who helped write the history of cinema, from John Huston to Marilyn Monroe to Orson Welles, Kate Winslet and Sean Penn.

Portobello Road Market

Find bric-a-brac and trinkets galore in this vividly colourful snapshot of Portobello Road Market.

Ma'a al-Fidda

Shot by a reported “1,001 Syrians” according to the filmmakers, SILVERED WATER, SYRIA SELF-PORTRAIT impressionistically documents the destruction and atrocities of the civil war through a combination of eye-witness accounts shot on mobile phones and posted to the internet, and footage shot by Bedirxan during the siege of Homs. Bedirxan, an elementary school teacher in Homs, had contacted Mohammed online to ask him what he would film, if he was there. Mohammed, working in forced exile in Paris, is tormented by feelings of cowardice as he witnesses the horrors from afar, and the self-reflexive film also chronicles how he is haunted in his dreams by a Syrian boy once shot to death for snatching his camera on the street.

Dagny - livet börjar vid hundra

She has been called the world's oldest blogger. This film is about a very energetic 103-year old, Dagny Carlsson.

De mère en fille

Documents a woman's actual pregnancy; the emotions, the affects on her husband and first-born child, the birth itself via Caesarean section, and her struggle to return to work and a social life, while still being a good mother.

The Satanic Verses Affair

Twenty years ago, novelist Salman Rushdie was a wanted man with a million pound bounty on his head. His novel, The Satanic Verses, had sparked riots across the Muslim world. The ailing religious leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, had invoked a little-known religious opinion - a fatwa - and effectively sentenced Rushdie to death. This film looks back on the extraordinary events which followed the publication of the book and the ten year campaign to get the fatwa lifted. Interviews with Rushdie's friends and family and testimony from leaders of Britain's Muslim community and the Government reveal the inside story of the affair.

Fumando Espero

Mountain

An epic cinematic and musical collaboration between SHERPA filmmaker Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, that explores humankind's fascination with high places.

Fort McCoy

Unable to serve in World War II because of a heart condition, a barber moves his family adjacent to a Wisconsin army base and prisoner-of-war camp to provide his services. But even in rural America -- far from the frontline -- the war finds victims.

Seven Rivers Walking - Haere Mārire

Documentary about the degraded rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand.

The Fighting Cholitas

The Fighting Cholitas is a documentary short about a group of bold and fierce female Bolivian wrestlers. These indigenous Indian women jump into the ring every Sunday in their traditional vibrant mulitlayered skirts and perform the acrobatic maneuvers of Lucha Libre (a blend of Mexican and American professional wrestling). The Fighting Cholitas documents this weekly fight and goes behind the scenes to find out who these women are and what draws them to this unusual sport.

Cinétracts

A series of 43 documentary shorts, directed (without credit) by several famous French filmmakers and each running between two and four minutes. Each "tract" espouses a leftist political viewpoint through the filmed depiction of real-life events, including workers' strikes and the events of Paris in May '68.

Celebration at Big Sur

Star-studded show recorded at the Big Sur Folk Festival, Big Sur, California, September 13th and 14th, 1969. Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, John Sebastian, and others. This film captures a remarkable moment in folk, rock, and pop history - the famous folk festival that brought traditional acts like Dorothy Morrison & The Combs Sisters and Carol Ann Cisneros together with the psychedelic rockers of the day who were most deeply rooted in the folk revival. Older songs like ‘Oh Happy Day,’ ‘Rise And Shine,’ ‘All God’s Children,’ and ‘Swing Down, Sweet Chariot’ meet Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock,’ Joan Baez’s ‘Sweet Sir Galahad,’ ‘Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released,’ CSNY’s ‘Down By The River,’ and many more of the now-classic songs of what was then called the ‘new rock.’ The scene is notably intimate and - aside from one fan’s dustup with Stephen Stills - mellow, with many rare, close-up moments with the stars.

The Future Is Rotten

A secret culture of foragers hunt the Matsutake, a coveted Japanese mushroom worth up to $1,000 a pound—although its true value lies underground as a brilliant networker and healer of ruined landscapes. The Matsutake might just be our last, best hope for an American forest system run amok.

Will Eisner: Profissão Cartunista

Documentary that explores the long and remarkable career of Will Eisner, a pioneering cartoonist whose work continues to have an impact on pop culture around the world. Includes interviews with Ann Eisner, Art Spiegelman, Bill Sienkiewicz, Denis Kitchen, Jerry Robinson, Angeli, Maurício de Souza, Ziraldo, Jano, François Schuiten and many other artists.