The Lovers and the Despot

Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.

The Film Parade

Pioneer filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton was intrigued by the idea of a film about the history of the movies as early as 1915. He finally released a 52-minute feature called The Film Parade that was shown in New York and favorably reviewed by "Variety" in 1933. He continued tinkering with the film for the rest of the decade, and later filmmakers and distributors used Blackton's footage for stock or to produce their own variously titled and truncated versions. -UCLA Film & Television Archive

L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Díky, pane Kříženecký

Chambre 999

In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”

Kim Novak, l'âme rebelle d'Hollywood

Kim Novak never dreamed on being a star, but she became one. Most famous for her enigmatic performance in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), the Chicago-born actress never quite fitted into the Hollywood mould and wanted to do things her own way.

Silent Britain

Long treated with indifference by critics and historians, British silent cinema has only recently undergone the reevaluation it has long deserved, revealing it to be far richer than previously acknowledged. This documentary, featuring clips from a remarkable range of films, celebrates the early years of British filmmaking and spans from such pioneers as George Albert Smith and Cecil Hepworth to such later figures as Anthony Asquith, Maurice Elvey and, of course, Alfred Hitchcock.

La Société du spectacle

Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.

Mario Camus según el cine

A look at the life and work of Spanish filmmaker Mario Camus (1935-2021).

Victor Fleming: Master Craftsman

A documentary on the life and career of Victor Fleming, director of such iconic movies as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.

Hot Dog... The Documentary

Feature-length documentary on the making of HOT DOG... THE MOVIE.

Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade

An account of the life and work of American film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), a tortured artist whose genius and inner demons changed the Western genre forever.

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

Porno & Libertà

Italy, 1970. An increasing legion of harmless warriors begins a peaceful struggle for sexual freedom through pornography, shaking and shocking religious authorities and conservative political institutions. They are ironic, happy, crazy. They are dreamers, defenders of definitive communion between body and soul. But they were censored and humiliated. They were mistreated and arrested for demanding loud a new cultural renaissance.

Auge in Auge - Eine deutsche Filmgeschichte

This is not merely another film about cinema history; it is a film about the love of cinema, a journey of discovery through over a century of German film history. Ten people working in film today remember their favourite films of yesteryear.

La meglio gioventù

After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.

The Skywalker Legacy

The story lives forever in this feature-length documentary that charts the making of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Un monde obèse

As obesity progresses inexorably, Sylvie Gilman and Thierry de Lestrade investigate the causes of this planetary plague and reveal the fight waged in certain countries to stem it.

« La Planète des singes » : une odyssée de l'espèce

Since its release in 1968, Planet of the Apes, the masterful film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Charlton Heston, and its subsequent sequels have asked its viewers challenging questions about contemporary society under the guise of a bold science fiction saga: a fascinating look at a hugely successful pop culture phenomenon.

Marlon Brando, un acteur nommé désir

In his early days as an actor, Marlon Brando (1924-2004) was a shy young man with theatrical ambitions, like many others; but his charisma and superb acting skills made him truly unique, so that the doors to the starry sky of Hollywood opened for him. However, his peculiar manners, political commitment and complicated love life always overshadowed his artistic success.