In Bern, Madame Mercedes has been working for 35 years in her car as a prostitute. An intimate and subtle portrait about ageing as a prostitute, a documentary about a vanishing chapter of habits in Switzerland.
Social & External
The people behind it
Sylvia Leiser
Martha Wigger
Ernst Jost
Planned as the filmic documentation of a journey to find the last nomadic shamans in East Siberia, the film instead captures the failed search for these people, who settled down ages ago.
Louis stays with the residents of a soon to open brothel in Nevada for a few weeks.
Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.
This documentary looks back on a career of a woman who, very early on, refused to accept the roles assigned to her. In the 1980s, while others were trying to please, she wrote "Les hommes préfèrent les grosses" (Men Prefer Fat Women), a manifesto ahead of its time, funny, feminist, and blunt. Later, with "Gazon maudit" (Damned Grass), she tackled homosexuality with a freedom that is still shocking today.
In turn, the medical community has been affected by the post #metoo movement denouncing sexual violence against women. It was about time. Assaults and rapes perpetrated behind closed doors in doctors' offices have gone unpunished for too long. For a victim, reporting them is almost as difficult as recounting incidents of incest. And the medical councils, which are mainly made up of men, have long turned a deaf ear to patients' complaints. When cases are brought before the courts, the justice system also struggles to prosecute these rapists. Recently, practices and names have been made public, complaints are multiplying, and women are daring to speak out. Could this be the end of complacency towards these criminals in white coats?
Zurich-born Hugo Koblet was the first international cycling star of the post-war period. He was a stylist on the bicycle and in life, and a huge heartthrob. Koblet had a meteoric rise and won the Giro d'Italia in 1950. Once he had reached the zenith of his career, Koblet was put under pressure by overly ambitious officials and ended up ruining his health with drugs. In 1954, he married a well-known model and they became a celebrity dream couple. After his athletic career ended, Koblet began to lose his footing. Threatened by bankruptcy, he crashed his Alfa into a tree.
He was born different, and chose to become unique. Becoming Lucky Love follows how Luc Bruyère turned his “flaw” into strength and his life into an act of creation. Born without his left arm, he faced the violence of people’s gaze from childhood, sinking into shame and self-destruction. “I was born homosexual, without a left arm — I didn’t fit what a man was expected to be: a figure without nuance, categorical,” Luc confides. Instead of giving up, he chose to transform himself and become what he had always dreamed of: a singer and performer. With his angelic face and magnetic presence, nothing seems to resist him — yet his blazing loves and excesses marked him deeply. Now, on the verge of turning 30, he looks back without filters. Becoming Lucky Love paints the portrait of an avant-garde, captivating outsider who proves that destiny can be endlessly reinvented through strength, poetry, and self-invention.
“Namibia Crossings” takes a trip through a country of archaic beauty and bizarre contradictions. The film creates polyphonies of soulful landscapes made up of each individual's highs and lows.
While everyone wants to die "at home" without suffering and surrounded by loved ones, in reality almost everyone dies in hospital. What healthcare provisions enable people to die at home? Are we all equal in terms of the support we receive, regardless of where we live? Young caregivers in a home hospitalization unit drive day and night along the Alabaster Coast. From house to house, from dying person to dying person. Accompanying a dying person at home also means accompanying their loved ones, immersing oneself for a few days or weeks in the intimacy of a family history. Thanks to them, the end of life returns to the home, to the family, and is rehumanized.
Once upon a time there was a morning, noon, evening and night when the inseparable shadows of man told us about memory... Interview with Ousmane Sow, life sculptor, for the first part of a series entitled Black Memory.
This feature documentary is a profile of Canadian press tycoon Roy Thomson, whose single-minded attention to business brought him riches, power, and even a baronetcy in England. A native of Timmins, Ontario, Thomson had a tremendous career as publisher, television magnate, financier, and owner of many newspapers, including leading London dailies. The film is a frank study of an equally frank man.
Christine’s father died when she was still a small child, and she remained in the care of her sadistic mother, who beat her and abused her psychologically. Christine is still convinced that her mother hid a farewell letter from her beloved father. Jean’s father committed suicide several years ago, and left behind a lengthy letter, but Jean never found the courage to read it. Together, Christine and Jean embark on a unique road trip across the French countryside to visit Christine’s mother, and try to confront the past.
A woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.
The evolution of adult cinema through the most influential films in history, a journey that begins in the 1970s and ends nowadays. An in-depth analysis of the success of the most prestigious erotic films, their impact on industry and society, and their influence on cinema and contemporary culture.
Get up close and personal with 16 of the most successful women in the adult film industry as they shed their clothes for an intimate photo shoot with director Deborah Anderson. As questions are asked, personal stories about their lives are revealed, from why they chose the business of sex to how they got into it in the first place. These porn stars have always been discreet about their private lives in the past, yet Anderson has a way of opening up a dialog allowing them to share more than just their naked skin on screen. Their true inner vulnerability is touching, yet the characters they have created are confident and intoxicating. Once you hear their stories, you'll never look at them in the same way again.
A first-ever look at the realities of the professional “amateur” porn world and the steady stream of 18-to-19-year old girls entering into it.
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”
Documentary sequel that offers a close-up look into the personal lives of the legendary porn stars who've survived the test of time and influenced popular culture. Blends rare interviews with erotic clips and additional appearances by Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Soderbergh and a host of adult stars, directors and trendsetters.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
From a prolific career in film and television, Anton Yelchin left an indelible legacy as an actor. Through his journals and other writings, his photography, the original music he wrote, and interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues, this film looks not just at Anton's impressive career, but at a broader portrait of the man.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
Aileen Wuornos remains a rarity: a female serial killer. From childhood abuse to death-row revelations, this documentary revisits her life and crimes.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
The definitive documentary on the history of nudity in feature films from the early silent days to the present, studying the changes in morality that led to the use of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that shaped that history. Skin will also study the gender inequality in presenting nude images in motion pictures and will follow the revolution that has created nude gender equality in feature films today.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
In 1997, Louis Theroux made a documentary about the world of male porn performers in Los Angeles. 15 years later, he returns to find a business struggling with the deluge of free porn on the internet. Louis revisits some of the original programme's contributors as well as meeting the latest crop of porn performers dreaming of porn stardom.
SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.
Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity
Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.
In her own words, through personal video and diaries, Pamela Anderson shares the story of her rise to fame, rocky romances and infamous sex tape scandal.