Documentary film on events that happened on August 28th in African-American history, shown at the Smithsonian African-American History Museum.
Social & External
The people behind it
Don Cheadle
Self
Regina King
Angela Bassett
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Lupita Nyong'o
David Oyelowo
Michael Ealy
André Holland
Glynn Turman
Martin Luther King Jr.
Self (archive footage)
In 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, Film Journal No. 1 was released in Sarajevo. Fifty years later, after the collapse of the Communist bloc, this newsreel was lost in the confusion of the fighting in Yugoslavia. In Journal No. 1 Hito Steyerl attempts to find out how the footage got lost and what was on this document from the Sutjeska studio. In the simultaneous projection of Journal No. 1 the ‘unattainability of an historical zero hour of the national identity’ takes concrete form: The lost newsreel reports on a literacy campaign as well as Muslim women confidently removing their headscarves. We listen however to eyewitnesses trying to recapture the lost content and we see the artist Arman Kulasic making a number of drawings that resemble the story-boards for the lost film. What appears to be moments of great change remain limited by subjective and uncertain memory. The film was premiered at documenta 12.
Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.
A pioneering film from Tunisia, Fatma 75 is the first non-fiction film by a Tunisian woman, a feminist essay film, and the first in a series of powerful films about strong female figures in the country. The film was made in the UN International Women's Year 1975, and has long been recognised as one of the most important films from North Africa, but has never officially been seen before due to censorship.
As a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released Keyboard Fantasies in Huntsville, Ontario back in 1986. Recorded in an Atari-powered home-studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folk-electronica hybrid, a sound realized far before its time. Three decades on, the musician – now Glenn Copeland – began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered.
"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.
A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques.
When her mother remarries and her newly blended family moves to Canada, a 9-year-old Tunisia girl's life takes a profound turn as she struggles to find her place and maintain her Muslim identity in a new land.
A short documentary following the launch of the first trial to use Coca-Cola's crates and distribution know-how to deliver life-saving anti-diarrhea kits in Zambia.
After five years studying in Paris, Arash has not adjusted to life there and has decided to return to Iran to live. Hoping to change his mind, his two friends Hossein and Ashkan convince him to take a last trip through France.
For First Nations communities, the headdress bears significant meaning. It's a powerful symbol of hard-earned leadership and responsibility. As filmmaker JJ Neepin prepares to wear her grandfather's headdress for a photo shoot she reflects on lessons learned and the thoughtless ways in which the tradition has been misappropriated.
Chuck Close, an astounding portrait of one of the world's leading contemporary painters, was one of two parting gifts (her second is a film on Louise Bourgeois) from Marion Cajori, a filmmaker who died recently, and before her time. With editing completed by filmmaker Ken Kobland, Chuck Close lives the life and work of a man who has reinvented portraiture. Close photographs his subjects, blows up the image to gigantic proportions, divides it into a detailed grid and then uses a complex set of colors and patterning to reconstruct each face.
“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.
During the ill-fated Hungarian revolution of 1956, Karcsi Szabo, star player on the water polo team, is torn between his love for a revolutionary student and his training for the Melbourne Olympics.
In 1928, Lady Heath became the first person to fly solo from Cape Town to London. Eighty-five years later, Tracey Curtis-Taylor set out in a vintage biplane to fly that adventure again. Following Tracey as she retraces the journey, The Aviatrix is more than just a film about the rapture of flying – it’s a story about living life on your own terms and having the courage and determination to realise your greatest dreams.
This short film displays the dynamic movement of people as they enter and exit parks in Paris.
Construed in the time of running clouds, a panoramic and another examination of vacant buildings on the British shore (Orford Ness), a deserted place on Earth, place of non-specificity as a base for an open course of events that shape the sense, consisting in interaction between the image and the viewer.
Buddhist monks open up about the joys and challenges of living out the precepts of the Buddha as a full-time vocation. Controversies swirling within modern monastic Buddhism are examined, from celibacy and the role of women to racism and concerns about the environment.
The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.
Eleven-year-old New York City public school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves and their world along the way. Told from their candid, sometimes humorous perspectives, these kids are transformed, from reluctant participants to determined competitors, from typical urban kids to "ladies and gentlemen," on their way to try to compete in the final citywide competition.
The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.
Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.
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.
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).
Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.
Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.
This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
This documentary chronicles Johnny Cash's 1970 visit to the White House, where Cash's emerging liberal ideals clashed with Richard Nixon's policies.
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
Stars of "The Walking Dead," Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, walk down memory lane and visit iconic locations where pivotal moments between their characters, Rick and Michonne, were filmed.
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.
The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.
The definitive 3½-hour documentary about the troubled creation and enduring legacy of the science fiction classic 'Blade Runner', culled from 80 interviews and hours of never-before-seen outtakes and lost footage.
The evolution of the depiction of the various Native American peoples in cinema, from the silent era to the present day: how their image on the screen has changed the way to understand their history and culture.
Home movies, photographs, and recited poetry illustrate the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the most beloved, revolutionary, and volatile hip-hop MCs of all time.
A documentary on the modeling industry's 'supply chain' between Siberia, Japan, and the U.S., told through the experiences of the scouts, agencies, and a 13-year-old model.
In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.
