Merton: A Film Biography

In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.

Henry Miller Is Not Dead

In this artistic exploration of the life and work of writer Henry Miller, filmmaker Joe Kishton skillfully weaves clips of films and interviews of Miller with the music of Laurie Anderson. From Miller himself we hear of his difficult relationship with his parents, and of his need to create, even (or especially) when his message abrades social mores.

Big Boss

The story of 95-year-old Aboriginal elder Laurie Baymarrwangga and her work to maintain the language and cultural traditions of the Yan-nhangu people of Murrungga.

In My Own Words

The raw, heartfelt and often funny journey of adult Aboriginal students and their teachers as they discover the transformative power of reading and writing for the first time.

José Emilio Pacheco: me llamo Nadie

Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive

How the inventor of the detective story became his own greatest mystery.

Dum spiro spero

Well-known Croatian author Pero Kvesić, who has been struggling with a severe lung disease, documents his death from his own point of view. Recording his everyday struggle, the picture resembles a peculiar blog filled with self-irony and witty comments about life and death. Although the world around continues to shrink, the hero and the director in one does not cease to fill it with sense.

Thomas Hardy: A Haunted Man

Drama documentary from 1978 exploring the private feelings of novelist Thomas Hardy through the poems of love and remorse that he wrote after the death of his first wife, Emma.

Echt Herman Koch

A portrait about the Dutch writer Herman Koch. Koch started his career with the popular TV-show 'Jiskefet' and went on to become the best selling and most translated writer from the Netherlands

Raul Brandão was a Great Writer...

This film is an attempt to disclose if Raul Brandão has left any trace, in Nespereira, Gumarães.

I Am Alfred Hitchcock

Interviews and archival footage weave together to tell the story of the Master of Suspense, one of the most influential and studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.

Edgar Allan Poe - Amerikas abgründiger Pop-Poet

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous American authors. And probably the most abysmal. In his texts, he deals with the dark side of humanity like no other. And was himself scarred by this throughout his life. The writer not only shaped the genres of horror literature and science fiction novels, but today seems more popular than ever.

The Art of Incarceration

Narrated by Uncle Jack Charles and seen through the eyes of Indigenous prisoners at Victoria’s Fulham Correctional Centre, this documentary explores how art and culture can empower Australia's First Nations people to transcend their unjust cycles of imprisonment.

The Capote Tapes

A portrait of the brilliant American writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and the New York high society of his time.

Back to the Brickworks

In the 1800s, brickmaking was one of the largest manufacturing industries in Australia. Hoffman's Brickworks in Brunswick, Victoria, was a leader of this industry, running for 133 years and fostering a strong union. Indeed Hoffman's was the birthplace of the Brickmaker's Union in Victoria. In this film, director Grant Hobson covers the final week of operation of this historic site, in December 1993. He interviews the union representatives and the close family of workers, some of whom he is able to reunite in May 2010 on the site. It is a nostalgic reflection on the heyday and demise of brickmaking in Victoria, as well as capturing the colourful personalities that illustrate the post-war migrant experience in relation to work and settling in Melbourne.

Arthur Miller: Writer

One of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, Arthur Miller created such celebrated works as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, which continue to move audiences around the world today. He also made headlines for being targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy Era and entering into a tumultuous marriage with Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe. Told from the unique perspective of his daughter, filmmaker Rebecca Miller, Arthur Miller: Writer is an illuminating portrait that combines interviews spanning decades and a wealth of personal archival material, and provides new insights into Miller’s life as an artist and exploring his character in all its complexity.

Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold

Griffin Dunne’s years-in-the-making documentary portrait of his aunt Joan Didion moves with the spirit of her uncannily lucid writing: the film simultaneously expands and zeroes in, covering a vast stretch of turbulent cultural history with elegance and candor.

The Bowraville Murders

The epic David vs Goliath battle for justice waged by the families of three Aboriginal children murdered in a small rural town 30 years ago, the system that failed them, and what it reveals about racism in Australia today.

Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space

Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore.

Full Tilt Boogie

A documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and the people who made it.