Translating History to Screen

Night and Fog

1959

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Film for Blind Poet

2012

Glauco Mattoso, a blind sadomasochistic poet, agrees to participate in a documentary about his own life, but the conditions he imposes raise difficulties to the work of the young director.

The Spirit of the Tsilqot'in People is Hovering over the Supreme Court

2023

The Tŝilhqot’in Nation is represented by six communities in the stunningly beautiful interior of British Columbia. Surrounded by mountains and rivers, the Tŝilhqot’in People have cared for this territory for millennia. With increasing external pressures from natural-resource extraction companies, the communities mobilized in the early 21st century to assert their rightful title to their lands. Following a decision by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2007 that only partially acknowledged their claim, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation’s plight was heard in the Supreme Court of Canada. In a historic decision in 2014, the country’s highest court ruled what the Tŝilhqot’in have long asserted: that they alone have full title to their homelands.

Second Place

2012

One of several Kevin Jerome Everson pieces regarding African-American rodeo riders, SECOND PLACE brings us inside the big show. The jerkily pixilated view of a bucking bull offers an aesthetic equivalent of the cowboy's wild ride while the film's silence lends an unexpected repose to the contest. Whether anticipating a bull's blasting out of the gate or watching an old hand stretch out his back, Everson's camera is ever-attentive to the action at the edge of the frame. - Max Goldberg

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

1895

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

Larisa

1980

Elem Klimov's documentary ode to his wife, director Larisa Shepitko, who was killed in an auto wreck.

Julieta

2006

The life and times of the mexican pianist Julieta García Rello, as told by her granddaughter.

Passing

2015

A short documentary profiling the lives of three transgender Black men, exploring what life is like living as a Black man when no one knows you are transgender, and their journeys with gender in the years since they transitioned.

Brasilia, Contradictions of a New City

1968

In 1967, de Andrade was invited by the Italian company Olivetti to produce a documentary on the new Brazilian capital city of Brasília. Constructed during the latter half of the 1950s and founded in 1960, the city was part of an effort to populate Brazil’s vast interior region and was to be the embodiment of democratic urban planning, free from the class divisions and inequalities that characterize so many metropolises. Unsurprisingly, Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova (Brasília, Contradictions of a New City, 1968) revealed Brasília to be utopic only for the wealthy, replicating the same social problems present in every Brazilian city. (Senses of Cinema)

Die Todeszeche

1930

Bad Boy of Bonsai

2022

Bad Boy of Bonsai is an experimental art-house documentary that focuses on Guy Guidry, a Louisiana local, and his passion for bonsai.

Fittan brinner - livet med vestibulit

2019

The Voice of Hollywood

1930

The Voice of Hollywood hosted by Pat O'Brien. Features Joan Blondell, Robert Montgomery, Elissa Landi, Warner Baxter, and the coronation of Mary Pickford as "Queen of the Arts." It is not currently clear which number in the series this is because it isn't on IMDB or any listing).

The Sixth Side of the Pentagon

1968

On October 21, 1967, over 100,000 protestors gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam. It was the largest protest gathering yet, and it brought together a wide cross-section of liberals, radicals, hippies, and Yippies. Che Guevara had been killed in Bolivia only two weeks previously, and, for many, it was the transition from simply marching against the war, to taking direct action to try to stop the 'American war machine.' Norman Mailer wrote about the events in Armies of the Night. French filmmaker Chris Marker, leading a team of filmmakers, was also there.

The Mutability of All Things and the Possibility of Changing Some

2011

The Mutability of All Things and the Possibility of Changing Some explores our human adaptability in light of catastrophe by way of seminal literature passages implying a transitory social body.