Roving Mars

Like a Spiral

September 2024 •French

Like a Spiral is a dialogue between Beirut and five women, migrant domestic workers, under the Kafala system. Expressing their belonging to a society in collapse, the women's voices rise through the film's grainy images to denounce their stolen freedom with an inalienable thirst for existence. Their memories dance in the rhythm of oppression. Caught within life's spiral, they lift themselves up to not sink into oblivion.

The Unfinished Journey

December 1999 •English

A short about American life and history produced for the millennium New Year's Eve celebration.

Birdman

July 2015 •English

A portrait of Robert, a troubled but poetic soul struggling with his purgatorial existence in a hackney scrapyard.

African Adventure: Safari in the Okavango

May 2007 •English

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

March 1895 •French

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

October 1980 •Russian

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

Night and Fog

April 1959 •French

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

Kryptonite

October 2023 •French

High Cities of Bone

February 2017 •Portuguese

Karlon, born in Pedreira dos Húngaros (a slum in the outskirts of Lisbon) and a pioneer of Cape Verdean creole rap, runs away from the housing project to which he had been relocated.

Space Dogs

August 2019 •Russian

Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. A legend says that she returned to Earth as a ghost and still roams the streets of Moscow alongside her free-drifting descendants. While shooting this film, the directors little by little realised that they knew the street dogs only as part of our human world; they have never looked at humans as a part of the dogs’ world.

Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo

March 2017 •English

At the heart of the Apollo program was the special team in Mission Control who put a man on the moon and helped create the future.

Two Travellers to a River

September 2018 •Arabic

When asked a question on politics, late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once answered: “I write about love to expose the conditions that don’t allow me to write about love.” In TWO TRAVELERS TO A RIVER Palestinian actress Manal Khader recites such a poem by Mahmoud Darwish: a concise reflection on how things could have been.

The Colour of His Hair

June 2017 •English

Based on an unrealized film script written in 1964 for The Homosexual Law Reform Society, a British organisation that campaigned for the decriminalization of homosexual relations between men, "The Colour Of His Hair" merges drama and documentary into a meditation on queer life before and after the partial legalization of homosexuality in 1967.

Seven Times a Day We Bemoan Our Lot and at Night We Get Up to Avoid Our Dreams

May 2014 •German

A cinematic devotional book. Based on interviews with an unemployable sufferer (and his fellows), living in the East German countryside. Who lost his memory in 1989 and woke up into several nightmares.

In the Lost City

February 2009 •Spanish

The city of Madrid as it appears in the Spanish films of the 1950s. A small tribute to all those who filmed and portrayed Madrid despite the dictatorship, censorship and the critical situation of industry and society.

Call into Silence

January 1965 •Czech

A documentary about the artistic and verbal expressions of mentally ill people.

A 3 Minute Hug

November 2018 •Spanish

As daylight breaks between the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, undocumented migrants and their relatives, divided by a wall, prepare to participate in an activist event. For three minutes, they’ll embrace in no man’s land for the briefest and sweetest of reunions.

Visions of Europe

May 2004 •English

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Brian Cox: Seven Days on Mars

June 2022 •English

With unique access to Nasa, Brian Cox follows Perseverance rover’s search for life on Mars during a critical seven-day period as it undertakes an epic journey across the red planet.

Alone

January 2017 •English

This investigation into the layers of mass incarceration and its shaping of the modern black American family is seen through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans, Louisiana.