Ask Me, Don't Tell Me

Night and Fog

April 1959 •French

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

Larisa

October 1980 •Russian

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

Land Without Bread

December 1933 •Spanish

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

The End of Summer

January 1964 •French

A 16 year old girl recalls the last moments of her summer vacation, spent with friends in the Laurentians north of Montreal. She reminisces about their talks on life, death, love, and God. Shot in direct cinema style, working from a script that left room for the teenagers to improvise and express their own thoughts, the film sought to capture the immediacy of the youths presence their bodies, their language, their environment.

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

December 2023 •English

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.

The Sixth Side of the Pentagon

August 1968 •French

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.

Birdman

July 2015 •English

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

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

June 1896 •French

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Fittan brinner - livet med vestibulit

June 2019 •Swedish

My Heart Belongs to Daddy

January 1999 •Yiddish

"My heart belongs to daddy / Majn harts gehert tsum tatn" - the same old love song. But now it is actress Basia Frydman who sings it in Yiddish accompanied by her musicians at home in Kjell Westling's living room. And Tate, that's Basia's lovely old dad Simon, doing his work in a hairdressing salon.

La Rose et le Barrage

January 1963 •French

A parallel montage of the construction of a dam in Galicia and the architecture of a small Roman-style church.

Hannas baby

June 2019 •Swedish

Arthur Penn: The Director

January 1970 •English

A short documentary about Arthur Penn.

Princess Ball Gown

January 2018 •Turkish

Wedding rituals grounded on non-verbal social agreements represent the perception of society in general. Wedding dress is a symbolic part of these rituals. The process that a wedding dress has went through can be considered as an embodiment of the formation of women identity in society. Like most of the women, wedding dressmakers also dream of being a princess once they wear their wedding dress. On the other hand, dressmakers are certainly aware of the fact that they promote the already existing image of women in society because of their job. While they also recognise the truth is way different.

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.

Fajr

April 2019 •Arabic

In the Moroccan desert night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate landscape. From night´s abstraction, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates gaze and duration densify it. The adhan -muslim call to pray- sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolves into the desert.

Fanalysis

March 2002 •English

Actor/cult icon Bruce Campbell examines the world of fan conventions and what makes a fan into a fanatic.

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.

La marche

October 1951 •French

Gay Rights

April 1987 •English

Two councils with two different approaches to LGBT rights.