A Flickering Truth

Seven Islands and a Metro

January 2006 •Hindi

This film is a tale of the cities of Bom Bahia / Bombay / Mumbai, through a tapestry of fiction, cinema verite, art objects, found footage, sound installation and literary texts.

The Dreamed Ones

March 2016 •German

It’s not uncommon for a film to have a moving love story at its core. Yet this particular set-up is unusual. The lovers here are Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, both important representatives of post-war German-language poetry. The story of the relationship between the Austrian and the Jew from Czernowitz is told through their nearly 20-year correspondence (1948–1967). Or, more precisely, by a young woman and a young man reading from their letters in a studio in Vienna’s venerable Funkhaus.

Kombit

January 2014 •Spanish

The Never Ending Factory of the Duomo

August 2015 •Italian

Stonecarvers, masons, carpenters, smiths, electricians, woodworkers, restorers, goldsmiths: the extraordinary, never-ending saga of the fabrication of Milan Cathedral is portrayed in the light of the sacredness of a building that lives through times, rhythms, calendars and aspirations that merge with and transcend the labor of men and women. The anonymous, humble, painstaking everyday care required by a structure such as the Cathedral, over the years and still today, reveals the magnificence of human action that spans time and generations, holding within itself a grand humanist sentiment.

Rebels

August 2015 •Norwegian

European statistics shows that every 6th youth between 18 and 24 drops out of school before finishing their upper high school education. Meet four Norwegians who have become high school dropouts.

A Path Appears

January 2015 •English

The film follows intrepid reporters Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and actor/advocates Malin Akerman, Mia Farrow, Ronan Farrow, Jennifer Garner, Regina Hall, Ashley Judd, Blake Lively, Eva Longoria, and Alfre Woodard to Colombia, Haiti, Kenya, and throughout the United States as they uncover the harshest forms of gender-based oppression and human rights violations, as well as the effective solutions being implemented to combat them.

Box 25

January 2015 •Spanish

Documentary about the relation between Panama and the United States, during the building of the Panama Canal.

Where Gods Are Dead

February 1993 •Norwegian Bokmål

A Norwegian TV-worker tries to prevent her son, which she has with her former husband, a Serb now living in Jugoslavia, to become a soldier in the starting civil war.

Building the Gherkin

May 2005 •English

Can a single building impact the career of an architect, the image of a global company and even the skyline of a big city? Just a month and a day after the disastrous attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the first steel beam of a new tower is erected in London. One question is on everybody’s mind: is it the right decision to build a new iconic tower in the midst of London’s financial district, on a site that has already been bombed before? The 40-storey steel and glass tower sparks further controversy. Norman Foster, one of Britain’s most visionary architects, calls his design for the new Swiss Re London headquarters ‘radial – socially, technically, architecturally and spatially’. In fact, its size and shape are so radical that it is almost immediately nicknamed ‘the erotic gherkin’. Will the Gherkin become the landmark they all dream of?

Adão ou Somos Todos Filhos da Terra

January 1999 •Portuguese

A resident of the Cantagalo favela in Rio de Janeiro, Adão Xalebaradã is the composer of more than 500 songs and has never been recorded in Brazil.

No Home Movie

February 2016 •French

Documentary about humans dealing with changing technology, the basic concepts of communication, cinema, and Akerman's mother, seen in her Brussels apartment.

Ebony Goddess: Queen of Ilê Aiyê

January 2010 •English

Ebony Goddess: Queen of Ilê Aiyê follows three women competing to be the carnival queen of Ilê Aiyê, a prominent and controversial Afro-Brazilian group with an all-black membership. The selection is based on Afro-centric notions of beauty, in counterpoint to prevailing standards of beauty in Brazil, a country famous for slim supermodels and plastic surgery. Contestants for the title of Ebony Goddess dress in flowing African-style garments, gracefully performing traditional Afro-Brazilian dances to songs praising the beauty of black women.

Gene Boy Came Home

August 2007 •English

A portrait of Eugene "Gene Boy" Benedict from Odanak Indian Reserve near Montreal, Quebec. At 17, adrift and beginning to lose his way, he accepted a dare and enlisted in the US Marines – and was sent to the frontlines of the Vietnam War. This film is the account of his two years of service and his long journey back to Odanak afterwards.

Mobilize

September 2015 •English

A journey by canoe into the city creates a dynamic interconnection between natural and urban spaces, in this evocative short set to a hypnotizing soundtrack by Inuk artist Tanya Taqaq.

Wiens verlorene Töchter

March 2010 •German

The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche

April 1992 •English

Choenzey is a 47-year-old monk living in a Tibetan refugee monastery in South India. His spiritual master, Khensur Rinpoche, a revered high lama, has been dead for four years. According to Tibetan belief, he will soon be reincarnated. It is Choenzey's responsibility, as his closest disciple, to find the reincarnation and to look after him. The film follows Choenzey's search and his eventual discovery of an impish but gentle 4-year-old boy who is recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan State Oracle to be the reincarnation. Without sentimentality, the film captures the moving relationship that develops between the erstwhile disciple and his young master. (columbia.edu)

Visiting Desire

November 1996 •English

Complete strangers meet in a room to act out their sexual desires.

Frankenthaler: Toward a New Climate

January 1978 •English

A 30-minute film about Helen Frankenthaler, who invented the stained canvas at the age of 24 and influenced a whole generation of "color field" painters.

Georgia O'Keeffe

November 1977 •English

Georgia O'Keeffe appears on camera for the first time to talk candidly about her work and her life in this 1977 documentary.

Gertrude Stein: When You See This, Remember Me

December 1970 •English

The thoughts, words, and compelling presence of Gertrude Stein flows richly through this portrait of the author's Paris years from 1905 through the 1930s.