Der Glanz von Berlin

Oscar

November 2016 •English

Brilliantly mixing animated sequences and archival footage, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre paints a touching portrait of virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson.

Laurent Ruquier, on ne demande qu'à le connaître

December 2012 •French

Something About Halfdan

February 2006 •Danish

A moving portrait of one of the most loved and read Danish poets, Halfdan Rasmussen. The film covers both the early years with poverty and wartime on to success and the humorous nonsense verses that has made Rasmussen one of the most read authors in Denmark.

Connections: Ray Johnson On-Line

July 2001 •English

A portrait of the American artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995), based on a personal interpretation of Johnson’s avant-garde strategies, using the telephone and the internet as primary sources for sound and image.

Barluschke

March 1998 •German

The documentary relates how in the second half of the 20th century the agent Berthold Barluschke was first a henchman of the State Security Service of the GDR and then of the West German Federal Intelligence Service.

Die Markus Family

March 2001 •German

This film tells the story of Markus Anatol Weisse, who, astonishingly enough, became an artist, in spite of being only very partially sighted. Markus also builds strange machine-like beings and wishes that he himself were a biological robot, or cyborg.

On dirait Nino Ferrer

December 2004 •French

Nino Ferrer has had several lives: hits that made him famous; a dark but artistically fruitful period; a hidden life -of his own making- breaking away from showbiz. All these facets are concentrated in a brilliant, complex, skinned character. "It looks like Nino Ferrer" is a film rich in international archives (TSR, RTSI, Rai...), rare documents (Super 8 films of the Ferrer family) and even unpublished films (Nino Ferrer as an actor in an advertisement for Italian cheese). The film is also punctuated by the memories of famous musicians such as Manu Dibango as well as by the singer's successes and his live performances (L'Olympia, L'Arche de Noé).

Scars

January 2018 •French

We admire beauty; we recoil from bodies that are marred, disfigured, different. Didier Cros’ moving, intimate film forces us to question what underlies our notions of beauty as we join a talented photographer taking stunning portraits of several people with profound visible scars which have dictated certain elements of their lives but have not come to define their humanity. The subjects' perceptions of themselves are dynamic, unexpected, and even heartwarming. This is an unforgettable journey to be shared with the world.

The Grass Dwellers

November 2022 •Spanish

Juan Méndez Bernal leaves his house on the 9th of april of 1936 to fight in the imminent Spanish Civil War. 83 years later, his body is still one of the Grass Dwellers. The only thing that he leaves from those years on the front is a collection of 28 letters in his own writing.

Augusta

January 1976 •English

This short documentary is the portrait of an 88-year-old woman who lives alone in a log cabin without running water or electricity in the Williams Lake area of British Columbia. The daughter of a Shuswap chief, Augusta lost her Indian status as the result of a marriage to a white man. She recalls past times, but lives very much in the present. Self-sufficient, dedicated to her people, she spreads warmth wherever she moves, with her songs and her harmonica.

Personal Drawing of a French Mercenary

January 1975 •French

Portrait of a French mercenary working in Libya, hired by the Phalange to train the militias. War leaves its traces; and for some, who see death as part of the job, it’s a vocation.

Stop for Bud

December 1963 •Danish

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

Barbara Morgenstern – Doing It for Love

May 2025 •German

For the first time in six years, Barbara Morgenstern, pioneer of German-style electronic intimate pop, works on a new album. Her laptop sits on a shoebox, in the privacy of her home she finds first lines and harmonies: “I like to be alone,” one song begins. One by one, musicians join her. Intuitive ideas take shape. A window has opened. Arrangements, rehearsals, recordings follow. Step by step, the music enters public space, images are produced, videos, narratives. Questions arise: New beginning or back to the roots? New Biedermeier or tough political comment? The bigger the band, the riskier the booking. The more crisis-ridden the environment, the more comforting the music-making.

The 10 Minute Project

May 2017 •English

An experimental project made up of 10 minute silent portraits with 60+ participants.

Mister Karim

January 1997 •French

Never a Backward Step

January 1966 •English

This feature documentary is a profile of Canadian press tycoon Roy Thomson, whose single-minded attention to business brought him riches, power, and even a baronetcy in England. A native of Timmins, Ontario, Thomson had a tremendous career as publisher, television magnate, financier, and owner of many newspapers, including leading London dailies. The film is a frank study of an equally frank man.

À ton tour Mireille

November 2008 •French

Invisible

October 2023 •Dutch

From schools and offices to hospitals and streets, cleaners are working everywhere, tirelessly and modestly. They work hard and keep society running. Invisible confronts viewers with their own involvement and reveals the price paid for the appearances we cherish.

Daughter of the Crater

September 2019 •French

A woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.

Berhault

January 2008 •French