Robert Breer At Home

Let Us Persevere in What We Have Resolved Before We Forget

July 2013 •English

On the island of Tanna, a part of Vanuatu, an archipelago in Melanesia, strange rites are enacted and time passes slowly while the inhabitants await the return of the mysterious John.

Wir Weltmeister – ein Fußballmärchen

May 2006 •German

Understanding The Georgian Republic

February 1993 •French

Todo Todo Teros

August 2006 •English

Basically an artist is also a terrorist, the protagonist thinks in an unguarded moment. And if he is a terrorist after all, then he might just as well be one. Not an instant product, but an experimental feature in which diary material is brought together to form an intriguing puzzle.

Finishing Heaven

June 2008 •English

On its surface, this is a film about a man returning to New York to finish the film he began in 1970, when he was a 22 year old film school hotshot. Along with his former lover and star of the film, they transfer the film, hire an editor, and get to work.

Diary of a Political Tourist

October 2004 •English

Following the 2002 HBO documentary "Journeys with George," Pelosi's irreverent account of George W. Bush on the campaign trail, she set out on the road again with a handful of distinguished men competing to see who could eat the most pies, raise the most money and get the most votes to become the Democratic Party nominee.

Judgment Day: Should the Guilty Go Free

February 2003 •English

Each year in the United States, over 200,000 prisoners face a parole board that must make the difficult judgment of whether these convicted criminals are ready to gain their freedom and return to society. This documentary focuses on three inmates in Louisiana, Nevada, and Massachusetts with a range of chilling crimes - a father's murder by his troubled son, a crime of passion by a respected NASA scientist, and a shooting/robbery on the streets of Las Vegas. Incorporating interviews of key characters with extensive testimony footage and reenactment sequences that explore the life and crime of the inmate, the film vividly examines the conflicting needs of the victim, the criminal, and the community while testing our own notions of justice.

Mermaids

April 2017 •English

In this tribute to the eternal allure of an ancient myth, colourful fins and swimming pools fill the lives of five modern-day women who strive to embody the mysterious siren as part of a growing “mermaiding” subculture.

Maison du Bonheur

August 2018 •French

When asked to make a documentary about her friend’s mother—a Parisian astrologer named Juliane—the filmmaker sets off for Montmartre with a Bolex to craft a portrait of an infectiously exuberant personality and the pre-war apartment she’s called home for 50 years.

Champlain

January 1964 •French

Explorer, colonizer, founder of Québec, discoverer of Lake Champlain, governor of New France, cartographer and writer - few men in Canadian history had a more adventurous and varied career than Champlain. This film presents an exciting picture-study of the man and his time.

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box

November 1991 •English

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

Cindy Sherman: Nobody's Here But Me

January 1994 •English

New York based artist, Cindy Sherman, is famous for her photographs of women in which she is not only the photographer, but also the subject. She has contributed her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera. It reveals a range of unexpected sources from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, and explores her real interests and enthusiasms. She shows an intuitive and often humorous approach to her work, and reflects on the themes of her work since the late 1970s. She talks about her pivotal series known as the `Sex Pictures' in which she addresses the theme of sexuality in the light of AIDS and the arts censorship debate in the United States.

The Fish

November 2016 •Portuguese

"A fisherman, dark-skinned and shirtless, sits in a boat on a quiet river and, before long, catches a fish. The fish gasps for air and the fisherman holds it to his chest until it dies. This sequence—performed by a series of fishermen, of various ages and using various styles of capture—is the spine of the work, interrupted by passages of quiet natural beauty; one shot is a steady, stately pan through scores of trees and empty air behind." - Vinson Cunningham

Frontline: The Age of AIDS

May 2006 •English

After a quarter-century of political denial and social stigma, of stunning scientific breakthroughs, bitter policy battles and inadequate prevention campaigns, HIV/AIDS continues to spread rapidly throughout much of the world. Through interviews with AIDS researchers, world leaders, activists, and patients, FRONTLINE investigates the science, politics, and human cost of this fateful disease and asks: What are the lessons of the past, and what can be done to stop AIDS?

Spirit House

June 2008 •English

A tale of 2 passages within the Spirit house. This is the first in a series that looks at the places we find our spiritual presence augmented, inflamed, or simply acknowledged.

1/57: Experiment with Synthetic Sound (Test)

March 1957 •German

Mostly dark, rejecting images which are repeated. A stone wall, the chamber of a revolver which is, at first not recognizable, a close-up of a cactus. The duration of the takes emphasises the photographic character of the pictures, simultaneously with a crackling, brutal sound. (Hans Scheugl)

Echo of the Mountain

June 2015 •Spanish

Echo of the Mountain takes a look at the life and work of Santos de la Torre, a great Huichol artist who, like his people, lives in oblivion. Despite having made a great mural for the metro station Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre, Santos lives isolated and ignored in his country. This documentary follows his pilgrimage to Wirikuta, where he asks gods for permission to make a new mural; his journey across 385 miles of the Peyote Route, and Santos's creative process during the making of a new mural which aims to illustrate the history, mythology and religious traditions of the Huichol people.

Happy on the Ground: 8 Days at Grammy Camp

April 2011 •English

Talented teen musicians from around the USA spend a week working with Grammy nominated professionals

Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime

May 2005 •English

In the 1920s, former coal miner Harry Hoxsey claimed to have an herbal cure for cancer. Although scoffed at and ultimately banned by the medical establishment, by the 1950s, Hoxsey's formula had been used to treat thousands of patients, who testified to its efficacy. Was Hoxsey's recipe the work of a snake-oil charlatan or a legitimate treatment? Ken Ausubel directs this keen look into the forces that shape the policies of organized medicine.

Raising Renee

March 2011 •English

RAISING RENEE is the story of a family's remarkable response to being broken apart and rearranged after nearly 50 years. The film explores deep themes of family, race, class and disability through the interplay of painting, cinema and everyday life. Produced and directed by Oscar nominees Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher, RAISING RENEE is the third part of a trilogy about resilient families that includes their acclaimed feature documentaries So Much So Fast and Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Troublesome Creek. RAISING RENEE is about a unique group of women, the tenacity of family bonds and the power of art to transform experience into something beyond words.