Tokyo Phoenix

Emicida: AmarElo - It's All for Yesterday

December 2020 •Portuguese

Between scenes from his concert in São Paulo's oft-inaccessible Theatro Municipal, rapper and activist Emicida celebrates the rich legacy of Black Brazilian culture.

Síla lidskosti - Nicholas Winton

March 2003 •Czech

A gripping documentary about the courage and determination of a young English stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 children. Between March 13 and August 2, 1939, Nicholas Winton organized 8 transports to take children from Prague to new homes in Great Britain, and kept quiet about it until his wife discovered a scrapbook documenting his unique mission in 1988. Winton was a successful 29-year-old stockbroker in London who "had an intuition" about the fate of the Jews when he visited Prague in 1939. He quietly but decisively got down to the business of saving lives. We learn how only two countries, Sweden and Britain, answered his call to harbor the young refugees; how documents had to be forged and how once foster parents signed for the children on delivery, that was the last he saw of them.

Out of the Cradle

December 2018 •English

How did humanity's earliest ancestors evolve into one of the most successful species on Earth? An extraordinary journey tracing the footsteps of early hominids. Using the latest paleoanthropological findings mixed with the latest CGI from Square Enix, this story is finally told.

24 Memories per Second

December 2018 •Portuguese

At the National Archive of the Moving Images in Portugal, archivists discuss the powerful bond between people and a machine that preserves a very delicate medium.

Absence of Me

November 2019 •Spanish

Hundreds of boxes left by the famous uruguayan musician and political activist Alfredo Zitarrosa (1936-1989) who run away the dictatorship in the 70s, have not been touched since his death 27 years ago. Now his wife and daughters are trying to save the memories, tapes, music and sound recordings that the boxes contain to the posterity.

Almost There

November 2016 •English

Three men embark on a journey in search of meaning and happiness in the autumn of their lives: Bob swaps his safe home for a camper van and tries to find himself in the barren Californian desert; Steve, drag queen and stand-up comedian, is fed up of England and makes amends with his past in Benidorm; Yamada rediscovers his smile by reading stories to children in Tokyo.

François Truffaut: My Life, a Screenplay

May 2024 •French

At the end of his life, gravely ill, François Truffaut took refuge with his ex-wife Madeleine Morgenstern. She tried to keep him occupied during his long agony. The filmmaker confided in his friend Claude de Givray, with the intention of writing his autobiography. Too weakened, he abandoned the project. The film reveals part of this final story.

Jacques Rozier: From One Wave to Another

May 2024 •French

Jacques Rozier or the fierce, independent itinerary of a filmmaker in perpetual disarray, admired by his peers and pampered by the critics.

Faye

May 2024 •English

Through honest reflection, complemented by insight from colleagues and friends, Faye Dunaway contextualizes her life and filmography, laying bare her struggles with mental health while confronting the double standards she was subjected to as a woman in Hollywood.

Amashinga

June 2024 •English

The last sovereign Zulu King, a female British missionary, an ambitious colonial official and a young Welshman are all voiced by actors to make AMASHINGA a beautiful and epic explanation of the British invasion of the Zulu Kingdom in 1879.

Explorer

July 2022 •English

Sir Ranulph Fiennes is credited as being the World’s Greatest Living Explorer. Among his extraordinary achievements, he was the first to circumnavigate the world from pole to pole, crossed the Antarctic on foot, broke countless world records, and discovered a lost city in Arabia. He has travelled to the most dangerous places on Earth, lost half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity and was nearly cast as James Bond. But who is the man who prefers to be known as just ‘Ran’?

A Word from the Director

March 2018 •English

Mike De Leon imagined Citizen Jake “as an indictment of the Duterte regime using its horrific forerunner [the Marcoses] as a template of authoritarian rule,” and he caused a stir, as usual, in posting this promotional short for the film on social media. This short is essentially a Director's Statement in video essay form, and has been screened at New York's MoMA in their Mike De Leon retrospective.

Race for the World's First Atomic Bomb: A Thousand Days of Fear

August 2015 •English

The personalities behind the creation of the world's first atomic bomb were as extraordinary, and often as explosive, as the science they were working in. This is the inside-the-barbed-wire story of the men and women who worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Through first-hand accounts and never-before-seen interviews, this documentary looks inside the atomic insiders' hearts and minds, their triumphs and failures, their bravery in the face of paralyzing fear and, ultimately, their war-winning and world-changing accomplishments.

Geniale Frauen - Malerinnen von der Renaissance bis zum Klassizismus

April 2024 •German

Moving Memories

January 1993 •English

A journey into the 1920s and 1930s featuring restored and edited home movies taken by Japanese American immigrant pioneers.

Lawrence of Arabia: Britain's Great Adventurer

September 2020 •English

The epic story of Thomas Edward Lawrence the First World War military officer who united the tribes of Arabia against the Ottoman Turkish army. The film reveals that while being one of the most enigmatic figures of the 20th century, he was also a deeply troubled man, delving into his personal torment, the secret his family were hiding, and the punishment he endured.

The Best of Me

April 2024 •English

In 1996, Ricardo López became obsessed with the Icelandic singer Björk, chronicling through video tapes his extreme disillusionment in learning that her personal life and romantic relationships didn't align with his racist perception of who she was. López created an elaborate scheme to send Björk a package rigged with sulfuric acid with the intent on killing her; at which point he would commit suicide so that they could be together in the afterlife. Thankfully, the package was intercepted by police and no harm came to the singer. However, López was found dead in his apartment. Comprising solely of crime scene photos/reports and video diary entries, this archival documentary chronicles the final days in the life of Ricardo López.

Through These Eyes

September 2004 •English

A 1970s American elementary school program encouraging students to figure out for themselves the universal building blocks of human community — family, work, faith, etc. — inflamed political sensitivities so intensely it was shelved and forgotten. Archive footage of the documentary film series at the program's core, classroom exchanges, and the ensuing controversy frames larger issues of education, politics and ideology.

Fail Safe

April 2000 •English

Cold War tensions climb to a fever pitch when a U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered to drop a nuclear warhead on Moscow.

Our Godfather

April 2019 •English

The story of how Sicilian Mafia boss Tommaso Buscetta (1928-2000), the Godfather of Two Worlds, revealed, starting in 1984, the deepest secrets of the organization, thus helping to convict the hundreds of mafiosi who were tried in the trial held in Palermo between 1986 and 1987.