The Anonymous Interview

Plane Days

June 2008 •English

Old friends. Young friends. Lovers and loners. They all wait, hoping to see something they have never seen before. A Virgin? Thai? Singapore? Hopefully another one for the book. A flask of tea or bottle of wine to keep warm, and every day around the perimeter fence at Heathrow is a plane day.

Impersonator

May 2012 •English

Ilham’s friends submitted his photo into a worldwide Obama look alike contest and he won. Life changed quickly, with lots of invitations to speak all around Asia, and one big one – to the White House. In efforts to encourage a very reluctant Ilham to take on the persona, many people along the way have offered help. The Minister of Health gave him the suit he is wearing. He doesn’t remember who gave him this particular tie.

Hackney Marshes

January 1978 •English

Artist John Smith tells stories about tower block life, editing in bold, unconventional fashion, cutting into the material and highlighting the components and conventions of the film form - yet an intimate portrait of the block's inhabitants still emerges.

Exhuming London After Midnight

October 2021 •English

London After Midnight (1927), directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, is the most sought-after lost film by fans of fantastic cinema. Has this mythical treasure finally been found in an old South American cinema?

As We're Told

November 2017 •Swedish

"It's simple! We do as we're told." This disconcerting reply comes from a Swedish employment office employee when asked how the country’s most unpopular government agency works. And that’s not all: in this creative documentary, case workers, receptionists and psychologists reveal how the Swedish employment system is failing. They complain about inadequate software and mystifying error messages, excessive caseloads and demoralizing results—on average, each case worker helps just 10 people find work each year, and only one in 10 clients will find a new job. To assure the anonymity of the interviewees, they're all represented by cardboard puppets. Thanks to visible puppeteers, expressive eyes and recognizable gestures, these puppets quickly take on the appearance of real people. The result is a fascinating, comical and artistic study of human strategies to get along in an irrational bureaucracy.

Je suis là

Invalid date •French

Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women

February 1989 •English

This profile of storied trumpeter of jazz, Tiny Davis, and her cohort pianist-drummer, Ruby Lucas, is an amalgam of artifacts about the two women, accompanied with poetry by Cheryl Clarke.

Sunday Dinner: DMV

August 2021 •English

This documentary film is a celebration of Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) and the Black artists driving music culture forward.

Space Miami: Abandoned Aerojet Everglades Rocket Factory

July 2011 •English

In 1963 Aerojet-General built a rocket manufacturing plant in the middle of the Everglades. They were hoping to build rockets for the Apollo moon mission. The rockets were built and tested in a 150 ft. deep silo, the deepest hole ever dug in Florida.

Cherry Pop

March 2014 •English

Cherry Pop was no ordinary cat. Beloved by her wealthy socialite owners, she lived life in the lap of luxury. Her taste for filet mignon and the comfort of Rolls-Royces made Cherry Pop a celebrity before her death in 1995. This delightful story will tickle your funny bone and touch your heart.

Hackney Marshes – November 4th 1977

January 1977 •English

An improvisation recorded over the course of one day, starting at dawn and finishing after dusk. The film was edited in camera and shot from one camera position in the middle of one of the 112 football pitches that cover Hackney Marsh, a location chosen because of the similarities between the surrounding buildings and objects (identical blocks of flats, goalposts etc.). By cutting between precisely matched framings of similar objects, illusions of movement were produced, disrupting representational readings of the landscape. Unforeseen events occurring in the vicinity were also recorded, determining to some extent the subsequent filming. Through selection of shots and changes in cutting pace and speed of camera movement, the film fluctuates between record and abstraction.

Out of Love

November 2009 •Albanian

Fusing documentary and fiction, the film depicts the lives of children trying to survive the aftermath of war in Kosovo by selling cigarettes on the street. Through monologues performed by the children against the eerie backdrops of Pristina, the film tells their gripping and sad story of memory, loss and fear.

Broken Palace

September 2014 •English

A short documentary about the rapidly disappearing era of heritage movie palaces and the film going experience once offered within those hallowed walls.

Bilge and Her Apprentice: Diary of an Assistant Director

January 2015 •Turkish

The story of a young woman entering the world of filmmaking as assistant director to Bilge Olgaç and the two years they worked together. Through her diary, Belmin Söylemez explores what she learned from Bilge Olgaç, the most productive woman director in the history of Turkish Cinema. The film also gives us clues on filmmaking in Turkey in the late 80’s. From tough shooting conditions to 35 mm editing, we discover Olgaç’s world through her assistant’s eyes. ‘Bilge and Her Apprentice’ pays tribute to the life and work of Bilge Olgaç, who passed away in 1994.

The Militiaman

October 2021 •English

In the hills of rural Pennsylvania, the leader of a local militia must prepare his men for the turbulent political landscape of 2020 while at war with his own conscience. For over ten years, 48-year-old Iraqi War Veteran and machinist Christian Yingling has commanded a troop of private militiamen and women concerned with the government’s infringement on their constitutional rights. The group practices paramilitary drills, stockpiles food and ammo, and attends gun rights rallies in preparation for a doomsday scenario. Now that a worldwide pandemic has hit, followed by a summer of racial injustice protests and a Presidential election like no other, Christian—out of work and nearly out of money—must confront his allegiance and choose to act or not.

Garrison in the Peak

November 1956 •Czech

About meteorologists working on Lomničký štít. The film shows contrast between a man and mountains.

A City in White

January 1972 •Czech

Letter from front

January 1956 •Czech

The Nature of Millennials

February 2018 •English

Millennials are set to inherit the Earth, but can they even? Join David Suzuki as he takes a deep dive on the lives of Millennials.

Siob

February 2025 •French

If a tree falls dead, does it cease to be alive? Like a deep breath in the forest, Siob explores the different textures of wood, from its life in nature to its rebirth as a musical instrument. And what if, in human hands, wood found its voice again?