First Stories: Two Spirited

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

June 1896 •French

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

La Bruja de Texcoco

February 2019 •Spanish

After a mysterious encounter with a shaman in Texcoco, Mexico, Octavio Mendoza, a Mexico City based musician, starts a journey to reconcile with his femininity through his music, in order to become “La Bruja de Texcoco”.

Fanalysis

March 2002 •English

Actor/cult icon Bruce Campbell examines the world of fan conventions and what makes a fan into a fanatic.

Bowling for Columbine

October 2002 •English

This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.

Color-Blind

August 2019 •French

A synaesthetic portrait made between French Polynesia and Brittany, Color-blind follows the restless ghost of Gauguin in excavating the colonial legacy of a post-postcolonial present.

Destroying Angel

September 1998 •English

In attempting to deal with his HIV status, the narrator mixes his past and present to give us a portrait of friendships, family ties, and other intimate relationships.

Find Fix Finish

January 2017 •German

Find Fix Finish delves into the stories of three US-Drone pilots revealing the clandestine operational strategies practiced by the US Government.

Au coeur de Nikita

March 1990 •French

A documentary that captures some moments on set of filming of Luc Besson's "Nikita".

Golden Globe - Kanada - Der Osten

October 2013 •German

FIFA: A Love Letter to Rwanda

June 2023 •English

Supermodel Adriana Lima presents a behind-the-scenes look at the FIFA congress in the Rwandan capital of Kigali in March 2023, which made Kigali the first-ever host city of a FIFA elective congress in Africa.

Brasilia, Contradictions of a New City

January 1968 •Portuguese

In 1967, de Andrade was invited by the Italian company Olivetti to produce a documentary on the new Brazilian capital city of Brasília. Constructed during the latter half of the 1950s and founded in 1960, the city was part of an effort to populate Brazil’s vast interior region and was to be the embodiment of democratic urban planning, free from the class divisions and inequalities that characterize so many metropolises. Unsurprisingly, Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova (Brasília, Contradictions of a New City, 1968) revealed Brasília to be utopic only for the wealthy, replicating the same social problems present in every Brazilian city. (Senses of Cinema)

The Colour of His Hair

June 2017 •English

Based on an unrealized film script written in 1964 for The Homosexual Law Reform Society, a British organisation that campaigned for the decriminalization of homosexual relations between men, "The Colour Of His Hair" merges drama and documentary into a meditation on queer life before and after the partial legalization of homosexuality in 1967.

Del mero corazón

January 1979 •English

A lyrical journey through the heart of Chicano culture as reflected in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music tradition. Performers include, Little Joe & La Familia, Leo Garza, Chavela Ortiz, Andres Berlanga, Ricardo Mejia, Conjunto Tamaulipas, Chavela y Brown Express and more.

The Royal Visit

November 1939 •English

This feature documentary offers a complete record of the 1939 Royal Tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The film opens as the royal couple makes a stop in Québec city, where Premier Duplessis greets them. They then visit Montréal and meet mayor Camilien Houde. A visit to Ottawa brings them to Parliament, where Prime Minister MacKenzie King is present. The visit continues throughout Ontario, the prairies, and western Canada. The Royal couple also makes a brief stop in Washington and meets President Franklin Roosevelt. They then stop in on the Maritime provinces before boarding a Royal yacht for the journey back to England.

At Colonus

October 1983 •Greek

The history of the ancient neighborhood of Colonus in Athens, by a novelist and script writer who lives in modern-day Kolonos.

Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric

February 2017 •English

Katie Couric travels across the U.S. to talk with scientists, psychologists, activists, authors and families about the complex issue of gender.

Land Without Bread

December 1933 •Spanish

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

PRIDE: To Be Seen - A Soul of a Nation Presentation

June 2022 •English

It’s the resilience and love that keeps this community marching to the beat of its own drum; each generation redefining what it means to be queer and to be seen.

In Search of Avery Willard

June 2012 •English

In Search of Avery Willard iIlluminates the life and work of the groundbreaking, and mostly forgotten, artist Avery Willard — photographer, filmmaker, writer, publisher, leatherman, pornographer.

Night and Fog

April 1959 •French

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.