Don't Work (1968-2018)

The Arc de Triomphe: A Nation's Passion

September 2021 •French

The pride of Napoleon's victories, the Arc de Triomphe, whose first stone was laid in 1806 at the top of the Champs-Élysées, is, along with the Eiffel Tower, one of the most visited monuments in the French capital. Wanted by an emperor, inaugurated under the reign of a king (Louis-Philippe) and sanctuarized by the Republic, this patriotic temple polarizes the passions of a whole nation. A historical portrait before "packaging", which teems with anecdotes and unsuspected details.

To Stay Alive: A Method

November 2016 •English

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

Mon Clown

March 2008 •French

Documentary from French TV channel Canal+ about Marion Cotillard's road to the Oscar for her performance as French singer Édith Piaf in the 2007 film 'La Vie en Rose', also featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the film.

Match in a Haystack

July 2025 •English

When Russia invaded, the women of Ukraine's leading contemporary dance group struggled to find purpose in their work. A search for new forms of resistance ultimately led them back to dance.

New Hyperion or Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood

April 1992 •Czech

From the behavior, discourse, and appearance of individual actors, Vachek composes, in the form of a mosaic, a broad and many-layered film-argument about Czechoslovak democracy in the period of its rebirth, all administered with the director’s ini­mitable point of view.

Ôrí

May 1989 •Portuguese

A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.

Actua 1

September 1968 •French

A film considered almost lost even by Garrel, who recently found his negatives. Shot during the events of the May 68, it was made collectively; the film is a merge of Garrel’s and his partners’ points of view, all of them students and filmmakers that participated in the revolt.

The Water Map

November 2024 •Spanish

The Water Map is an essayistic journey through the ethnography and landscapes of the Region of Murcia. These places are in the process of disappearing due to the increasing and abundant agricultural exploitation. Water has marked the territory and the culture of the area, and with its disappearance, the memories of four characters fade away.

(There Is No) Cure

November 2022 •English

In this new video essay, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe delves into the dread-inducing mood and tone of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s modern horror classic Cure, deploying a dizzying range of cinematic references to unravel the film’s eerie magic.

A Tour of the Louvre

October 2021 •French

The tumultuous history of the Louvre Museum, founded in 1793, and its fabulous art collections, an immortal testimony to the destiny of France and all of Europe.

The Scars

March 2019 •Basque

The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?

André Téchiné: A Passion for Cinema

April 2019 •French

A walk through the career of French filmmaker André Téchiné, from his own point of view and that of those who worked with him: Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart, Juliette Binoche and Sandrine Kiberlain, among others.

The Green Fog

January 2018 •English

A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…

Chronicle of a Summer

October 1961 •French

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Morin wander through the crowded streets asking passersby how they cope with life's misfortunes.

Vila do Conde Extended

July 2015 •Portuguese

A boy from Vila do Conde records a love letter on a cassette. His voice blends with music, archive images and stories from the past, some lived and others heard.

Dust of America

July 2011 •French

A dream walk through the United States of America; a meditation on the thoughts and ideals of its inhabitants, as they are exposed in their silent but eloquent home movies.

Les Invalides: La construction d'un symbole

September 2019 •French

Maria Callas: Toujours (Paris 1958)

December 1958 •French

The career of Maria Callas was just a bit too early and too brief to receive full and satisfying video documentation like that now being accorded to such singers as Renée Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti. This black-and-white televised recital (Callas's Paris debut) took place at the Paris Opera on December 19, 1958 when television was still in its infancy. We might wish that it had happened earlier, when her voice was in better condition, or later, when video recording technology was more advanced--so that, for example, we would not have to take the narrator's word that Callas is wearing a red dress. But this is probably the best available Callas video recording, and her fans will welcome it warmly. Visual elements were as important as the vocal dimensions in her art.

What We Started

March 2018 •English

Bert Marcus and Cyrus Saidi present an informed and absorbing exploration of the history of EDM, boosted by an energetic soundtrack and anchored by the personal stories of legendary DJ Carl Cox and superstar newcomer Martin Garrix. Insights from numerous other DJs and musical talents like Moby, David Guetta, Paul Oakenfold and Usher help tell the often oppositional tales of old school vs. new school and mainstream vs. underground.

Paris: The Luminous Years

December 2010 •English

A storm of Modernism swept through the art worlds of the West in the early decades of the twentieth century, uprooting centuries of tradition. The epicenter of this storm was Paris, France. For an incandescent moment from 1905 to 1930, Paris was the magnetic center for radical innovation and experiment, and the Mecca for creative talents who would change the course of art throughout the Western world.