Andreas Gabalier – 10 Jahre Volks-Rock'n'Roller: Das Portrait

À ton tour Mireille

November 2008 •French

Heligonka

December 1985 •French

Personal Drawing of a French Mercenary

January 1975 •French

Portrait of a French mercenary working in Libya, hired by the Phalange to train the militias. War leaves its traces; and for some, who see death as part of the job, it’s a vocation.

Stop for Bud

December 1963 •Danish

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

Paul Tomkowicz: Street Railway Switchman

January 1953 •English

In this film, Paul Tomkowicz, Polish-born Canadian, talks about his job and his life in Canada. He compares his new life in the city of Winnipeg to the life he knew in Poland, marvelling at the freedom Canadians enjoy. In winter the rail-switches on streetcar tracks in Winnipeg froze and jammed with freezing mud and snow. Keeping them clean, whatever the weather, was the job of the switchman.

Igor Levit: No Fear

October 2022 •German

Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.

Never a Backward Step

January 1966 •English

This feature documentary is a profile of Canadian press tycoon Roy Thomson, whose single-minded attention to business brought him riches, power, and even a baronetcy in England. A native of Timmins, Ontario, Thomson had a tremendous career as publisher, television magnate, financier, and owner of many newspapers, including leading London dailies. The film is a frank study of an equally frank man.

The 10 Minute Project

May 2017 •English

An experimental project made up of 10 minute silent portraits with 60+ participants.

Hannah Arendt, la liberté d'être libre

June 2023 •French

In a time of resurgence of social protests, political radicalization and distrust of power, Arendt's thought has never been more relevant: A critical thinker according to some or a conservative according to others, this great figure of the intellectual world remains, in many ways, an enigma. Who was Hannah Arendt?

Barbara Morgenstern – Doing It for Love

May 2025 •German

For the first time in six years, Barbara Morgenstern, pioneer of German-style electronic intimate pop, works on a new album. Her laptop sits on a shoebox, in the privacy of her home she finds first lines and harmonies: “I like to be alone,” one song begins. One by one, musicians join her. Intuitive ideas take shape. A window has opened. Arrangements, rehearsals, recordings follow. Step by step, the music enters public space, images are produced, videos, narratives. Questions arise: New beginning or back to the roots? New Biedermeier or tough political comment? The bigger the band, the riskier the booking. The more crisis-ridden the environment, the more comforting the music-making.

Show!

November 2013 •Czech

A surprisingly intimate portrait of how the dream of running one’s own business can take on monstrous contours. Managed by the father of one of the singers, over the course of five years the girl band 5Angels had reached the gates of pop fame. But it is a path paved not only with the songs of Michal David, but also with the dogged determination of a man who loses any notion of where his role as manager ends and his role as parent begins. An emotionally moved Karel Gott, five angelic girls, and one overly involved father, thanks to whom the behind-the-scenes pre-Christmas atmosphere melts away just as rapidly as the fat should disappear from the belly. “A singer can’t be a lard bucket!”

Eric Escoffier, la Fureur de Vivre

December 2019 •French

I Was Only 14

November 2016 •Dutch

Filmmaker Froukje van Wengerden’s 86-year-old grandmother shares a powerful memory from 1944, when she was just 14. As her story unfolds, we see a group of contemporary 14-year-old girls. Their procession of portraits permits the spectator to see simultaneously forward and back, into the future and towards the past. A miraculous testimonial that uses eye contact to focus the viewer inward and evoke unexpected emotions.

Daughter of the Crater

September 2019 •French

A woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.

Danielle Mitterrand, une certaine idée de la France

March 2019 •French

Astor Piazzolla: tango nuevo

September 2017 •Spanish

Astor Piazzolla revolutionized the tango. By breaking with the codes of traditional tango, he brought this popular Argentine music from dance floors to concert halls around the world and is now recognized as a major composer of the 20th century. From numerous unpublished private archives, the voices of Astor and his children paint a unique portrait of this complex man.

Self-Portrait (Asleep)

December 1971 •Spanish

Experimental film inspired by Andy Warhol's 'Sleep'.

A Life Like Any Other

June 2024 •French

Over many years, the director’s father filmed his family life almost obsessively. His daughter’s birth, his son’s first steps, and always Valérie, the young mother. An impressive fund of material which their now grown-up daughter Faustine appropriates to tell quite a different story: that of a woman who sees her role as a mother and its demands take away her freedom step by step.

Little Girl

September 2020 •French

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

Camus, l'icône de la révolte

January 2020 •French

Albert Camus, who died 60 years ago, continues to inspire defenders of freedom and human rights activists around the world today. The Nobel Prize winner for literature is one of the most widely read French-language writers in the world. He continues to embody the rebellious man who opposes all forms of oppression and tyranny while refusing to compromise his human values.