Searching for Sam: Adrian Dunbar on Samuel Beckett

Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise

October 2016 •English

A celebration of Dr. Maya Angelou by weaving her words with rare and intimate archival photographs and videos, which paint hidden moments of her exuberant life during some of America’s most defining civil rights moments. From her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her swinging soirees with Malcolm X in Ghana to her inaugural speech for President Bill Clinton, we are given special access to interviews with Dr. Angelou whose indelible charm and quick wit make it easy to love her.

Patti Smith Group: Rockpalast 1979

April 1979 •English

The Patti Smith Group's Rockpalast performance in 1979 was a live concert broadcast as part of the German Rockpalast series. The band at that time included Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Ivan Kral, Jay Dee Daugherty, and Richard Sohl. This performance is notable as it captured the band during a period of their career following the release of their album "Easter" in 1978.

Burns in the USA

January 2017 •English

Robert Burns was well aware of the revolution taking place across the Atlantic as he grew up. The poet was inspired. And America was to be inspired by him. From Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman to Bob Dylan, some of the most significant figures in American politics and culture have cited Burns as an influence.

Harto the Borges

September 2000 •Spanish

A fragmented biography, inconclusive, partial, of the brilliant Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, based on different testimonies: his links with Leonor de Acedevo —his mother— and María Kodama —his second wife—; his vast culture and devout dedication to literature, his and that of others; his country: the politicians and the disloyal military. Borges gradually builds his own impersonation of Borges.

Victor Hugo, un siècle en révolutions

January 2018 •French

Nin E Tepueian: My Cry

January 2020 •French

NIN E TEPUEIAN - MY CRY is a documentary tracks the journey of Innu poet, actress and activist, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, at a pivotal time in her career as a committed artist. Santiago Bertolino's camera follows a young Innu poet over the course of a year. A voice rises, inspiration builds; another star finds its place amongst the constellation of contemporary Indigenous literature. A voice of prominent magnitude illuminates the road towards healing and renewal: Natasha Kanapé Fontaine.

Write Down, I Am an Arab

April 2014 •Arabic

"Write Down, I am an Arab" tells the story of Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet and one of the most influential writers of the Arab world. His writing shaped Palestinian identity and helped galvanize generations of Palestinians to their cause. Born in the Galilee, Darwish's family fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and returned a few years later to a ruined homeland. These early experiences would provide the foundation for a writing career that would come to define an entire nation.

The Books and the Night

April 2000 •Spanish

A dramatized approach to the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) through the recreation of some of his works and the staging of various aspects of his thought and his life.

Wer hat Angst vor Sibylle Berg?

April 2016 •German

With precisely articulated turns of phrase, Sibylle Berg - celebrated novelist, playwright and columnist known for her provocations and the sharpness of her comments - takes the film's two directors on an anecdotal and humorous foray through her eventful life.

Waiting for Godot in San Quentin

January 1998 •English

Documentary about the staging of 'Waiting for Godot' in prison.

Borges para millones

September 1978 •Spanish

The life and work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, a long interview, fragments of some of his most significant verses and dramatizations of some of his stories. Borges for everyone.

When You're Strange

April 2010 •English

The creative chemistry of four brilliant artists —drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Kreiger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek and singer Jim Morrison— made The Doors one of America's most iconic and influential rock bands. Using footage shot between their formation in 1965 and Morrison's death in 1971, it follows the band from the corridors of UCLA's film school, where Manzarek and Morrison met, to the stages of sold-out arenas.

Rumi: Poet of the Heart

January 1998 •English

In 1244, Jelaluddin Rumi, a Sufi scholar in Konya, Turkey, met an itinerant dervish, Shams of Tabriz. A powerful friendship ensued. When Shams died, the grieving Rumi gripped a pole in his garden, and turning round it, began reciting imagistic poetry about inner life and love of God. After Rumi's death, his son founded the Mevlevi Sufi order, the whirling dervishes. Lovers of Rumi's poems comment on their power and meaning, including religious historian Huston Smith, writer Simone Fattal, poet Robery Bly, and Coleman Barks, who reworks literal translations of Rumi into poetic English. Musicians accompany Barks and Bly as they recite their versions of several of Rumi's ecstatic poems.

Nostalgies of the Far West

July 1987 •Spanish

Short documentary on Chilean poet Jorge Teillier (1935-1996), who comes back to Lautaro, on the south of Chile, the place where he was born.

Leopardi. The Infinity Poet

August 2024 •Italian

Showcases the life of Giacomo Leopardi, an Italian poet known for his melancholic verses on fleeting happiness, existentialism, and human suffering.

Rumi: The Dance of Love

April 2008 •Turkish

A dramatised documentary about the life of Rumi, a Persian mystical poet whose images of universal love and divine mystery continue to be celebrated more than 700 years after his death.

Sono Guido e non Guido

November 2016 •Italian

Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime

September 2018 •English

British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the world's most translated author: her heroes, private detective Hercule Poirot and amateur sleuth Miss Marple, are known the world over. But who is the woman behind her bestsellers? A biographical search for clues, the unraveling of an iridescent personality whose existence and works were shaped by the tragic history of the 20th century: the eventful life of the Queen of Crime.

Poet of His People

January 1978 •English

Pablo Neruda’s life unfolds and becomes the basis for the symbolic representation of his poem “Barcarola”, intermixing live action, still footage, computer images, dance and poetry.

Merton: A Film Biography

January 1984 •English

In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.