Free Solo
Machines
An inferno of sound and images from an Indian textile factory’s dark heart in the blind spot of globalization. The machines are rumbling like furious, choleric giants in an inferno of noise, chemicals and work routines. The Indian director Rahul Jain leads us right into the dark heart of a textile factory in a film, […]
Human Flow
Visionary artist Ai Weiwei’s haunting new documentary follows the plight of migrants displaced from their homelands by war, poverty, and climate change. A sprawling global odyssey, HUMAN FLOW was filmed in 23 countries over the course of more than a year and examines the staggering scale of a crisis that has now reached epidemic proportions. […]
Chasing Coral
Coral reefs are the nursery for all life in the oceans, a remarkable ecosystem that sustains us. Yet with carbon emissions warming the seas, a phenomenon called “coral bleaching”—a sign of mass coral death—has been accelerating around the world, and the public has no idea of the scale or implication of the catastrophe silently raging […]
The Challenge
Falconry has a history that stretches back over 40 centuries. In the West it was a prevailing passion of the medieval aristocracy, but its prestige continues undiminished in contemporary Arab culture. Three years of observing this form of hunting in the field have made it possible to capture the spirit of a tradition that today […]
Brimstone and Glory
Through stunning cinematography, director Viktor Jakovleski takes us inside preparations for the annual pyrotechnic festival in Tultepec, Mexico. The job of making each exhibit bigger and better than before falls to local families who have been doing it for generations – often by trial and error. While the men strive for greater and greater glory, […]
Fire at Sea
Winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary observes Europe’s migrant crisis from the vantage point of a Mediterranean island where hundreds of thousands of refugees, fleeing war and poverty, have landed in recent decades. Rosi shows the harrowing work of rescue operations but devotes most of the film […]
The Eagle Huntress
The Kazakh tradition of eagle hunting has been passed down from father to son for over 2,000 years in Western Mongolia. Aisholpan, a determined and spellbinding 13-year-old, dreams of becoming the first female huntress. With the support of her family, and against all odds, she trains diligently with her father to prepare for an annual […]
Contemporary Color
The choreographed and vibrant art form known as colour guard gained an enraptured fan in music icon David Byrne. The former Talking Heads frontman found the world of high school students synchronizing complex dance sequences with flag spins and rifle tosses to be creatively invigorating but generally underappreciated. Byrne came up with an ambitious project […]
Cameraperson
Drawing on footage she’s shot over the course of 25 years, documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson searches to reconcile her part in the thorny questions of permission, power, creative ambition and human obligation that come with filming the lives of others. (Ambulante)