Azzedine Alaïa

Joe McKenna is one of the most influential stylists in the world. From the beginning of the 1980s, he struck up a great friendship with Azzedine Alaïa, and they continued to work together for many years. Thanks to their mutual understanding and trust, Joe McKenna was able to obtain the rare privilege of entering the studio and the couturier’s workshops with his camera. He paints an intimate and endearing portrait of Alaïa, punctuated by interviews with Nicolas Ghesquiere, Carlyne Cerf, Naomi Campbell and Grace Coddington, among others

El manual del entrenador mexicano

In this comedic docufiction, Javier (Javier Raphael) is a young man who has always wanted to be a football coach like his idol “El Chelís” (José Luis Sánchez Solá), but has never done anything to fulfill his dream. Now, guided by a nosy narrator (Jorge Pietrasanta), he will look for some of the most unorthodox amateur football coaches in Mexico, and for his beloved "Chelís", so that each one can give him lessons until he is fully trained to manage a match and thus become a true "Mexican football coach".

Living & Glorious

Leonardi's film about the Living Theatre is less concerned with a straight documentary presentation of the exile theatre group from New York, but rather is concerned with the specific atmospheric factor which is indicated by their name, and which constitutes the highly suggestive effect of their playing. Cutting, for Leonardi, is the most decisive aesthetic device. The result is a wonderfully composed furioso of pictures. The hand-held camera catches rehearsals, conversations without sound, bits of theatre and daily life actions (which, for Living Theatre people, is very often intermixed).

Le Paris des mannequins

A photoshoot on the roofs and in the streets of Paris, under the astonished eyes of the inhabitants.

Boxing Match; or, Glove Contest

Staged boxing match between Sergeant-Instructor Barrett and Sergeant Pope, with a round, interval, and knockout.

Performing Animals; or, Skipping Dogs

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring one dog jumping through hoops and another dancing in a costume, which was considered lost until footage from an 1896 Fairground Programme was identified as being from this film.

The Elevator Manager of the Empire State Building

Sometimes it takes a loyal and dedicated man to manage an elevator.

The Contour Connection

As part of a geography course, students learn to do topographical surveys. A stroll at the Champlain lookout, in the Outaouais region, will allow them to familiarize themselves with the different methods in use from Samuel de Champlain to the present day. Finally, a visit to the Directorate of Energy, Mines and Resources Canada, in Ottawa, will introduce them to a new device capable of automatically drawing contour lines. This film describes this new technique of digital mapping and gives us an overview of the progress it brings in this field.

Perfect Image?

Two actresses take us through a series of 'raps' and sketches about what it means to be beautiful and black.

Ripple

Rae Ripple, a welder from the outskirts of West Texas transforms neglected metal into works of art and in the process finds healing from her traumatic past.

Days of Thrills and Laughter

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

A Culpa é do Sol

Dias Atípicos

Altas Cidades de Ossadas

Karlon, born in Pedreira dos Húngaros (a slum in the outskirts of Lisbon) and a pioneer of Cape Verdean creole rap, runs away from the housing project to which he had been relocated.

Blade Runner: Do Androids Dream Of Electronic Beats?

35 years ago, Blade Runner and its iconic Vangelis score captured the imagination of a generation of electronic musicians. On the eve of its eagerly awaited sequel, artists old and new explain how electronic music’s obsession with Deckard’s dark, neon dystopia is stronger than ever in our new mini-documentary.

Fashion Film

Afrique 50

Afrique 50 is a 1950 French documentary film directed by René Vautier. The first French anti-colonialist film, the film derived from an assignment in which the director was to cover educational activities by the French League of Schooling in West Africa. Vautier later filmed what he saw, a "lack of teachers and doctors, the crimes committed by the French Army in the name of France, the instrumentalization of the colonized peoples". For his role in the film Vautier was imprisoned over several months. The film was not permitted to be shown for more than 40 years.

Thot-Fal'N

This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of falling away from conscious thought. The film can only be said to describe or be emblematic of this state because I cannot imagine symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness itself. Thus the actors in the film, Jane Brakhage, Tom and Gloria Bartek, Williams Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Olovsky and Phillip Whalen are figments of this 'Thought-Fallen Process', as are their images in the film to find themselves being photographed.

We're in the Movies, Now!

Promotion reel/souvenir of a 1939-40 meeting of the Paramount Studios sales people.

Twenty Years After

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.