Der lange Abschied von der Kohle

1 Século de Energia

Manoel de Oliveira's final work revisits one of his earliest films and celebrates a century of industrialization in Portugal.

悲兮魔兽

Under the sun, the heavenly beauty of grasslands will soon be covered by the raging dust of mines. Facing the ashes and noises caused by heavy mining , the herdsmen have no choice but to leave as the meadow areas dwindle. In the moonlight, iron mines are brightly lit throughout the night. Workers who operate the drilling machines must stay awake. The fight is tortuous, against the machine and against themselves. Meanwhile, coal miners are busy filling trucks with coals. Wearing a coal-dust mask, they become ghostlike creatures. An endless line of trucks will transport all the coals and iron ores to the iron works. There traps another crowd of souls, being baked in hell. In the hospital, time hangs heavy on miners' hands. After decades of breathing coal dust, death is just around the corner. They are living the reality of purgatory, but there will be no paradise.

The Last Word in Chickens

This 10-minute short documentary exploring the shifting state of the American poultry industry was preserved in 2015 from an original nitrate print. More information is available on the film's page in the National Film Preservation Foundation's website, where this version can be found featuring original music by Michael D. Mortilla.

Janko ide z hôr

Pieseň strojov

K-pop, les secrets du phénomène mondial

It's the musical phenomenon of the moment: K-Pop, short for "Korean Pop," has taken the world by storm in just a few years. But behind the powerful lyrics, elaborate choreography, and polished looks lies a ruthless industry.

Giant Coal Dumper

“Shows how a full carload of coal is loaded onto a vessel every thirty seconds at the great Erie Railroad Docks, Cleveland, Ohio. Great clouds of coal dust rise as each car is unloaded.”

Cattle Market in Derry

Bustling scenes show Edwardian Derry-Londonderry before industrialisation took hold.

Beyond Fordlândia

An environmental account of Henry Ford’s Amazon experience decades after its failure. The story addressed by the film begins in 1927, when the Ford Motor Company attempted to establish rubber plantations on the Tapajós River, a primary tributary of the Amazon. This film addresses the recent transition from failed rubber to successful soybean cultivation for export, and its implication for land usage.

Until the End of the World

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, along with other international organizations, is leading efforts to increase aquaculture by encouraging countries around the world to invest in its development. However, local communities strongly oppose the expansion of fish farms due to resource depletion and water pollution concerns. From Italy to Greece, Spain to Senegal, and all the way to Patagonia in Chile, their journey to uncover the truth extends to the ends of the earth.

Poros Stands

Fordlandia

Fordlandia is a small settlement on the River Tapajos in the Brazilian part of the Amazon, where Henry Ford set up a rubber industry in the 1920s. Mainly due to the resistance of nature, the project failed and was abandoned some 20 years later. Fordlandia is a voyage of (de)colonisation whereby the drifts and detours of modernity in uncertain places are highlighted, turning away from whatever their historical imaginaries were. The tensions between industrial and natural landscape are levelled off in a certain horizontality of hierarchies between form and content, and at the same time the animal resignifies possibilities of the community of the living.

A Visit to Peek Frean and Co.'s Biscuit Works

A look at typical activities taking place in the Peek Frean factory: First, the workers get up steam, as supplies of milk and flour arrive. Sheets of dough are rolled, then cut, shaped, and readied for baking. The camera then continues to show further events throughout the work day.

Kona fer í stríð

Halla declares a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry. She is prepared to risk everything to protect the pristine Icelandic Highlands she loves… Until an orphan unexpectedly enters her life.

Empire of Madness

Don’t be misled by the title and put your lube away: True Gore II (aka Empire of Madness) (1989)–M Dixon Causey’s follow-up to the eponymous first entry–has virtually no true gore in it at all. Instead, the first half is a compilation of faux-snuff vignettes akin to something you’d find in a SOV horror collection like Snuff Perversions 1 & 2, Snuff Files, The Dead Files, Violations I & II, or even more recent titles like Murder Collection Volume 1. The second half is in turn a send-up of satanic panic style videos like Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults, Devil Worship: The Rise Of Satanism, and countless others shat out during the 80s/90s. The vignettes are hilariously inept to the point where it seems clear that Causey was parodying the shockumentary form. Even the credits are a joke, mocking the seriousness with which shocku producers take themselves, crediting a ‘researcher’ for a film that clearly had none, and a ‘visual archivist’ being listed in place of a cameraman.

Aquí sigo

Brings together the existential ponderings of the people around us who most deserve to be listened to, those who have lived the longest. We travel the world hearing memories of love and loss, of joy and hardship.

Junge Leute

A documentary about young people just starting their higher education and their professional life.

20,000 Miles on a Horse

This Feature documentary is about the lives of Louis Brunke and Vladimir Fissenko who rode on horseback from the southern tip of Argentina to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It took them five years to cross 14 countries -- and they filmed it all.

Film Magazine of the Arts

"In Spring, 1963 Show Magazine called me and asked that I make a film on arts in New York. I told them, why did they want me to make it - didn't they know I was a bit unusual? ... 'We want something unusual,' they said. So I went out and made a newsreel on arts. Show people looked at the rough cut of the film and became very angry. 'But there is nothing about Show Magazine and DuPont fabrics in the movie,' they said. 'What has that to do with the arts in New York!' I said. The battle was short. The film was destroyed. Really, I have no idea what they did with it. This workprint of the first FILM MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS is the only print in existence, as far as I know." -- J.M.