Helvetica

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

Gutenberg : l'aventure de l'imprimerie

A portrait of the inventor of the letterpress, who was a key figure in the history of mankind, but also an enthusiastic inventor, a daring businessman, a tenacious troublemaker: the life of Johannes Gutenberg (circa 1400-68).

Alles Moet Nieuw: Piet Zwart

A fascinating documentary about Piet Zwart (1885–1977), an idiosyncratic and stubborn designer, who lived for innovation and prepared the way for the international success that is now known as Dutch Design. Piet Zwart worked as an interior and industrial designer, commercial typographer, photographer, critic and lecturer, playing a key role in defining the design climate in the Netherlands in the Twentieth Century. He is especially known for designing the famous ‘Piet Zwart’ kitchen for the Dutch company Bruynzeel: a kitchen that could be easily produced and consisted of standardized elements. His versatility and influence on present-day designers led the Association of Dutch Designers to award him the title of “Designer of the Century” in 2000.

Étienne Robial, un spécimen de caractère(s)

Documentary on the French graphic and visual artist and designer, editor, artistic director, and teacher who is known for his widely-used fonts.

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film

Why has letterpress printing survived? Irreplaceable knowledge of the historic craft is in danger of being lost as its caretakers age. Fascinating personalities intermix with wood, metal, and type as young printers save a traditional process in Pressing On, a 4K feature-length documentary exploring the remarkable community keeping letterpress alive.

漢字

Hanzi is a documentary exploring international design, visual culture, and identity through the lens of modern Chinese typography. The film covers a variety of topics such as how languages shape identity, and what role handwriting plays in the digital age.

Il fiume ha sempre ragione

Alberto Casiraghy and Josef Weiss are true bibliophile artists. One in Osnago, the other in Mendrisio, they have been dedicating themselves for years to valuable editorial and typographical activities, still printing with mobile characters, preserving the memory of a perfect ingenuity made of manual skills and technique, but also of inventiveness and poetry. Silvio Soldini gives us a realistic and poetical portrait of these two artists-artisans, who chose one of the oldest professions in a modern world, finding great success and approval.

The History of Typography

A short, educational animation about the history of fonts and typography. In a paper cutout stop-motion style, it begins with Gutenberg's creation of the first typeface, travels through the innovations of Jenson, Caslon, and Bodoni, to the modern creation of Futura and the democratization of fonts in the digital age. A charming, engaging film about a technology that is all around us, but few people know much about.

Máquinas de palabras

Lettera22

A documentary film about Adriano Olivetti.

Ake & Ch

Words that end in -ake and start with ch-. A typographic animation.

Letters O, P, and R

Words that start with the letter O, P, and R. A typographic animation.

Entre nos mains

When confronted with their lingerie factory (Starissima) going bankrupt, the employees attempt to take it over by forming a cooperative. Soon questions about fundamental economic and social issues pop up amidst the bras and panties. Through this adventure together they discover a new freedom.

Parrot at the Milk Bar

A humorous observation in Barcelona’s immigrant neighbourhood El Raval. Four barber shops, four places of remembrance, strange time and space capsules inhabited by people who left their home to find a better one, while the Spaniards are about to leave their own country themselves.

Der Anständige

Through previously undiscovered private letters, photos and diaries that were found in the Himmler family house in 1945, the "The Decent One" exposes a unique and at times uncomfortable access to the life and mind of the merciless "Architect of the Final Solution" Heinrich Himmler.

Every 9 Seconds

Domestic violence drama, with Gail O'Grady as a distraught young mother, finding herself stalked by her newly paroled ex and armed with a loaded gun, and Ami Pietz as a journalist volunteering at a crisis hotline to do an "inside" story.

The Sea Wolf

Jack London's brutal Wolf Larson brings a shipwrecked aristocrat and a con woman aboard his doomed ship, the Ghost.

Broken Trust

A scrupulously honest judge finds he's a pawn in a federal sting to ferret out corrupt members of the bench, many of whom are his friends.

The Himalayas

The highest mountain range in the world, the Himalayan range is far reaching, spanning thousands of miles, and holds within it an exceptionally diverse ecology. Coniferous and subtropical forests, wetlands, and montane grasslands are as much a part of this world as the inhospitable, frozen mountaintops that tower above. The word Himalaya is Sanskrit for abode of snow, fitting for a stretch of land that houses the world’s largest non polar ice masses. Extensive glacial networks feed Asia's major rivers including the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra. More than a billion people rely on these glacier-fed water sources for drinking water and agriculture. The Himalayas are not only a remarkable expanse of natural beauty. They're also crucial for our survival.

The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky

Dramatization of Russian ballet star Vaclav Nijinsky's diaries which detail his madness as well as his homosexual relationship with Ballet Russe impresario Sergei Diaghilev and his marriage to his Hungarian wife.