If Samuel Beckett had lived in Scotland and made a great film, it would be this: a lucid, sometimes funny, and profoundly compassionate study of extreme old age, death, grief and loneliness. These facts of life are revealed in an act of virtuoso film-making that is dedicated, laconic and ultimately - impossible as it may seem - uplifting. A unique experience, this is a very significant and totally original film that will test, and reward any audience. The challenge is to spend time with lonely old people and Dolak is unflinching. He handles words, sounds and image with extreme care. His film is composed of long takes that juxtapose a daily routine alongside the expansive and empty landscapes of the north east, and both shot in exquisitely beautiful monochrome. Everything seems settled and inevitable until the film makes a completely unexpected move into another realm and intimates a further reach of the imagination.
Himself
Herself
23 Sep 1927
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
01 Jan 1975
Florence is a contemplative study of light and shadows, textures and planes, that makes beautiful use of the tonal qualities of black and white film. (mubi.com)
01 Jan 1981
Chapter Two represents a continuation of daily observations from the environment of Manhattan compiled over a period from 1980-1981. This is the second part of an extended life's portrait of New York.
27 Apr 1983
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
01 Jan 1932
Charles Dekeukeleire, then a questioning Catholic, was spurred into making this documentary on a pilgrimage with the Catholic Young Workers’ Movement. The director’s approach is one of critical reflection; A film emotional and fervent, even acerbic.
01 Jan 1961
Pseudo-ethnological documents about two villages which, without roads and electricity, "stopped existing"
01 Jan 1974
A contemplative, seemingly timeless record of the years Hutton spent in Southeast Asia while working as a merchant seaman. Jon Jost writes, "The film is rich with truly wonderful visions: a thick, white porcelain cup perched on a ship's rail, the tea within swaying gently in sync with the ship while the sea rushes by beyond the faces of crewmen posing awkwardly but also movingly for the camera; a cockfight on ship; scenes from a bucolic pre–Pol Pot Phnom Penh. Images has the haunting elegiac resonance of Eugène Atget's Paris, the echo of a time and place that was." - MoMA
24 Jan 2002
A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.
05 Oct 1976
Dialogue-free short detailing the daily tasks of a man and his wife.
06 Oct 2017
When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.
26 May 1998
A portrait of a family living in a village in Masuria.
23 Oct 1998
Affectionate portrait of Timothy "Speed" Levitch, a tour guide for Manhattan's Gray Line double-decker buses.
03 Jun 1960
A portrait of a traveling circus.
23 Nov 1920
The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.
06 Jul 2002
This documentary about the culture of intense cinephilia in New York City reveals the impassioned world of five obsessed movie buffs. These human encyclopedias of cinema see two to five films a day, and from 600 to 2,000 films per year. This is the story of their lives, their memories, their unbending habits and the films they love.
31 Mar 2007
The story of community in the Deep South that is forced to deal with the struggles of ignorance, hypocrisy and oppression.
23 Mar 1951
Two days in the life of priest Father Fred Stadtmuller whose New Mexico parish is so large he can only spread goodness and light among his flock with the aid of a mono-plane. The priestly pilot is seen dashing from one province to the next at the helm of his trusty Piper Club administering guidance (his plane, the Flying Padre) to unruly children, sermonizing at funerals and flying a sickly child and its mother to a hospital.
19 Feb 2021
Behind the gates of a palm-tree-lined fantasyland, three residents and one interloper at America’s largest retirement community strive to find happiness.
02 Oct 2024
A non-binary folk watches the handover of the first non-binary ID in the history of Chile. As they try to do the paperwork, they will face the bureaucracy of the legal proceeding.
01 Dec 2017
The villagers of El Dorado, Argentina, shy away from doctors. Then again, they hardly need one. They have almost as many cures for ailments and illnesses as there are residents in the village. 65 year old Jorge can also cure the most dreaded ailment of them all, the much feared espanto.