L'Amour vache
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A documentary film about the Brazilian town of Toritama, the self-proclaimed capital of jeans. The workers of the city’s self-managed small businesses only get one real break from their self-exploiting lives in the textile business: the annual Carnival.
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Slavery may have been the catalyst, but culture and passion formed this sound in Trinidad & Tobago. The steelpan can take the claim of being the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century. However, this sound not only moves people today, but it paralleled the island’s history of colonization and the demand for independence. The first section of this two-part film highlights the precursors of the steelpan and the creation of the instrument until it gained international recognition in Britain in 1951. Interviews from steelpan legends, such as Ellie Mannette, Sterling Betancourt, Cliff Alexis and Ray Holman, are included.
The Other Side of Carnival (2010) is a 45-minute award-winning documentary that explores Carnival's social and economic impact on Trinidad & Tobago. With more than 60 interviews from professors, medical staff, police officers, government officials, students, tourists, every day locals and more, The Other Side of Carnival is able to highlight that while Carnival is an exciting occasion, it is a festival that creates turmoil, which is not widely visible...or is it just simply ignored? Known as "The Greatest Show on Earth", this documentary captures the roots of Carnival and how far some go to keep the original idea alive, and how others attempt to integrate change. Consummating over two years of research and interviews and with the coordination of a multi-national crew (Trinidad & Tobago, US and UK), The Other Side of Carnival does not pass judgment on Carnival in Trinidad & Tobago, but aims to bring an awareness of the type of influence that Carnival has on the population.
Women workers stand up to the toxic flower industry in Colombia.
1972 in Haute-Savoie (France) : the Bertrand's farm, with a hundred dairy cows owned by three bachelor brothers, is filmed for the first time. In 1997, they were the subject of Gilles Perret's first movie, as they let their farm to their nephew Patrick and his wife Hélène. Nowadays, 25 years later, Gilles Perret take another look at this farm, managed by Hélène who will step down. Through their words, an intimate, social and economic history of the rural world.
Warp and Weft is a documentary that will delve into the world of raw and selvage denim, and reveal the underground culture of people who swear by this living, breathing, and evolving form of the most popular clothing item on earth, jeans.
In Texas, construction workers face the deadliest conditions in the country. This documentary follows three immigrant families who are rising up to seek justice and equality in an industry rife with exploitation.
Although it was actually an impersonal commissioned film, the director's style is clearly recognizable. Once again he manages to make something that is normal very strange: the dancing people in costumes are filmed in such a way that they look bizarre and absurd. Jan de Bont's camerawork shows a series of color images of dancing people, edited to the rhythm of the music. Halfway through the film, a lonely clown can be seen among the dancing crowd, accompanied by sad music. This clown is played by Ditvoorst himself.
A 2008 short made in accompaniment with Our Beloved Month of August, documenting Gomes's and his crew's hapless search, during 2007's carnival, for one of Arganil's most storied and elusive characters (who does, in fact, ultimately appear as an interviewee/player in the finished film). Paulo "Miller" is known for taking a dangerous jump into the Alva from a bridge each year during carnival, but what this film is about is, in keeping with the free-roving feature, much less the subject himself than Gomes and co.'s inability to pin him down; not only does he not do his famous jump during this year's carnival, but an ostensible technical/audio failure (as with the feature, it's very difficult to say how much of this film is "fact," how much invented) during Gomes's initial on-camera meeting with Paulo "Miller" leads to five minutes of lip-readers attempting to decipher their conversation.
In Buenos Aires a group of acclaimed dancers create the first Contemporary National Company of Dance under their collective leadership. This is the story of four talented dancers, Ernesto, Bettina, Victoria and Pablo, along six years of their journey. We follow their lives, we attend their rehearsals and performances in the emblematic building of the National Library, along with their premiere and backstage in the historical National Theatre of Cervantes. They expose their dreams as dancers, individuals and members of our society, as we observe the fulfilment of their biggest dream: the demand of a National Dance Law. Amazing choreographies, beautiful folklore songs and original Latin-American contemporary music reveal the beauty of dance becoming life.
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1950s Soho beats with far more energy than its 21st century counterpart in this vivid time capsule.
Director Junge was commissioned by the GDR in the country for the first time in the summer of 1970; his film In Syria auf Montage accompanies German engineers who train workers in the Homs textile factory. Shortly after filming ended, Hafez al-Assad put himself under the dictator. Twenty years later emerged ... the father stayed in the war over a youth club with Syrian orphans in Bad Saarow, whose fathers had died in the Lebanon war and accompanied them to Syria, where they were housed in separate, elite "schools of martyr children". Multi-faceted documents that oscillate between peaceful and tense, hopeful and unsettled.
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Documentary short that explores the meaning of the locals’ African identity through the Carnival festivities.
A kaleidoscopic celebration of the 1980 Notting Hill Carnival. Arts Council of Great Britain.
Director Denys Arcand made an inquiry on textile industry in Quebec, meeting employers and workers of that industry.
Do you have to be miserable to be funny? More than sixty comedians—including stand-ups, writers, actors, and directors from the US, Canada, and abroad—take on this question, sharing anecdotes and insights with lively enthusiasm.
Martha Bieder is the last rubble-woman in Berlin Rummelsburg. Every day, rain or shine, she stands at the conveyor belt - as she has for decades - sorting through rubble. After a retirement party thrown for her by her male colleagues, she tells her story of being a rubble-woman in post-war Germany.
A beautifully done video of Burning Man 2001, 2002 & 2003. Lots of people interviews, Center Cafe activity and extensive coverage of artist David Best and the Temple construction and burn. This documentary captures the swirling columns of dust that were created during the intense heat of the 2002 Temple burn.