16 Mar 2009
In Search of Wabi Sabi with Marcel Theroux
Marcel Theroux travels across Japan in an attempt to understand Wabi Sabi, a theory of Japanese aesthetics in which imperfection and transience are the touchstone of beauty.
"If men produce bombs, then women bring beauty to this world" - T.J.
The documentary observes two matriarchs - Tiina Jantson governs the beauty contest empire in Estonia; Anne Eenpanu leads the activities of "Home Daughters" - a girls' corps of Estonian Defence League. The film's main characters and their activities are very different. Whereas Anne's pedagogical approach is almost totally based on the love for fatherland then Tiina spends her days in the glitter of show business. However, there are some similiarities in their lives. The documentary studies the values, gender roles and moral norms in Estonia at the beginning of 21st century.
16 Mar 2009
Marcel Theroux travels across Japan in an attempt to understand Wabi Sabi, a theory of Japanese aesthetics in which imperfection and transience are the touchstone of beauty.
10 Oct 2018
A heartwarming exploration of a community art project by photographer Tawfik Elgazzar providing free portraits for locals and passers-by in Sydney, Australia's Inner West. The film explores the nature of individuality, cultural diversity and the positive joy for the photographer of seeing his subjects smile.
13 Oct 2010
Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.
03 Aug 2024
Terry Wilson is a 70-year-old lifelong resident of Meadowvale Village, Ontario's first heritage district. As development looms and begins to destroy Terry's favourite place in the world, he recreates pieces of history in his backyard, crafting an oasis where it feels like nothing has changed. A beautiful tribute to his childhood, his mother, and his town, Terry passionately fights to preserve history in a world that's too anxious for change.
21 Apr 1938
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
27 May 2024
Davide is a thirty-year-old who lives in a town in the Sicilian hinterland. He doesn't know what free time is. He wakes up at dawn to open his bar and begins the hard work. He experiences body care as a cult: protein shakes, gym, supplements, pole dancing lessons and treatments from Alessandra, his beautician girlfriend. Davide has always wanted to please and be admired. From model to Mister Sicily, today his dream comes true on the stage of a nightclub where he works as a stripper and lets himself be desired by others. A documentary focused on obsession with beauty and the cult of the body without neglecting the equally current issue of the construction of identity starting from our body and the gaze of others.
17 Jun 1968
In 1967, New York City is host to the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant. This documentary takes a look behind the scenes, transporting the viewer into rehearsals and dressing rooms as the drag queen subculture prepares for this big national beauty contest. Jack/Sabrina is the mistress of ceremonies, and their protégé, Miss Harlow, is in the competition. But, as the pageant approaches, the glamorous contestants veer from camaraderie to tension.
15 Feb 2011
Paradise won’t ever feel closer than it does in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2011: The 3D Experience natively shot in 3D. Join supermodels Julie Henderson, Alyssa Miller and 2011 SI Swimsuit cover girl Irina Shayk as they explore the natural beauty of Maui—and see it in breathtaking 3D on Blu-ray. Featuring exclusive interviews with the models and amazing photo sessions on some of the most pristine beaches in the world, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2011: The 3D Experience is so vivid and lifelike viewers will almost be able to feel the sand between their toes.
01 Jan 2016
Feisty, fiercely independent and firmly rooted in place, 90 year-old Mabel Robinson broke barriers back in the 40s when she became the first woman in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, to launch her own business—a hairdressing salon where she still provides shampoo-n-sets over 70 years later. Weaving animation and archival imagery with intimate and laugh out loud moments in the salon, the film celebrates the power of friendship, doing what you love and staying active. With no desire to retire anytime soon, Mabel gives voice to a generation who are not front and center of cinema or the pop hairstyles of the day, and subtly shifts the lens on our perception of beauty and the elderly.
30 Jul 2021
In 1971, due to the world premiere of Death in Venice, Italian director Lucino Visconti proclaimed his Tadzio as the world’s most beautiful boy. A shadow that today, 50 years later, weighs Björn Andrésen’s life.
08 Nov 2017
Five women veterans who have endured unimaginable trauma in service create a shared sisterhood to help the rising number of stranded homeless women veterans by entering a competition that unexpectedly catalyzes moving events in their own lives.
15 Jan 2003
BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD charts the journey of 19 year old Tecca Zendik, a contestant in the Miss Net World contest, Libya's first every beauty competition. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi hosts this competition and the film includes extraordinary footage of the Colonel. Tecca's story reveals an incredible conclusion no-one could have guessed when private jests transported the beauties to the country feared by the West in the 1980's.
13 Oct 1989
Featuring never-before-seen film footage of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, The Architecture of Doom captures the inner workings of the Third Reich and illuminates the Nazi aesthetic in art, architecture and popular culture. From Nazi party rallies to the final days inside Hitler's bunker, this sensational film shows how Adolf Hitler rose from being a failed artist to creating a world of ponderous kitsch and horrifying terror. Hitler worshipped ancient Rome and Greece, and dreamed of a new Golden Age of classical art and monumental architecture, populated by beautiful, patriotic Aryans. Degenerated artists and inferior races had no place in his lurid fantasy. As this riveting film shows, the Nazis went from banning the art of modernists like Picasso to forced euthanasia of the retarded and sick, and finally to the persecution of homosexuals and the extermination of the Jews.
10 Nov 2019
A year in the life of two transgender siblings as they navigate puberty, a local beauty pageant, and transitioning in the Trump era.
22 Mar 2013
Four people turn to plastic surgery as the last resort in their search for perfection - their appearances will change, but will their lives?
12 Apr 2013
A journalistic investigation, built not on rumors and assumptions, but on direct evidence, revealing the true mechanisms of podium coronations. Hidden camera footage of negotiations with the owners of the largest national beauty contests and an attempt to answer the question of why these people are not yet in prison. Famous people on the jury are not a guarantee of fair judging. Irrefutable evidence of the corruption of the so-called “stars” who elect the next Miss and Mrs. The collection and subsequent theft of funds for charity is a side business of the owners of fraudulent shows. What actually awaits the titled Misses after purchasing the prize? And what do children's beauty pageants turn out to be like for young participants?
02 Sep 1983
A Mondo documentary that juxtaposes footage of death, carnage, and unpleasantness with scenes of inspiring and beautiful imagery.
13 May 2001
Documentary about the subculture of child beauty pageants (usually restricted to girls no older than 5), showing the lengths to which some parents will go to ensure that their children win these pageants...
11 Nov 2011
Documentary about British artist Andrew Logan as he attempts to put on the 2009 edition of his Alternative Miss World. The film also presents a history of the contest (which has run eccentrically since 1972) which was set up firstly as an excuse to have a good party, but has grown into a celebration of alternative lifestyles and sexualities. The documentary mixes archive footage, animated inserts, with talking head interviews and a fly-on-the-wall look at the organisation of the 2009 event
01 Jan 1975
No overview found