01 Jan 1985
Mathilde
An old man comes across a fascinating archive, then meets a woman who introduces him to the life of a banker, patron and philanthropist. A moving essay that is part documentary, part film diary.
Somewhere between a diary and a filmed letter made while Caroline Champetier was shooting Benoît Jacquot's film L'Intouchable in India.
01 Jan 1985
An old man comes across a fascinating archive, then meets a woman who introduces him to the life of a banker, patron and philanthropist. A moving essay that is part documentary, part film diary.
30 Nov 2008
Over the course of more than fifteen years, Clémenti films a series of intimate diaries, starting from daily encounters. In La deuxième femme, we see Bulle Ogier and Viva, Nico and Tina Aumont, Philippe Garrel and Udo Kier, a performance by Béjart, a piece by Marc’O, concerts by Bob Marley and Patti Smith (not always recognisable)... It’s like a maelstrom of psychedelic images that are passed through a particle accelerator.
01 Jan 1925
IN THE LAND OF GIANT PYGMIES, a diary of Aurelio Rossi's 1925 trek into the immense Belgian Congo, preserves a long-gone-Colonial-era wonder at natural resources, "primitive" tribes, customs and costumes in Europe's cast African possessions, and implies that the "dark continent" could benefit from the "civilizing" influences of home.
20 Oct 2007
Made over six years in the hotels of six different countries, Hotel Diaries charts the 'War on Terror' era of Bush and Blair through a seven-part series of video recordings that relate personal experiences to the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel/Palestine. In these works, which play upon chance and coincidence, hotel rooms are employed as 'found' film sets, where architecture, furnishing and decoration become the means by which the filmmaker’s small adventures are linked to major world events.
29 Apr 2001
On January 1st, 1999, Caveh Zahedi started a one-year video diary. The idea was to shoot one minute each day. This is the result.
08 Oct 2023
If there is one person Matthew Lancit can’t get out of his mind, it is his uncle Harvey. Dark rings around his eyes, pale, blind, his legs amputated. Like Harvey, the filmmaker also suffers from diabetes. He has the disease under control, but one question is always nagging at him: How much longer? His long-term (self-)observation reliably revolves around fears of infirmity and mutilation. He translates the feared body horror into film, stages himself as a zombie, vampire, a desolate figure. Lancit playfully anticipates his potential decline, serving up a whole arsenal of effects which – as video recordings prove – go back to his youth. It is not for nothing that the “dead” in the title is also reminiscent of “dad.” Because “Play Dead!” also negotiates his own role as a father.
01 Mar 1968
Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s New York, interweaving moments with family, friends, lovers, and artistic idols. Blending everyday encounters with portraits of the avant-garde art scene, it forms an epic, personal meditation on community, creativity, and the passage of time.
05 Oct 2020
After 40 years, Tom Cruise continues to push the envelope in film. Exposing one's heart to the world through their work is not only risky business, as far as Cruise is concerned, it is the only way to achieve an end that feels complete.
05 Nov 2000
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
22 Feb 1986
A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.
14 Sep 1976
Drawn from footage shot between 1949 and 1963, Jonas Mekas’s autobiographical diary film chronicles his early years in exile, capturing the struggle to build a new life in New York and his gradual discovery of a vibrant artistic community.
06 Nov 2008
Some people collect family albums. Sarmīte Sīle, an accomplished arts scholar, takes a nude photo of herself every ten years. Behind this unique series of nude photos that span a lifetime, is her story.
10 Apr 2009
A short documentary by Jim McBride.
01 Jan 1986
Raphael, Yervant Gianikian's father, survived the Armenian genocide in 1915 in Eastern Turkey. In April 1988, while living in Venice, he sat for his son's camera and read an excerpt from his memoirs, translated from Armenian into Italian.
15 Nov 1967
Homeo is a mental construction made from visual reality, just as music is made from auditive reality. I put in this film no personal intentions. All my intentions are personal. I’ve made this film thinking of what the audience would have liked to see, not something specific that I wanted to say: what the film depicts is above all reality, not fiction. Homeo is, for me, the search for an autonomous cinematographic language, which doesn't owe anything to traditional narrative, or maybe everything. Cinema is, above all, part of a way of life which will become more and more self-assured in the years and century to come. We are part of this change, and that’s why I tried in Homeo to establish a series of perpetual changes, in constant evolution or regress, which tries, above all, to focus on things.
14 Jul 2023
This short experimental diary film reveals my struggles with mental illness in my adolescence and queer adulthood while simultaneously reflecting upon my joyous childhood experiences. I investigate when and how my depression began and explain that my relationships with the people I love have supported me through my harder times. The film incorporates footage shot over May and June 2023 and archival home videos. Overall, I aim to resolve my "growing pains" through the medium of diary film and by reconnecting with my younger self.
08 May 2025
No overview found
01 Sep 2024
The untold state of mind dealing with an incurable disease. One is wondering if there's still a dream to achieve in life. One is running as if this free spirit of mine has never been taken away.
01 Jan 2014
An autobiographical essay film structured as a letter to the director’s young daughter, "Où en êtes-vous, Bertrand Bonello?" weaves clips from Bonello’s films, excerpts from his scripts, pop songs, and snippets of original footage into a lyrical, reflexive cinematic self-portrait. "Où en êtes-vous?" is a collection initiated by Centre Pompidou, who asked directors to make retrospective and introspective films.
07 Jul 1997
Oswaldo Guayasamín, one of the most renowned Latin American artists, with more than 600 portraits in his pictorial career, (among which are F. Mitterrand, Carolina de Mónaco, Juan Carlos I, Rigoberta Menchu) paints his self-portrait, while he tells us the foundations of his art.