What if French Rock were born with Edith Piaf? From sweet sixties pop to today’s gender-indifferent anthems, from feminist rebels of the seventies to fashion icons of the social media age, from Françoise Hardy to Christine & The Queens, via Vanessa Paradis, Catherine Ringer, Charlotte Gainsbourg and many more, Haut les filles tells the untold story of French female rock stars, combining interviews and iconic footage.
Engrossing for casual listeners as well as hardcore fans, Mystify: Michael Hutchence sheds a poignant light on a life and career cut short by tragedy. Archival footage, private home movies and intimate interviews offer insight into the extraordinary life and career of former INXS singer Michael Hutchence.
Mavis! is the first feature documentary on gospel/soul music legend and civil rights icon Mavis Staples and her family group, The Staple Singers. From the freedom songs of the ’60s and hits like “I’ll Take You There” in the ’70s, to funked-up collaborations with Prince and her recent albums with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Mavis has stayed true to her roots, kept her family close, and inspired millions along the way.
Featuring powerful live performances, rare archival footage, and conversations with friends and contemporaries including Bob Dylan, Prince, Bonnie Raitt, Levon Helm, Jeff Tweedy, Chuck D, and more, Mavis! reveals the struggles, successes, and intimate stories of her journey. At 75, she’s making the most vital music of her career, winning Grammy awards, and reaching a new generation of fans. Her message of love and equality is needed now more than ever.
Time Is Illmatic is a feature length documentary film that delves deep into the making of Nas’ 1994 debut album, Illmatic, and the social conditions that influenced its creation. Twenty years after its release, Illmatic has become a hip-hop benchmark that encapsulates the socio-political outlook, enduring spirit, and collective angst of a generation of young black men searching for their voice in America.
For a predominately visual medium like cinema, its musical component plays a vital role as well, especially its score. In that essential musical accompaniment, the soul of the film is expressed whether it be sweepingly majestic fanfares or delicate lyrical pieces. This documentary explores the artistic role of this special musical discipline that completes the cinematic artistic creation process and the artists who have devoted their careers to this contribution. We explore the form’s history and examine the masters who defined it with their own distinctive artistic vision. In doing so, the various components of this delicate creative process are revealed as they create a musical compositional work that has inspired a popular appreciation of music in all its forms, which gave some old musical ways their own new lease on life. Written by Kenneth Chisholm.
A 2D animated film about a young mouse who becomes Police Superintendent, adapted from the book by Ulf Nilsson and Gitte Spee.
The battle in how the urban form of New York City in particular was shaped in the mid-twentieth century is presented, the two leading figures on the opposing sides of the battle being Robert Moses, who held many senior positions related to development of urban infrastructure, and Manhattan resident and journalist Jane Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”. In this battle, Moses disregarded Jacobs as a “mere housewife” and a nuisance of one at that. As was the prevailing trend of the time, Moses was in the camp of demolishing what he saw as not working to build homogeneous neighborhoods in style and function – most buildings several stories high or taller in the need to accommodate a growing population – that were largely supported by urban freeways or expressways to move people from the burgeoning affluent suburbs to jobs in the urban center. Many of the urban housing developments were social housing for those who could not afford to live in the suburbs, and …
A documentary set at the final of the 1984 French Open between John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl at a time when McEnroe was the world’s top-ranked player.
John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection is the documentary we have waited a lifetime for: The titular tennis titan was photographed decades ago by cinematographer Gil de Kermadec but never so well displayed as in this perfect documentary by Julien Faraut using Kermadec’s footage. Call it a “found footage” doc if you will. Faraut’s engaging approach is to have minimal but incisive voiceover while using often the ¾ view to concentrate on McEnroe’s body and language to understand the range and passion of his perfectionism. Few documentaries are able to get inside the artist’s head the way Faraut does. Along the way is a good portion of entertainment as McEnroe berates line judges, chair referees, cameramen, and spectators, all of whom he probably believed couldn’t know the sport as well as he. His petulant “superbrat” mien makes engaging sports viewing, and Faraut’s doc is equally so but with a deeper desire to understand the tennis bad boy’s motivations. Although seeing this film brings us closer to McEnroe’s demons, it doesn’t completely explain them.
Faraut seems to believe that McEnroe’s constant competitor is himself with the understanding that everyone should know that the forces of competitiveness and perfectionism account for his eccentric and erratic behavior. Given Serena Williams’ recent outburst, this remarkable doc helps us understand better our gifted athletes.
Bjarke Ingels started out as a young man dreaming of creating cartoons. Now, he has been named “one of architecture’s biggest innovators” by The Wall Street Journal and one of The 100 Most Influential People on the planet by TIME Magazine. BIG TIME follows Bjarke during the course of 7 years (2009-2016), while he struggles to finish his biggest project so far. We are let into Bjarke’s creative processes as well as the endless compromises that his work entails, and we are on the side when his personal life starts putting pressure on him, too. In addition to the recently opened architectural marvel VIA 57 West (625 West 57th Street), Bjarke Ingels’ company Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) was given the task of designing and building one of the skyscrapers which will replace Two World Trade Center in Manhattan. While Bjarke is creating these buildings, which will change the New York skyline, he is hit by health-related issues. The Film offers an intimate look into the innovative and ambitious …
A documentary about the life and career of one of the great architect and designer Alvar Aalto and his first wife Aino, with unpublished archival materials. The couple’s iconic creations defined Scandinavian design. An exchange of letters between the two Finnish architects narrates their private relationship, how they founded Artek and their relationship with other Modernists. Suutari’s film also shows several of the nearly 300 architectural projects Aalto completed world-wide: the Paimio sanatorium in Finland, the Viipuri library in Russia, the famous Villa Mairea, the home of collector Louis Carré on the outskirts of Paris, and, among his latest projects, the Finlandia Hall: works united by the importance of light and a close relationship with nature, an architecture on a human scale.
Virpi Suutari (Finland 1967). Her films have participated in major international festivals. She has won Best Nordic Documentary and three Jussi Awards, the Finnish Oscars. Her documentary Entrepreneur (2018) was presented in the IDFA Master selection, at the Chicago International Film Festival and at the Sydney Film Festival.