American Journal
A collage of street scenes, news footage and anonymous archive material shows the United States at the height of its power. However, the tone of this collective visual diary gradually shifts from euphoria to nightmare.
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Masters
Masters presents the latest films by the great documentary auteurs of our time. Notably, the selection sees several renowned directors reinventing their cinematic language. Other masters remain faithful to their celebrated film languages as they explore subjects of increasing relevance.
Items in this selection
A Compassionate Spy
In 1951, at the height of the Cold War, physicist Ted Hall risked his life by sharing US atomic secrets with the Soviet Union. Seventy years on, his wife explains what possessed him to do it.
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Dry Ground Burning
Oil is rebellion in a sprawling favela on the outskirts of Brasilia. A group of self-assured women illegally tap it and sell gasoline through a motorcycle gang. This is the heart of a broad panorama of a Brazil we rarely see.
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Everything Will Be OK
A dystopian vision by Rithy Panh à la Animal Farm and Planet of the Apes. Inspired by 20th-century dictators and the horrors of factory farming, animals—represented by clay figures—maintain totalitarian rule over humans.
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The Golden Thread
Beautifully composed images and an immersive sound design capture the last vestiges of Bengal’s jute industry, which has been virtually unchanged since the industrial revolution. Workers carry out their routine work along endless rows of antique looms.
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Goodbye, Captain
For decades, Vincent Carelli filmed the struggles of his friend Krohokrenhum, leader of the Gavião in the Brazilian Amazon, a man who tirelessly defends the traditions of his people against political, economic and cultural assimilation.
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Gumbo Coalition
Multiple Oscar winner Barbara Kopple tracks Marc Morial and Janet Murguía, two heavyweights in the battle for equal rights in the US. A portrait of a tireless warrior duo, and of an America in extremely turbulent times.
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How Do You Measure a Year?
Year after year, a father asks his growing daughter the same questions: What are your dreams? What are you afraid of? The camera captures this gradual becoming of a human being, revealing the leaps we all make on the way to adulthood.
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In viaggio
Gianfranco Rosi presents a chaotic and unjust world, as seen through the eyes of Pope Francis. The director draws from archive material, news reports and footage from his own work in this film about the many journeys made by the church head.
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The Kiev Trial
In January 1946, 15 Nazis were put on trial in Kiev for their role in the murder of 10,000 civilians in Ukraine. Sergei Loznitsa draws on recovered archive footage of the trial to assemble a shocking and urgent documentary.
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The Land
Measured observations of the annual cycles in a rural Latvian community. Seleckis presents the full variety of modern farming life and opens up a highly topical discussion about the future of agriculture.
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Look What You Made Me Do
A film about love, and about anger hidden inside that can erupt without warning. Every year, more than 30,000 women are murdered by their partners worldwide. Three women who did not wait for this to be their fate tell their story.
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The March on Rome
To this day, Benito Mussolini’s style of fascism continues to inspire authoritarian leaders. The March on Rome shows how Mussolini used intimidation and violence to seize power, and how he used propaganda to mythologize events.
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Matter Out of Place
Hypnotic observations of the shocking quantities of waste humanity is accumulating on Earth—and a glint of hope. People produce waste, but people can clean it up as well. From the maker of Our Daily Bread.
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Music for Black Pigeons
Fourteen years of musical encounters between Danish composer-guitarist Jakob Bro and various heroes of contemporary jazz. When the stars are asked what it means to be a musician, they answer in music.
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Mutzenbacher
A hundred men audition for the film version of a controversial pornographic novel. The filmmaker seats them on a casting couch and reverses the roles. Now the men are objectified, in this film packed with discomfort, disgust and lust.
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My Imaginary Country
In October 2019, 1.5 million Chileans took to the streets to fight for a more just society. Legendary filmmaker Patricio Guzmán was there to see a completion of the Chilean freedom struggle of his youth.
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The Natural History of Destruction
A painfully topical archive documentary mainly featuring footage of Allied bombing during the Second World War. Following in the footsteps of W.G. Sebald, Loznitsa asks whether mass destruction can ever be morally justified.
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The Oil Machine
Almost no one would dare to call it “liquid gold” any more, but oil is still the fuel that drives our society. Activists, investors and most of all the planet itself are demanding change. But how to dismantle a machine that we are so dependent on?
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Personality Crisis: One Night Only
An intimate performance by David Johansen at New York City’s storied Café Carlyle. Johansen, the lead singer of glam punk pioneers New York Dolls and later Buster Poindexter, emerges as a fascinating guide to his own life and philosophy.
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Ruthless Times – Songs of Care
The right to spend the final years of your life in dignity is threatening to become unaffordable. This unorthodox combination of classic documentary and musical is a sharp indictment of market forces in the care for the elderly in Finland.
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Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot
In his studio, the celebrated South African artist William Kentridge treats us to his playful philosophical thoughts on the impossibility of knowing oneself. A brilliant, witty self-portrait, with a key role for the coffee pot.
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A Way to B
Through a group of dancers with a variety of disabilities, Jos de Putter and Clara van Gool explore the adaptability of human beings and the flexibility of the human body, resulting in an experience that’s as confrontational as it is moving.
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We’re Here to Try
A theater documentary following a company through the turbulent creative process of a show in search of its script. Engulfed by the uncertainty of the present, the actors wind up disoriented and confused between their lives and the play taking shape.
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The Yellow Ceiling
A powerful account of abuse at a Spanish youth theater school. Testimonies from victims offer insight into the cunning manipulations of the perpetrator, who placed all his actions within the context of “theater.”
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