Posts Tagged ‘Documentary’

424 results.
Apr27

Buena Vista Social Club (1999) Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

by movieworld on April 27th, 2017 at 15:36
Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary, Musical

Buena Vista Social Club 1999 Criterion Collection
Long before current heartthrob Ricky Martin or even Latino star Selena were making waves, a group of talented musicians were creating wonderful music along the shores and in the capital of pre-Castro Cuba. All but since forgotten, many of them, including the likes of singers Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, guitarist Compay Segundo, pianist Ruben Gonzalez and several others were brought together in 1997 by acclaimed producer and musician Ry Cooder to record an album, "The Buena Vista Social Club". Some of the long-lived performers on the recording hadn't played their instruments for more than ten years.

In this relaxed and entertaining documentary directed by Wim Wenders, the same group gathers to record a solo album featuring vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer whom Cooder has lionized as "the Cuban Nat King Cole." Among the colorful musicians profiled are 90-year-old guitarist Compay Segundo gifted pianist Ruben Gonzalez, and versatile singer Manuel Licea. They talk about their childhood and how they came to become musicians.

The high points in the documentary are the highlights of the Buena Vista Social Club performing shows in Amsterdam and at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1998. This delightful film is a tribute to cross-cultural cooperation and the variety of Cuban music.
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Apr25

Sota ja mielenrauha / War and Peace of Mind (2016) DVD5

by movieworld on April 25th, 2017 at 13:42
Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary, History, War

War and Peace of Mind 2016
The effect of WWII on the countries of Western Europe is widely reported. But what of Finland, a small Nordic nation trapped between the Soviets and the Germans? Known locally as the Continuation War, the tragic events of this period in history had a lasting effect on Finland as well as its people. Documentary filmmaker Ari Matikainen blends fascinating archive footage, interviews and beautifully shot reenactments that utilise letters from soldiers that fought during the period, to create a rounded exploration of the effect of war on the men and women who fight, as well as the knock-on repercussions on an entire nation.

It’s an examination of a myriad of topics: the effect of war on Finnish collective memory, generational repercussions of the event, it’s narrative in society, it’s repercussions (especially regarding mental health), and the role it continues to play in the discourse surrounding national identity. It’s all of those things, but at its core, it’s an exploration of the individual, personal, and harrowing experience of war: the emotions it elicits, and the long-lasting legacy it creates for individuals and greater society, wrapped carefully by a hard working team that spent two years on the project.

Director: Ari Matikainen
Country: Finland
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Apr23

Heart of a Dog (2015) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

by movieworld on April 23rd, 2017 at 13:27
Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary

Heart of a Dog 2015 Criterion Collection
Laurie Anderson has crafted a deeply personal and oddly affecting piece of cinema.
Made up primarily of footage shot on mobile devices, Heart of a Dog is, on its surface, a brief, multi-media meditation by Anderson on her late dog, a small rat terrier called Lolabelle.
Lolabelle, following an amusing stint as a piano playing pooch, got sick and died a few years ago. Anderson and her rock star husband, the legendary Lou Reed, opted to let their pet come to death on her own terms. Anderson, using her own rough animations, highly filtered and manipulated video footage, and music, circles this event over and over while ruminating on assorted other, seemingly random thoughts, including New York and 9/11, living in a heightened security state, sudden infant death syndrome, and what our minds do when we dream. Mundane details collide unpredictably yet unerringly with raw and free artistic experimentation.

BD50 + DVD9 | 1080p AVC, NTSC | 01:15:40 | 34 Gb + 6.56 Gb
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Documentary

Director: Laurie Anderson
Country: USA, France
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Apr22

Lullaby / Kolybelnaya / Колыбельная (1937) DVD5

by movieworld on April 22nd, 2017 at 16:20
Posted In: .Russian movies, Documentary

Kolybelnaya 1937
Lullaby, aka A Song of the Liberated Soviet Woman, was Vertov’s last major film, made to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the October revolution.

It focuses on the women and the role of motherhood, featuring images from across the Soviet Union, in particular the Far East. In that way, it resembles his earlier films thematically, especially A Sixth Part of the World (1926). The film features a toned down version of his famous montage style, and is structured around the lullabies that are sung to children by their mothers across the country. The songs are ostensibly representative of the local culture and folklore, although all of the melodies and lyrics were in fact written specifically for the production of this film.

DVD5 | PAL 4:3 | 00:57:42 | 3.32 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
Genre: Documentary

Director: Dziga Vertov
Country: Soviet Union
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Apr22

Homo sapiens (2016) DVD9

by movieworld on April 22nd, 2017 at 14:41
Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary

Homo sapiens 2016
If the spirit of Stanley Kubrick lives in any current film-maker, it is surely the Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, whose 2008 documentary Our Daily Bread was a chilling study of mechanised food production and animal slaughter. Now he has created a visually extraordinary film composed simply of long, static shots of abandoned human constructions that have been left to rot after natural disasters, human neglect or time itself have taken their toll.

Filming in places ranging from Fukushima to Bulgaria, with stops in the U.S., South America and parts of Europe, Geyrhalter – who shot all the material himself – presents us with an array of homes, offices, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, churches, movie theaters and military installations in various states of decay. Where they are located and why they have been abandoned is never explained, nor does the filmmaker attempt to appease us with scenes of people rebuilding or moving on: there are simply no people to speak of, and at best one can see a few birds or frogs enjoying their new habitats.

This simple, eerie succession of images is as gripping as any of the sci-fi thrillers or post-apocalyptic dramas that would normally use scenes like these as establishing shots.
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Apr21

Fright Night (1985), You’re So Cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night (2016) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Eureka Classics

by movieworld on April 21st, 2017 at 18:22
Posted In: .Other movies, Comedy, Documentary, Horror, Thriller

Fright Night 1985After years the seminal 1985 classic Fright Night finally gets not only a UK release on Blu-ray, but one which makes the rest look anaemic by comparison. Loaded with more enticing goodies than the Child-Catcher’s van, it also boasts the definitive transfer in both picture and sound.
Fright Night introduces us to Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale), a very normal teenaged boy. He enjoys spending time with his girlfriend, Amy (Amanda Bearse), and his odd friend, Ed (Stephen Geoffreys). One day, Charley's mom (Dorothy Fielding) tells him that someone has bought the house next door and that night, Charley is convinced that he sees two men moving a coffin into the basement. The next day, Charley sees an attractive women going into the house and he then sees her on the news, as she was found murdered. Charley becomes convinced that his neighbor is a vampire and he calls the police. However, the homeowner, Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon), laughs off this notion, and convinces the police that he and his roommate, Billy (Jonathan Stark), have done nothing wrong, making Charley look like a fool. In desperation, Charley approaches former horror movie actor and current TV horror host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) for help, who rebuffs Charley. However, Amy and Ed convince Vincent that he can help Charley get over this fantasy. When Vincent confronts Dandrige, he learns that the man is indeed a monster and it's now up to Charley and Vincent to stop this creature of the night.
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Apr18

Nuremberg – Les nazis face a leurs crimes / Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing Their Crimes (2006) 2 x DVD9

by movieworld on April 18th, 2017 at 13:53
Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary, History

Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing Their Crimes 2006
French filmmaker Christian Delage offers a condensed version of the chilling Nuremburg Trials in a documentary that draws on restored courtroom footage shot under the supervision of filmmaker John Ford to tell the story of the Holocaust while simultaneously examining how reproduced images effect the writing of history.

The prosecution team submitted three films as evidence against the high Nazi officials charged with crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Two of these films, "Nazi Concentration Camps" and "The Nazi Plan", were produced by Ford; the third, "The Atrocities Committed by the German-Fascists in the USSR", was a Soviet production directed by Roman Karmen. Excerpts from the sessions in which these films were shown during the trial are significant sequences in the documentary.

Also significant is the "chilling testimony" of prosecution witness Otto Ohlendorf, commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe D and responsible for carrying out mass executions in Eastern Europe, and the description of camp conditions by French resistance fighter Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, a survivor of both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Ravensbruck.

Narrated by Christopher Plummer.
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Apr17

Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes From the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defence (2014) DVD9

by movieworld on April 17th, 2017 at 20:09
Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary, Drama, History

Concerning Violence 2014
“Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”

Swedish documentarian Goran Hugo Olsson draws on the fiery text “The Wretched of the Earth,” West Indies psychiatrist Frantz Fanon’s sharply-worded tirade against colonialist tendencies published in 1962, the same year as his death. Olsson blends haunting and immersive visuals of the African liberation struggles of the sixties and seventies with excerpts from Fanon’s text, read aloud by singer Lauryn Hill and printed on the screen.

Divided into nine sequences, “Concerning Violence” stretches from images of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola and a Liberian miners strike from the sixties all the way through the contemporary struggles of Burkina Faso. Olsson’s project is empowered by a wealth of content from Swedish archives, resulting in a spectacularly dense collage of protests, battles and their grisly aftermaths in both color and black-and-white.

DVD9 | PAL 16:9 | 01:25:34 | 5.31 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English/Swedish/French
Subtitles: English hardcoded (for non-English parts)
Genre: Documentary, Drama, History

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Apr17

Animated Soviet Propaganda: From the October Revolution to Perestroika (1924 – 1979) 4 x DVD

by movieworld on April 17th, 2017 at 14:05
Posted In: .Russian movies, Documentary

Animated Soviet Propaganda: From the October Revolution to Perestroika
There hardly is a time in world history more politically polarized than the 20th century, which divided the globe in two camps — capitalism and communism — divided at the height of the divergence by the infamous Iron Curtain. The Cold War was very much a war of ideologies and each side relied heavily on the ideological unity of its people, often employing the power of the visual arts — graphic design, animation, illustration — to drive its message home. From 1924 to perestroika the USSR produced 41 animated propaganda films. Their target was the new nation and their goal was to win over the hearts and minds of the Soviet people. Anti-American, Anti-British, Anti-German, Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Fascist, some of these films are as artistically beautiful as the great political posters made after the 1917 revolution which inspired Soviet animation. Unearthed from Moscow's legendary Soyuzmultfilm Studios, the 41 films in Animated Soviet Propaganda span sixty years of Soviet history.

4 x DVD | NTSC 4:3 | 8h 34min | 21.7 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
Genre: Animation

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Apr16

The Films Of Marjorie Keller: Volume 1 (1973-1980), Volume 2 (1983-1991) 2 x DVD5

by movieworld on April 16th, 2017 at 13:21
Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary

The Films Of Marjorie Keller
In her brief life, Marjorie Keller (1950-1994) made nearly thirty films in her own distinctive cinematic voice. From her earliest efforts in the late 1960s, Marjorie was attracted to film’s potential to portray the complexity of private events and personal relationships, mostly in response to family life. Her gestural and vivid camerawork, along with an intricate approach to poetic editing, created a body of work that is unsurpassed in its intimacy and conveyance of feelings and concerns.

Marjorie's subjects included her old family house, young women friends, childhood fantasy figures, lovers, siblings, teenage girls, her parents, and her husband. Issues sprang naturally from sharing her life with the people and places that she knew, and their range is astonishing: childbirth, sexuality, memory, the cultural roles women, political activism, the sensuality of daily objects, urban survival, rural pleasures and the values of classical tradition. While deeply influential on both feminist art and the culture of personal experimental filmmaking, Marjorie’s art exists beyond categorization or reductive explanation. It is alive with multiple, often-contradictory meaning and remains a personal experience.

Marjorie Keller wrote: "The current art of the film deranges its predecessors... It is in the work of women filmmakers of the avant-garde that the old forms are seen as if through an anamorphic lens." Her films honor and challenge the traditions that she assumed when she learned filmmaking from Saul Levine, Sidney Peterson, and Stan Brakhage. Keller consistently explored the political implications of daily living and personal pleasures in her films, ten of which are available in this DVD collection.
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