Por primera vez
★ 7.4 · 1969 · 9m · Documentary
In 1967, Cuban documentary filmmaker Octavio Cortazar followed a travelling projectionist troupe whose mission was to show moving pictures to rural communities for the first time. Cortazar’s short film documents one audience’s response to its first film: Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
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Watch the Tempo
2018
On 18th of December 2017, the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino, directed by Timothy Brock, presented "The Gold Rush" by Charles Chaplin, with live performance of the soundtrack. But let's go back a few days: this short film takes us in the backstage of the concert!
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Che, Today and Always
1983 · ★ 10
A sound system plays Commander Ernesto Guevara's speech, delivered on October 20, 1962, during the Second Anniversary of the Young Communist League, along with a series of archival images of the revolutionary leader visiting factories and meeting with workers.
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Maestras Voluntarias
2022
Ana Deborah Mola and Belkis Lescaille were among the first young teachers who started pilot programs around the island of Cuba in 1960, laying foundation for the massive National Literacy Campaign that would take place the following year.
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Cinema Now
2022 · ★ 2
A fragmented collection of independent closed cinemas, in London during lockdown, captured on Super 8mm film.
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Personal Che
2007 · ★ 10
A documentary that explores the myth behind the truth. Different people around the globe reinterpret the legend of Che Guevara at will: from the rebel living in Hong Kong fighting Chinese domination, to the German neonazi preaching revolution and the Castro-hating Cuban. Their testimonies prove that the Argentinian revolutionary's historical impact reverberates still. But like with all legends, each sees what he will, in often contradictory perspectives.
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The Voice of Innocence
2019
"The Voice of Innocence" is a documentary that shows how, starting in 1959, the Cuban Revolution put into practice a comprehensive and universal policy of safeguarding the rights of the child, even under the multiple difficulties resulting from the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States more than six decades ago. Cuba is one of the main signatories of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed on 20 November 1989, when the country had already made extraordinary progress in protecting the rights of the child, in comparison to developed countries, such as the United States, which as of today hasn't yet ratified the Convention.
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Covidwood
2021 · ★ 9
A French documentary on how Covid-19 affected Hollywood and the cinema industry in the United States.
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AHORA SI LLEGO!
2015 · ★ 10
The first Road Movie feature film made by the Italian artist Sanzi together with the Cuban Balboa is inspired by friendship, the island and the motorbike. The two artists used, for the first time in Cuba, the form of the Road Movie--the cinematic genre the plot of which is developed during a trip.
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Essay on color and its absence
2022
An experiment and a dialogue about recording, the act of filming and the colors available to whoever points the camera somewhere.
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Jaws, a Monstrous Success
2024 · ★ 6.3
In the summer of 1975, the young director Steven Spielberg set new standards for cinema worldwide with an oversized shark bite, a plastic shark fin and an unmistakable two-note main theme composed by John Williams. With the horror from the deep, a man-eating, gigantic great white shark, the film of the same name became a similarly traumatic reference as Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho": it triggered lasting primal fears across generations. On the beaches of the world, there was clearly a "before" and an "after". Steven Spielberg, who was only 28 at the time, not only set new standards for the thriller genre, but also hid his biting criticism of US capitalism in the 1970s behind it.
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Repainting Cuba
2009 · ★ 5
Repainting Cuba takes a critical look at communist Cuba, where both the facades and the aging regime were given a coating of colorful paint in connection with the 50 year anniversary of the revolution. Two young Cubans under house arrest talk about being imprisoned for dealing with foreign tourists in a society where gossip and backstabbing is endemic, and where the heavy varnish can’t conceal the cracks.
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The Silence of Men
2019 · ★ 8.5
This film is part of a project that has listened to over 40,000 people on masculinity issues and has resulted in a documentary and a tool book based on this publicly available study through an agreement with the Social Information Consortium (CIS) of the University of São Paulo.
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