Diving Women of Jeju-do
2007 · 25m · History · Documentary
Jeju-do is the largest of Korean islands and lies between Korea and Japan. There, for hundreds of years, women dive without breathing apparatus, to the ocean floor and collect shellfish, octopus, and urchins that they sell. The divers are in their sixties and seventies and their daughters do not want to inherit their work, lifestyle, and health problems that go with diving. As a filmmaker I was privileged to meet many of these women and dive with them. Their stories of hardship and pride confirmed my desire to record this unique and ancient tradition.
More Like This
Attica
1974 · ★ 7
In 1971, inmates at Attica State Prison seized control of D-yard and took 35 hostages after peaceful efforts for reforms failed. Attica investigates the rebellion and its bloody suppression, revealing institutionalized injustices, sanctioned dishonesty, and abuses of power.
More info →
The Korean Wedding Chest
2009 · ★ 5
Ulrike Ottinger’s provocative mélange of ethnography, stunning tableaux and baroque vignettes was inspired by what she calls the “well-stocked miracle” of Korean wedding chests, assembled according to time-honored customs. This exploration of love and marriage in South Korea looks closely at ancient and present-day rituals, revealing what is old in the new and new in the old. Her inquiry leads us from shamans, temples and priests, to the enchanted maze of 21st-century Seoul, where vendors of medicinal herbs co-exist with high-tech beauty salons for wedding couples and secular marriage palaces. Using film much like a canvas, Ottinger creates a modern fairytale flush with mythological heroes, traditional rites, ancestral symbolism, dreams of eternal love, and a whole lot of Western kitsch. One of her most acclaimed documentaries, it captures the amazing phenomenon of new mega-cities and their contradictory societies caught in a balancing act.
More info →
My Own Breathing
2000 · ★ 5.5
"My Own Breathing" is the final documentary of the trilogy, The Murmuring about comfort women during the World War II directed by BYUN Young-joo. This is the completion of her seven years work. BYUN's first and second documentaries spoke of grandmothers' everyday life through the origin of their torment, while My Own Breathing goes back to their past from their everyday life. Deleting any device of narration or music, the camera lets grandmothers talk about themselves. Finally, the film revives their deep voices trampled by harsh history.
More info →
Ulysse
1986 · ★ 6.9
At the sea shore, a goat, a child, and a naked man. This is a photograph taken in 1954 by Agnès Varda. The goat was dead, the child was named Ulysses, and the man was naked. Starting from this frozen image, the film explores the real and the imaginary.
More info →
Dream Land
2004 · ★ 7
There are places that we don’t want to know anything about, places that we would rather pretend don’t exist at all. One such place is a dumpsite. From the humans’ point of view, it is a ghastly place, a stinking desert of trash. But it’s a desert that is teaming with life.
More info →
Itinerary of Jean Bricard
2008 · ★ 5.8
The film is a commemoration of the lost livelihood of the earth, the lost lives of the War and to the work of two of the cinema’s greatest artists.
More info →
Almost Heaven
2017 · ★ 7.6
Far from home, 17-year-old Ying Ling practices for her examination to become a mortician at one of China's largest funeral homes. The everyday routine of this unusual occupation also serves up both humorous and life affirming moments.
More info →
The Wagner-Clan
2015 · ★ 3.6
After the death of genius Richard Wagner his wife Cosima fights for his legacy even against the will of her children Sigmund and Sieglinde.
More info →
The Secrets We Keep
2020 · ★ 6
In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.
More info →
Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams
2006 · ★ 6.9
A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.
More info →Habibi
2008
Filmed in New York in the summer of 2006: a march across the Brooklyn Bridge in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese populations. Habibi means "beloved" in Arabic.
More info →
100 Years
2017 · ★ 6
An animated history of American health care provider, Planned Parenthood.
More info →