Communism and the Net, or the End of Representative Democracy
2019 · 335m · Documentary
The six-hour essay in four parts examines the history of regimes and revolutions, leaders and martyrs, from a philosophical perspective. The collage of personal memories, staged scenes and archives of collective memory compares the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution and shows the exposure, conflict, crisis, and catharsis of the post-communist society.
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Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)
2000 · ★ 8
A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.
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Visions of Europe
2004 · ★ 5.2
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
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Letters to a Father
2016 · ★ 7
The author's personal confession. This essay film about the relationship between father and son is filmed exclusively in 16mm film in Prague, Slovenia, India, England and France. An important component of Brajnik's film narration is the musical composition and accompanying voiceover of the artist's alter ego.
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In the Intense Now
2017 · ★ 7.8
A personal essay which analyses and compares images of the political upheavals of the 1960s. From the military coup in Brazil to China's Cultural Revolution, from the student uprisings in Paris to the end of the Prague Spring.
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Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution
2008 · ★ 6
The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.
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The Imperial Lullaby
2020 · ★ 5.3
The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.
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The Long Road Through Balkan History
2009
Bosnian Croat writer Miljenko Jergović and Serbian writer Marko Vidojković replace one another by the steering wheel of Yugo, a symbol of their common past while driving on the Brotherhood and Unity Highway that stretched across five of six republics of Yugoslavia.
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Yugoslavia: How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body
2013 · ★ 6.3
A research-based essay film, but also a very personal perspective on the history of socialist Yugoslavia, its dramatic end, and its recent transformation into a few democratic nation states.
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Swimming, Dancing
2023
Swimming, Dancing examines audiovisual representations of the Yangtze (1934–present), from silent film to video art to the contemporary vlog. Inspired by the city symphonies of the 1920s, Swimming, Dancing pieces together a “river symphony”, evoking the images, sounds and contradictions that make up the river’s turbulent history.
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Ôrí
1989 · ★ 8.6
A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.
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Locations: Looking for Rusty James
2013 · ★ 3
A personal meditation on Rumble Fish, the legendary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where it was shot; and its impact on the life of several people from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay related to film industry.
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