Art & culture

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, is madly in love with the baroness Louise de Bargeton. The risk of scandal forces them to flee to Paris where they hope to live and love freely. Lucien soon finds rejection and loses the baroness’s support. He finds himself alone, penniless, hungry, and humiliated until the day he seeks revenge by writing controversial – yet banal – articles. Inside the Paris he so coveted, he finds a cynical world where everything – and everyone – can be bought and sold. Can he find his way and remain faithful to his hopes and dreams...? Xavier Giannoli's "Illusions perdues" is based on the novel of the same name by Honoré de Balzac, which takes a close look at French society during the Bourbon Restoration. The film celebrated its premiere at the 78th Venice Film Festival.

Keira Knightley plays the writer Colette, who stunned French society in the 1920s with her scandalous novels. The film follows Colette's rise from peasant girl to darling of the Parisian demimonde. «Colette» provides a riveting glimpse into the young woman's life, exploring her artistic genius as well as the abusive relationship with her mentor, played by Dominic West.

The remarkable and charismatic Ingeborg Bachmann has conquered the male dominated bastion of German-language literature with her poetry. Though still young, Bachmann is at the peak of her career. Her relationship with Max Frisch is passionate, but professional friction begins to disrupt the harmony. When Ingeborg is struggling, her friends are there to help. On a journey into the desert, she finds a way back to herself and – above all – to her writing. Director Margarethe von Trotta has made a number of films about historic, combative and passionate female figures, such as Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt. In her new film, she focuses on Ingeborg Bachmann and the Austrian poetess's relationship with Swiss writer Max Frisch. These characters are brilliantly portrayed by Vicky Krieps ("Corsage") and Ronald Zehrfeld ("The Black Spider"). "Ingeborg Bachmann - Reise in die Wüste" is a visually powerful, elegant and stirring film.

Max Frisch was the last great Swiss intellectual whose "voice" was widely heard and appreciated beyond the borders of his country: a character like none can be found today. Against the backdrop of the late 20th century, the film follows the story of Frisch.

The film tells of the radical life-search by the Swiss writer Paul Nizon, born 1929 in Bern, Switzerland, who became what “he was meant to be” in Paris. Now 90-year-old, Paul Nizon grants insights into his life and work in a self-ironic, direct manner. The intimate portrait of a great literary outsider emerges, for whom the risk of life and the risk of writing merge into one and the same work of art.

This film is no classic author’s portrait, but rather a documentary that through fiction brings Martin Suter’s novels to life and also brings us another step closer to the creator behind them too. «Most often, imagination says more than reality.» Suter weaves from story to story – stories that have been beautifully, cinematographically and impactfully captured, illuminating both his characters and their secrets, and above all his unique cosmos (so near and yet so far) – a world of opposites shaped by the search for stories. This film reveals everything – except the truth.

The feature documentary is an intimate memorial paying tribute to the man, thinker, writer and painter Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The focus is on the hitherto unknown love story between Friedrich Dürrenmatt and his wife Lotti Dürrenmatt-Geissler, a close relationship that lasted for forty years. After Lotti’s death in 1983, Dürrenmatt suffered from a profound crisis, which he overcame with a new, great love. His sister Verena Dürrenmatt, together with his children Peter Dürrenmatt and Ruth Dürrenmatt, share the exclusive story of their brother and father for the first time.

The autobiography of Bruno Wilkomirski, who described his childhood in a concentration camp in it, led to a scandal, because it was exposed as fiction. Interviews and archive material are used to investigate the motives of the man who turned his personal trauma as an orphan in Switzerland into a collective Jewish trauma and thus became a perpetrator himself.

An inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his home country in the late 1940s for joining the Communist Party.

Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, collage-like portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. Taking place on Mishima’s last day, when he famously committed public seppuku, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer’s life as well as by gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. With its rich cinematography by John Bailey, exquisite sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, and unforgettable, highly influential score by Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a tribute to its subject and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right.

With her worldwide success “Fear of Flying”, the New Yorker Erica Jong inspired the sexual liberation of women. She dared to set out for herself and demanded an encounter on equal terms. She wanted to change the world and still wants to today. With her own story, with her humour and with trust in the power of words.

To celebrate the centenary of Jorge Luis Borges' birth, Tristán Bauer has created a very stimulating film essay: Skilfully, respectfully and poetically, he mixes archive documents, conversations and photographs of the writer's life, which reflect Borges' political stance, his problems with the Perón regime and his international successes. Tristán Bauer does not limit himself to a historian's work, he subtly reconstructs the writer's world: infinite fountains of the strange library of Babel, numerous corridors, circles, mirrors, stairs and hexagons.

Based on Patricia Highsmith’s personal writings and accounts of her family and lovers, the film casts new light on the famous thriller writer’s life and oeuvre, permeated by themes of love and its defining influence on identity.

Between 1947 and 1950, more than 80 000 Greek citizens were imprisoned on the isle of Makronisos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of communism’. Among these exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, these prisoners succeeded in composing poems, which describe their struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

Tatsumi celebrates the life of Japanese comic artist, Yoshihiro Tatsumi. As he becomes successful, he redefines the manga landscape with an alternative genre for adults-and his work plunges into the darker aspects of life.

Ken Bugul is a Senegalese writer who lives in Africa, where her soul is anchored. She has had an exceptional life. Silvia Voser’s film shows her as an iconic figure of the female condition and of relationships between Africa and the West. Ken Bugul is considered one of the most brilliant writers in Senegalese and French of these past decades. Over the years, thanks to her great command of the French language and the uncompromising care she takes with the wording of the meaning of Wolof vocabulary, her mother tongue, her novels have become absolute references in the realm of linguistic studies. "What you read in French in my novels is how we think and speak in Wolof in my village". Ken Bugul’s personal story is overshadowed by Africa’s turbulent history. She was born in 1947 in an isolated village in Senegal, at that time a French colony. Her father was 85 years old and her mother left them before Ken turned five. This was a fundamental event in Ken Bugul’s life. In spite of lacking a mother’s love, she was full of energy and a yearning for freedom, and she received an exceptional education for a village girl of that time. In 1971, she left for Europe to go to university and there she met people from the upper middle class and discovered new ideologies and liberties, modern art, drugs, alcohol, loneliness, incomprehension and disdain, and prostitution to relieve her need for affection. As she says in "The Abandoned Baobab": "For twenty years all I had learned was their thoughts and their emotions. I thought I’d have fun with them, but I ended up even more frustrated. I identified with them, but they didn’t identify with me." She came back to Senegal, a broken, lonely and penniless young woman. People thought she was crazy and she was rejected by her family and society. For two years, she slept in the streets of Dakar, hanging out with outcasts, beggars, prostitutes and artists. Dirty, hungry, almost naked, she started writing her first novel, "The Abandoned Baobab". Worn out, she decided to go back to her family. And there, in her mother’s village, she found refuge with the Serigne (marabout), a wise and much respected man. He took her as his 28th wife, enabling her to re-enter society, and he supported her in her desire to write and to be free. He died in 1981, a year before the publication of her first novel, "The Abandoned Baobab", which was an immediate success. Ken Bugul was invited to present her book all over the world. She met a doctor from Benin, married him and moved to that country, where she gave birth to their daughter Yasmina. Her husband passed away four years later. For the past thirty years, novel after novel, Ken Bugul has painted a picture of her life as a woman, of her loves, of the relationship between her continent and the West. "To write", she says, "is to dazzle the senses, and the senses are colourless." Silvia Voser leads us gently into the secret, tormented world of an artist whose writings show an understanding of the world that is rarely achieved.

A fictionalized documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644-1694), the spiritual father of Haiku poetry. A monk plays the role of Bashô and walks through the Japanese countryside, following the tracks of the poet’s travel diaries. On the way he writes many of his famous haiku poems. A film about poetry, meditation, zen buddhism and a view of untouched, virgin nature, seen and to understand as a lost paradise.

A fictionalized documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644-1694), the spiritual father of Haiku poetry. A monk plays the role of Bashô and walks through the Japanese countryside, following the tracks of the poet’s travel diaries. On the way he writes many of his famous haiku poems. A film about poetry, meditation, zen buddhism and a view of untouched, virgin nature, seen and to understand as a lost paradise.

Just like a salmon, this writer traces the course of her life back to the source: she tells us her story, in an interplay of reflections involving her sentiments, her writings, her photos and her friends. Before everyone, she drove, smoked, learned German, freely loved unfaithful men, reflected on Switzerland and its demons during the war and stirred generations of women with her sensitivity and her fury to write, getting straight to the point while drawing material from her own existence without glossing it over.

The filmmaker explores the life and work of the Austrian novelist, playwright and political activist, Peter Handke. The titles of his books sound like the tunes in a jukebox: Offending the Audience and Other Spoken Plays, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick or A Sorrow Beyond Dreams. In the 1960s, he was the definition of a “pop star” author. Yet as soon as he started making the bestseller lists, he turned his back on stardom and went travelling, taking his readers along with him, dragging them into the rhythm and precision of his language and into his own examination of reality. As a young man, and still now, in his daily life, Peter Handke never stopped asking: “Where are we now?” and “How should we live?”

Director Kappeler returns to the subject of his past film "Die Ballade des Schreiben" (1995), about poet Gerhard Meier. Now that documentary is viewed as an essential introduction into the poet’s work, a man who became a writer after 33 years working in a factory. Two years after the film Gehard Meier’s wife Dorli died, and in 2005 the now 88-year-old Meier published "Ob die Granatbäume blühen", possibly his most moving work so far. Kappeler’s new documentary expands the themes in his previous one with "Das Wolkenschattenboot". In beautiful, dense images, we experience a talented writer, a person who is true to himself and who conveys his calm and clear view of the world to us in wonderful, powerful language.

The film tells of the radical life-search by the Swiss writer Paul Nizon, born 1929 in Bern, Switzerland, who became what “he was meant to be” in Paris. Now 90-year-old, Paul Nizon grants insights into his life and work in a self-ironic, direct manner. The intimate portrait of a great literary outsider emerges, for whom the risk of life and the risk of writing merge into one and the same work of art.

Astrid and her siblings count themselves lucky to be growing up on their parents’ parsonage farm in Vimmerby. Although their daily routine is shaped by strict religious values, their mother Hanna and father Samuel always manage to give them security and a sense of freedom. Astrid’s parents enable her to attend a secondary school that would normally be the preserve of wealthy bourgeois kids, and they do not get in the way of the 18-year-old when the owner of the local newspaper offers her a position as a volunteer in the editorial office. Not only does Reinhold Blomberg teach her to proof-read and write texts, he also falls in love with her. When she becomes pregnant, Astrid makes a momentous decision: she refuses to marry him and instead decides to take care of herself and her son Lasse on her own. In her film about the youth of the writer Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002), Pernille Fischer Christensen portrays a strong, independent young woman who breaks social norms and faces difficult decisions with courage. Alba August plays Astrid as both wild and thoughtful, a responsible young woman battling her own feelings of guilt.

A young man is sent to "La Maca", a prison of Ivory Coast in the middle of the forest ruled by its prisoners. With the red moon rising, he is designated by the Boss to be the new "Roman" and must tell a story to the other prisoners.

Giulia Tonelli, principal dancer at the Zurich Opera House, returns from maternity leave. She has to fight to find her place and a new balance, between the competitive and extremely demanding world of an elite ballet company and her new family life. The documentary is an unprecedented immersion in the microcosm of a great opera house from 2019-2021, an intimate and committed look at the journey of a woman who reclaims her own body and herself to be back on stage. Laura Kaehr's film won the "Audience Award" at the Zurich Film Festival in 2022.

Yuli is the nickname given to Carlos Acosta by his father, Pedro, who considers him the son of Ogun, an African god and a fighter. As a child Yuli avoids discipline and education, learning from the streets of an impoverished and abandoned Havana. His father, however, has other ideas, and knowing that his son has a natural talent for dance, sends him to the National Ballet School of Cuba. Despite his repeated escapes and initial poor behaviour, the boy is inevitably drawn to the world of dance, and begins to shape his legendary career from a young age, becoming the first black dancer to be cast in some of the most prestigious ballet roles, originally written for white dancers, in companies such as the Houston Ballet or the Royal Ballet in London.

Alger. Houria (25) is a gifted dancer with dreams of joining the Algerian National Ballet. To make ends meet, she works as a cleaning lady during the day and bets in clandestine fights overnight. After winning a final, Houria is assaulted by Ali, who is determined to get his money back. When she wakes up in a hospital, the prognosis is grim: she is unable to speak and will certainly never dance again. Refusing to abandon her dream, she throws herself, heart and soul, into her physical recovery. At her rehab center, she meets other women damaged by life. Houria resolves to help them transcend their wounded bodies and stand tall - by teaching them how to dance.

Can a new generation of artists conquer the Bastille today? For the very first time, 30 dancers reinvent Rameau’s baroque masterpiece “Les Indes Galantes”. None of them has a classical training, they are all masters of krump, break, popping and voguing. It is a premiere for director Clément Cogitore and choreographer Bintou Dembélé. And it’s a premiere for the Paris Opera itself, bringing urban dance and lyrical song together in a lively, colourful dialogue. From rehearsals to the premiere, we follow the dancing adventure and its challenges. "Indes Galantes" is a vibrant film, artistic, human and politically gripping. The film tells the collective dimension of this inspiring project, while the camera gives the individual protagonists space to express their feelings and shows how they put their heart and soul into this work. In "Indes Galantes" we can see how they overcome the barriers between these different worlds. And we learn through them how we can all admire each other.

Istanbul, in the near future. While the city is plagued by political unrest, four characters see their destinies collide. For her debut feature film, a prize-winner during the Venice Film Festival, filmmaker and photographer Azra Deniz Okyay delivers a complex and moving opus. With brilliant editing and punctuated by a magnificent soundtrack, she paints a powerful portrait of contemporary Turkey and an ode to its ghosts.

Merab has been training since a young age at the National Georgian Ensemble with his dance partner Mary. His world is suddenly turned upside down when the charismatic and carefree Irakli arrives and becomes both his strongest rival and desire. In this conservative setting Merab finds himself having to break free and risk it all.

The incredible true story of legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who transformed the world of ballet forever. From his poverty-stricken childhood in a Soviet city, to his blossoming as a student dancer in Leningrad, to his escape from the KGB and defection to the West at the height of the Cold War.

This is the story of a ball. A grand ball. Every summer, more than two thousand people come from accross Europe to dance together, dance even more, during seven days and seven nights, in the countryside of France. A joyful crowd of men and women from all ages, speaking different languages, beginners, virtuosos, enthusiasts. A crowd that reveals how different it is when we dare look into one's eyes, when we dare touch one another. And how life pounds.

In the sorrow of exile, a group of Argentinians in Paris seek solace and connection to their culture by staging a set of tangos. The film alternates between their vibrant rehearsals and their circumscribed lives in low-rent apartments, underemployed, fitfully communicating with families back home, trying to make do with what they hope are only temporary arrangements in a foreign land. Director Fernando Solanas had to spend several years in exile, some of them in Paris. There he tells us the story of people from Argentina spending their time in Paris and longing for Buenos Aires. One of the strongest movies about living in exile.

After studying literature at Cairo University, Dunia, 23 years old, wants to become a professional dancer. She attends audition for an oriental dance contest where she recites Arabian poetry without any body movement. She explains to the perplexed jury that a woman can't move her body or evoke act of love when society ask women to hide their femininity. She is selected and meets Beshir, an intellectual and activist who will supervise her thesis on ecstasy in Sufi love poetry. Their attraction is mutual. This could be liberation for Dunia but the constraints on women in Egyptian society goes deeper than she suspects.

Determined 15-year-old Lara is committed to becoming a professional ballerina. With the support of her father, she throws herself into this quest for the absolute at a new school. Lara's adolescent frustrations and impatience are heightened as she realizes her body does not bend so easily to the strict discipline because she was born a bo

Three different characters in a Havana, that always seems to be like today, must choose between clinging to their self-restricting beliefs, or getting rid of them to live more freely. Ballerina Mariana has recently promised God celibacy, if she gets the main role of "Giselle"; Social-worker Julia always faints after hearing a certain word, like other people do in the streets to different words; and percussionist Elpidio was abandoned by his mother named Cuba quite some time ago and has not yet gotten over the loss. Now he fells in love with an northern activist. BONUS: Als Zugabe gibt's den Bergsteiger-Dokumentarfilm mit Daniel Anker, der in den 1990er Jahren eine neue Route durch die Eiger-Nordwand gelegt hat und sie als Liebhaber des Films «La vida es silbar» nannte. Sie erfreut sich bei jenen, die gerne Klettern, als beliebt.

Inspired by the famous story “The Abduction of Sita” from the great classic of ancient Indian and South East-Asian literature the Ramayana, OPERA JAWA is a musical like no other in cinema. It tells of a passionate love triangle that leads inexorably to conflict, violence and death. Setio and his wife Siti, run a pottery business in a small village where Ludiro, a powerful and ruthless butcher, controls all the trading activities. When the couple’s business collapses, Ludiro, who has always been in love with Siti, seizes his chance, abducts and tries to seduce her. Inevitably the two men begin to fight over Siti...

Ema (Mariana Di Girolamo), a young dancer, decides to separate from Gastón (Gael García Bernal) after giving back Polo, the son they both adopted and were unable to raise. In a desperate search through the streets of the port city of Valparaíso, Ema seeks love affairs in order to overcome her guilt. However, she has a secret plan to recover everything she’s lost.

The Music Room shows the end times of a decadent landlord in Bengal and his efforts to maintain his family's reputation even in economically difficult times. The landlord, Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), is a just but unworldly man who likes to spend time listening to music and setting up spectacles instead of managing his lands devastated by floods and the Indian government's abolition of the Zamindari system. He is challenged by a simple man who has gained wealth through business, spectacle and musical festivals.

Following the death of her two children, Isadora Duncan created the solo Mother in which a mother cradles her child in a moment of extreme tenderness, then lets it go. A century later, four women encounter this heart-rending dance.

A fast-paced film about people whose feet are their primitive and powerful instrument of artistic expression. Beginning with “bödele” in Central Switzerland, this film journeys from tap dance and flamenco to Irish dance. The rhythmic stamping of the shoes is reminiscent of ethnic ritualistic folk dances. Evolving from the “dances of the folk” are show and competition dance. The film provides insight into passionate dancers and people who express joy, desire and sadness through rhythm with their feet.

The few thousand kilometers that separate Patagonia from the South Pole are a fascinating and hypnotic journey for explorers. Some even speak of an addiction, 'the Antarctic bite'. "La Marche de l’empereur" (2005) director Luc Jacquet has been experiencing it for 30 years. His new film is a visually striking adventure, offering us images beyond words, an ultimate tribute to a vanishing continent.

Vivian Maier's photos were seemingly destined for obscurity, lost among the clutter of the countless objects she'd collected throughout her life. Instead these images have shaken the world of street photography and irrevocably changed the life of the man who brought them to the public eye. This film brings to life the interesting turns and travails of the improbable saga of John Maloof's discovery of Vivian Maier, unravelling this mysterious tale through her documentary films, photographs, odd collections and personal accounts from the people that knew her. What started as a blog to show her work quickly became a viral sensation in the photography world. Photos destined for the trash heap now line gallery exhibitions, a forthcoming book and this documentary film.

From Camera Obscura and the Lumieres Brothers all the way to Youtube and the world of social media, the film chronicles how we went from capturing the image of a backyard to a multi-billion- euro content industry in just 200 years. With an exclusive use of archival and found footage, the film uses the very medium it examines, in a self-reflective yet hilarious montage. Filmmakers Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck once again turn their cameras directly on society, this time to explore, explain and expose how our unchecked obsession with image has grown to change our human behavior.

Gilles Caron, at the peak of a dazzling career as a photojournalist, suddenly disappeared in Cambodia in 1970. He was barely 30 years old. In the space of 6 years, he was one of the major witnesses of his time, covering for the greatest magazines the Six Day War, May 68, the North Irish conflict or the Vietnam War. When director Mariana Otero discovered Gilles Caron's work, a photograph caught her attention, echoing his own story, the disappearance of a loved one who left behind only images to be deciphered. She then plunges into the 100,000 shots of the photoreporter to give him back a presence and tell the story of his so singular gaze.

Three old photographers in the mid-1980s - from the patron of a family business spanning several generations to a city original documenting Zurich's nightlife with his Polaroid camera - shortly before the advent of digital photography. Friedrich Kappeler and his cameraman Pio Corradi, both trained photographers, portray their professional colleagues with great empathy, poetry and humor.

Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever. - By adopting the lead character’s first name for the film’s title, Boris Lojkine’s approach shows all its humility. He applies the same dignified treatment to the tragic fate of a country and its inhabitants as he does to the true story of Camille, a young woman who observes and inhabits the world with rare intensity and tries desperately to account for the conflicts and drama in a Black Africa that the West would rather ignore.

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history; international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Sebastião's Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

A struggling street photographer, pressured to marry by his grandmother, convinces a shy stranger to pose as his fiancée. Against their own expectations, the contrary pair develops a deep connection that transforms each of them in ways they never expected.

Set at the Newport jazz festival in 1958, this documentary mixes images of water and the town with performers and audience. The film progresses from day to night and from improvisational music to Gospel. It's a concert film that suggests peace and leisure, jazz at a particular time and place.

In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinematograph and made the first films in history. Directing, tracking shots, special effects - the two brothers also influenced the art of film design. Thierry Frémaux's exciting compilation of their partly world-famous, partly newly discovered masterpieces in restored copies is a moving journey back to the beginnings of cinema. The unforgettable film jewels also offer a unique view of the world on the threshold of the 20th century. Lumière - the adventure of cinema begins!

An hallucinatory tale of a filmmaker’s journey to Canada’s Arctic in search of the Northern Lights – an encounter with the gulf between the knowable and the ineffable, between humankind’s need to capture and control Nature, and Nature’s refusal to be caught… aurora borealis, the lights with no bodies pouring colours from the sky… more special than any special effect…

At an age when others might look for a quieter life, Walter Pfeiffer had burst onto the international scene as an artist and fashion photographer - which is a joy to see. Alongside those who accompanied Pfeiffer through this journey, we also hear from his former models. We discover what they gained from agreeing to be photographed. And as he only photographed the young, we catch glimpses of youth culture over four decades.

A photographer who is haunted by the feeling that the gap between his life and his ideals is growing finds himself obliged to put up in his apartment a young relative who has left behind his village looking for a job aboard a ship in Istanbul to go abroad.

The only thing more outrageous than the great artist Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs was his life. Born in a suburb of New York, he began to take highly aesthetic images of sexually excited men in his mid twenties. It is the era of Andy Warhol’s Factory and a new dawn of hedonistic sexuality. In MAPPLETHORPE: LOOK AT THE PICTURES, the well-known homosexual tells without shame about the passions that influenced his art. Intimate recollections by those who knew him cast additional, sometimes critical, light on the biography of an artist whose provocative subject matter begged the question as to where art ends and pornography begins. Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato receive unprecedented access to previously unpublished archive material and shine a new light on a key figure of 20th century photography.

Untouched natural landscapes of unique beauty can be found in the remote valleys of the Tibetan highlands. Filmmaker Marie Amiguet accompanies renowned nature photographer Vincent Munier and writer Sylvain Tesson on an adventurous journey in search of the snow leopard, a wild animal that very rarely reveals itself to mankind. The unusual journey of these two sympathetic oddballs becomes a contemplative ode to that sublime wilderness which, like the majestic snow cat, is in danger of disappearing. The score by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave compliments Amiguet's documentary, making it a sensory and decelerating experience.

In Anselm, Wim Wenders paints a portrait of one of the most innovative and important painters and sculptors of our time: Anselm Kiefer. A cinematic journey through the creative work of a man whose art explores human existence and the cyclical nature of history, inspired by literature and poetry, history, philosophy, science, mythology and religion. For more than two years, Wenders followed Kiefer’s path, linking the stages of his life and the essential places of his work, in a career now spanning more than five decades between Kiefer’s native Germany and France, his current creative home.

The Swiss artist Markus Raetz is an established figure in the international art world. For the film by Iwan Schumacher, the artist from Bern is for the first time giving a camera team an insight into his 40 years of work.

In the spring of 1912, Alma Mahler (Emily Cox), grande dame of Viennese society and newly widowed, embarks on an affair with the "enfant terrible" of the Viennese art scene, Oskar Kokoschka (Valentin Postlmayr). A passion erupts that threatens their very existence. Director Dieter Berner focuses on two icons of the early 20th century art world and and uses powerful images to tell the story of Alma Mahler's passionate affair with Oskar Kokoschka, the intensity of which takes the two eccentric artists to their limits and threatens their very existence.

Thurgau painter Adolf Dietrich's paintings have found their way out into the world - as far as the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But Dietrich himself stayed in his village all his life and painted what he loved and what preoccupied him: Neighborhood children, bouquets of flowers, pets, the view from his parlor window into the neighbor's garden, onto the village street and the view from his garden onto Lake Constance. In this documentary, Friedrich Kappeler meets people who still knew the Berlinger painter: his nephew, various models, an employer and collectors. Most of them were already very old in 1991, but when they talk about Dietrich, they light up and laugh. Kappeler has clearly found a connection with the contemporary witnesses and takes us on an entertaining journey through the landscape of Untersee and the wonderfully photographed paintings. A journey on which we learn a lot about the painter, but also about the living conditions of the time.

Withdrawing to the area around Arles and Auvers-sur-Oise to escape the pressures of Parisian life, Vincent van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) is treated brutally by some, and more kindly by others. The owner of the local restaurant feels for him and gives him a notebook for his drawings. Others are afraid of his dark and unpredictable mood swings. Even the artist and his close friend Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac) finds him too stifling and leaves him. Only his loyal brother, art dealer Theo (Rupert Friend) continues to support Vincent, even if he doesn’t succeed in selling a single painting. With moving insights into his life’s ups and downs, this film is a fascinating journey into the body and soul of Vincent van Gogh.

Endo Anaconda meets Albert Anker where the artist comes closer than anywhere else – in the painter's studio in the village of Ins, one of the very few artist's studios from the 19th century that have been conserved in their original condition. In this space with countless “exhibits” from floor to ceiling, you can explore right down to the farthest corners what Anker loved, admired, longed for, what made him aware of transience and death and what he wanted to have before his eyes at all times.

One of the world’s greatest living painters, the German artist Gerhard Richter has spent over half a century experimenting with a tremendous range of techniques and ideas, addressing historical crises and mass media representation alongside explorations of chance procedures. Infamously media-shy, he agreed to appear on camera for the first time in 15 years for a 2007 short by filmmaker Corinna Belz called Gerhard Richter’s Window. Her follow-up, Gerhard Richter Painting, is exactly that: a thrilling document of Richter’s creative process, juxtaposed with intimate conversations (with his critics, his collaborators, and his American gallerist Marian Goodman) and rare archive material. From our fly-on-the-wall perspective, we watch the 79-year-old create a series of large-scale abstract canvasses, using fat brushes and a massive squeegee to apply (and then scrape off) layer after layer of brightly colored paint. This mesmerizing footage, of a highly charged process of creation and destruction, turns Belz’s portrait of an artist into a work of art itself.

Zilla Leutenegger is a successful Swiss artist. Filmmaker Iwan Schumacher accompanied her as she prepared for a major exhibition at the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur and focuses on the creation of three artworks: Two Pianos from the piano cemetery, a endless hallway and a Silverback called ZillaGorilla. These works are jumping-off points for following a few trajectories in Leutenegger’s life and work. A very contemporary picture emerges of life as a woman and as an artist today.

"NOT ME - A Journey with Not Vital" takes us on an intriguing foray into the eventful life and creative artistic expressions of contemporary Swiss artist Not Vital. This film essay sheds light on the work of the internationally renowned Grisons artist who for a long time remained the "well-known unknown" inside his home country. Director Pascal Hofmann traces the driving force of this restless cosmopolitan, and establishes a dialogue between the motifs in Vital's work, his childhood dreams, and the influences of his most important places of stay such as Beijing, Patagonia, Niger, "his" village of Sent in the Grisons, and New York. The film opens up visually stunning insights into Vital's perception of reality and its artistic transformation. From beginning to end, this film tells the author's enraptured exploration of the longings of an artist who came from the mountains.

The theme of Fredi M. Murer's contribution to the episode film Swissmade is "Switzerland after us". Murer's episode takes place in the year 2069. An "integrated citizen with a latent tendency to become an unintegrated citizen" is commissioned by the "Brain Center" to produce a film report about the unknown mission of a foreign being. The alien being is an extraterrestrial designed by H. R. Giger long before ALIEN with a built-in camera and tape, which travels across the earth in the year 2069 to explore current conditions. The film reporter is Murer himself. Without exception, the performers in real life were authentic 1968 activists, some of whom later made political or artistic careers. In addition to this: Murer's freaky "Chicorée" with Urban Gwerder and one of the most spontious and colourful film ends ever.

Utamaro, a great artist, lives to create portraits of beautiful women, and the brothels of Tokyo provide his models. A world of passion swirls around him, as the women in his life vie for lovers. And, occasionally, his art gets him into trouble. Utamaro and His Five Women is a tender, erotic, and provocative story of the difficulties and rewards of creation.

At the beginning of the 19th century the discovery of the wide-open spaces of the United States and its incredible wildlife was key in the political development of the country. Intent on painting all the birds of America, John-James Audubon became a central figure of America’s national identity. But as these birds started disappearing with the dawn of the industrial era, so did the original American dream. In this “river movie” along the banks of the Mississippi, political, environmental and human rights issues are interwoven with the tales, myths and ghosts of these now extinct birds.

Artist, anarchist, drop-out, sans papiers: Giovanni Segantini was all of this. He created, usually under the open sky, monumental works in the idealised image of nature of an alpine landscape. In the course of his lifetime he climbed ever higher in quest of more light. He died at the age of 41 in an alpine hut at 2700m in the Engadine. The film provides insight into his difficult childhood and boyhood, shares his inner processes and crises as a painter, as well as his contradictory dealings with motherly love and eroticism – and ultimately his desperate struggle against death.

Follows late screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, as he researches the painter Goya in a trip filled with culture, cinema, emotion, painting and Spain.

H.R. Giger became known all over the world as the designer of the aliens in Ridley Scott's feature film ALIEN. In this documentary about H.R. Giger's work, which was made many years before, the artist's creative process and the interplay between conscious and unconscious influences are the focus. Statements by experts and contemporaries address the question of the artist's position and social responsibility.

Using a specially designed transparent 'canvas' to provide an unobstructed view, Picasso creates as the camera rolls. He begins with simple works that take shape after only a single brush stroke. He then progresses to more complex paintings, in which he repeatedly adds and removes elements, transforming the entire scene at will, until at last the work is complete.

Sam Ali, a young sensitive and impulsive Syrian, left his country for Lebanon to escape the war. To be able to travel to Europe and live with the love of his life, he accepts to have his back tattooed by one of by the World’s most sulfurous contemporary artist. Turning his own body into a prestigious piece of art, Sam will however come to realize that his decision might actually mean anything but freedom.

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.

Exploring the labyrinth of the contemporary art world, The Price of Everything examines the role of art and artistic passion in today’s money-driven, consumer-based society. Featuring collectors, dealers, auctioneers and a rich range of artists, from current market darlings Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, to one-time art star Larry Poons, the film exposes deep contradictions as it holds a mirror up to contemporary values and times, coaxing out the dynamics at play in pricing the priceless.

Andrei Gortchakov, a Russian writer, travels through Italy in the footsteps of a fellow composer to write his biography. With great sensitivity for the emotions of those who are far from their country, Andrei Tarkovski, supported by his Italian co-writer Tonino Guerra, draws a meeting of cultures and periods.

An absorbing portrait of the 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova which is brimming with metaphors and dreams. Parajanov created a melting pot based on the Armenian and Georgian cultural traditions with their rich religious symbolism and the expressive powers of cinema, the modernist folk art of the 20th century. This classic by Parajanov is not a dramatised portrait of the poet Arutyun Sayadyan, better known as Sayat-Nova (the King of Songs’), but an associative portrait full of metaphors and dreams, arabesques and still lifes. It is a film designed like an oriental tapestry: quirky and unpredictable in line and colour, but at the same time expressive of great aesthetic harmony. The Color of Pomegranates is also a statement about the Messianic role of the artist, in this case the filmmaker Parajanov, who regarded this film as his finest.

Tatsumi celebrates the life of Japanese comic artist, Yoshihiro Tatsumi. As he becomes successful, he redefines the manga landscape with an alternative genre for adults-and his work plunges into the darker aspects of life.

Paris 1964: In Alberto Giacometti's studio people work, drink, doubt, argue, flirt and laugh. The Swiss is established as an artist, his works achieve record sales on the market. However, he is not interested in success. Giacometti asks the writer and art lover James Lord to model for him. Flattered and fascinated, he says yes. But Lord has no idea what he is getting into. Soon the young American gains insights into the fascinating, intensive, sometimes chaotic and irritating creative process of the world-famous artist...

«Francofonia» by Alexander Sokurow is the story of two remarkable men, Louvre director Jacques Jaujard and Nazi Occupation officer Count Wolff-Metternich - enemies then collaborators - whose alliance would be the driving force behind the preservation of museum treasures. «Francofonia» explores the relationship between art and power, the Louvre museum as a living example of civilization, and what art tells us about ourselves even in the midst of one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen.

The painter from Solothurn (CH) Frank Buchser was sent to the USA in 1866 to paint a large painting of the "Heroes of the Civil War" for the future Council of States Hall in Bern. Initially Buchser was busy portraying politicians and generals in the spirit of his clients. More and more, however, he became interested in the Indians expelled to the reservations and in the living conditions of the slaves who had just been freed. Years earlier, fascinated by Moorish culture, Frank Buchser rides disguised as a Turkish sheikh to the Moroccan town of Fez, which is forbidden to Christians under death penalty. The Swiss filmmaker Bruno Moll (Pizza Bethlehem, Tunisreise) tells the two adventurous journeys of the rebellious and controversial artist. The film narrative begins with film documents of the riots in Charlottesville in August 2017 and the diary entries made by Frank Buchser in 1869, when General Lee was his model for the portrait. In a large flashback the film tells Buchser's story of his stay in Andalusia and Morocco in 1858, returns with him to his homeland and closes with his North American adventure.

A journey into the world and the work of the great master of the South American cinema, Fernando Birri. As Birri said, it’s his "spiritual kino last will".

In the “Kunstgiesserei” in St. Gallen renowned artists – such as Urs Fischer, Katharina Fritsch, Peter Fischli, Mariana Castillio Deball, Paul McCarthy, Alex Hanimann and Hans Josephsohn – meet up with Felix Lehner, the charismatic founder of the art foundry. He and his crew translate ideas into sculptures with a great deal of passion and enthusiasm. Their success has led to the fact that some of the production phases had to be outsourced to Shanghai. The cultural and artisanal exchange with China is tremendously enriching. And regardless of whether in Shanghai or St. Gallen, the molten metal is spellbinding as it turns dreams into reality.

The 36-year-old Swiss artist Urs Fischer, who lives in New York, has been enjoying international fame for some years now. This documentary follows him during the preparation of his exclusive exhibition in an American museum and thus takes us into the daily life and work of an artist.

On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman. An intense relationship develops between the two.

Cuno Amiet lived from 1868-1961, yet seen today many of his pictures have a contemporary edge. Amiet was a Swiss pioneer of modern painting along with Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Giacometti. The film visits three highly individual Amiet collectors in Dallas, Geneva and Studen, near Biel. Surrounded by Amiet’s works they tell us what part these paintings play in their lives.

The experiment is a journey through the remotest time and on the smallest scale that we can imagine: an exploration of matter about one millionth of a second following the Big Bang that generated our universe. As the new experiment at CERN proceeds in its exploration of the mysterious energy that animates the universe, scientists and artists guide us towards the shadow line where science and art, in different ways, pursue truth and beauty. Some of these men and women believe in god, while others believe only in experiment and doubt. But in their search for truth they are all alert to an elusive sixth – or seventh – sense… the sense of beauty.

An artist, a musician, a filmmaker. Three worlds, three ways of thinking, three interpretations. Fused to an energetic work. Beat Zoderer’s work fascinate with quiet humor and the intelligent challenge of distrusting a conventional view of things. Nik Bärtsch’s sound is characterized by his love for the architecturally articulated space and rhythmic overlaps. Filmmaker Jürg Egli has brought the two artists together in a studio session. The result is a cinematic performance of unique intensity. „The idea can sometimes only be thought out in its realization.“ Beat Zoderer Sketchbook IX 1999

Christian is the respected curator of a contemporary art museum, a divorced but devoted father of two who drives an electric car and supports good causes. His next show is “The Square”, an installation which invites passersby to altruism, reminding them of their role as responsible fellow human beings. But sometimes, it is difficult to live up to your own ideals: Christian’s foolish response to the theft of his phone drags him into shameful situations. Meanwhile, the museum's PR agency has created an unexpected campaign for ”The Square”. The response is overblown and sends Christian, as well as the museum, into an existential crisis.

A kind of road movie which travels in the grooves of magically charged landscapes across Europe. From the Swiss Alps to eastern Poland, from Stromboli to Iceland… the film is a large-scale attempt to achieve the ideal cruising speed. Roman Signer marks the stages of the journey with his own highly personal set of instruments – strikingly succinct interventions full of underlying humour. The film is also a journey through mental and emotional states. A tightrope walk between devilment and melancholy. Danger – including mental danger – develops into a sensual stimulus. Sudden crashes and abrupt changes of mood create the rhythm and the climate of the film. “Chamber of music” is how Signer describes his exploits with rocket and fuse, “sculptural chamber music”.

The film tackles the life journey of Toni Ligabue, visionary naïf painter who used to draw tigers, lions and jaguars while living among the poplar trees of the boundless Po valley. A harsh life that is a fairy tale too, as a lonely and marginalized kid finds redemption in his art, and a way to express himself and be admired by the world.

The life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death. Loving Vincent features over 120 of Vincent Van Gogh’s greatest paintings. The plot, drawn from the 800 letters written by the painter himself, lead us to the significant people and events in the time leading up to his unexpected death. Every shot is painted just as Vincent himself painted.

This documentary portrays one of the most important museums in the world, Vienna’s Museum of Art History. An extensive look behind the scenes at this fascinating institution employs a number of charismatic protagonists and the varied routine there to show us the museum’s special world.

Painting is an unacceptable vocation for a woman in provincial Germany in 1900, but the artist Paula Becker is determined to make her own rules. The exuberant 24-year-old woman rejects the conventional and explores her unique style. She flourishes in the countryside art community of Worpswede, where she develops friendships with the artist Clara Westhoff and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. By marrying the painter Otto Modersohn, she hopes to find a creative soulmate, but five years of domesticity take its toll on Paula’s spirit, and she travels alone to Bohemian Paris, where she embarks on a long-awaited period of creative fulfillment and self-realization...

The National Gallery in London is one of the great museums of the world with 2400 paintings from the 13th to the end of the 19th century. Almost every human experience is represented in one or the other of the paintings. The sequences of the film show the public in various galleries; the education programs, and the scholars, scientists and curators, studying, restoring and planning the exhibitions. The relation between painting and storytelling is explored.

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France and captures the oldest known pictorial creations of humanity

Shortly after the Partition of India and liberation from British colonial rule, a new capital for the Punjab was to be built from scratch at the foot of the Himalayas, with the former capital of Lahore having become part of Pakistan. The planned city of Chandigarh would stand for the new democracy, progress and faith in the future. Architects from the West were called upon – first Albert Mayer, and then the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. Plans, visions and utopias came together. For Le Corbusier, Chandigarh offered a unique opportunity to complete his life’s work and put his urban planning ideas into practice. His vision was to create a modern, humane and just city, built according to the “measure of man”, which allowed for a cultural life and harmonious interaction between people and nature. On the 70th anniversary of Le Corbusier’s planned city, we reflect on whether this vision has become a reality in Chandigarh. The film accompanies people on their journeys through the city, seeking out settings and scenes that reveal the inspiring interplay of old dreams and new life, the utopian and the everyday, decay and quiet poetry. A contemporary witness recalls the early days of the city. The director of the Le Corbusier Centre, an artist, an actor and an architect all talk about the experience of settling here, and contemplate their life in and with Chandigarh. We meet residents who offer an insight into the city as we roam and immerse ourselves in the everyday life that has evolved around the built environment.

The Sagrada Família in Barcelona: a unique, fascinating building project with a brilliant architect, Antoni Gaudí, a huge number of participants and a history full of abysses and high flights. The biography of this building, which has been under construction since 1882 and is now well over half finished, is the starting point for a film about this mysterious process of "creation", about the question of our human creative power - and what we want to use it for.

When, in 1947, a portion of Punjab province was assigned to the newly created Pakistani State, Albert Mayer began planning a new capital for the portion which remained in the possession of India. Le Corbusier had been responsible since the 1950s for general planning and, more particularly, for large-scale buildings typical of the governmental sector. A year after the death of Le Corbusier, Alain Tanner began shooting his film in a city still partially under construction, or even, in certain places, at the planning stage. The inhabitants of the metropolis, however, already numbered some 120,000. Among the most modern of cities architecturally, Chandigarh was archaically constructed by hand. Impressions of this green horizontal city-brick not permitting vertical development-are captured in long static shots and numerous traveling shots. John Berger's commentary inscribes the visual beauty of that reality within a larger reflection: climate did strongly influence the decisions of the planners, whereas the new city did not succeed in breaking the old social rules with a single blow. These rules continue to determine the level of education and income, and it is not even possible for these workers who are in the process of constructing Chandigarh to live in it themselves. However, the film partakes of Le Corbusier's optimism in its appreciation of architecture as an instrument aiding men to clarify their visions, to exercise their powers of discernment and to establish new relations, even if the results will only make themselves felt in the long term.

Mariana, Martìn and the city of Buenos Aires. Martìn and Mariana live across from each other on the same block, but never meet. They pass each other, not knowing about the other’s existence. She goes up the stairs as he goes down the stairs; he gets on the bus just as she gets off the bus. They go to the same video rental shop, but a video rack separates them; they sit in the same row at the cinema, but the auditorium is dark. The city brings them together, and, at the same time, keeps them apart. Director Gustavo Taretto told the story of Mariana, Martìn and the city of Buenos Aires once before: «MEDIANERAS is a short film that received 40 awards worldwide - a short film with a feature film hidden inside. Our aim is to bring the feature to light. In the film EL SOL DEL MEMBRILLO (QUINCE TREE OF THE SUN), Víctor Erice reflects, among other things, upon Antonio López’s obsession with painting a tree that he had planted and seen growing in his garden. The tree changes with the passing of time, the seasons, and especially in different shades of light. MEDIANERAS is my tree. I planted it over four years ago, and I’ve been watching it grow since then. Following the analogy with the painting, the short film unveils the gesture in the stroke, the artist’s palette, the trunk which holds it in place, the main branches and the colour of its leaves. Now, with the feature, the moment has arrived for going into detail, for exploring depth and hues, ambiguities and contradictions. The story changes in exactly the same way as the city that serves as its setting: Buenos Aires. Some of the scenes wither away, while others bloom.» (Gustavo Taretto)

When architect-turned-recluse Bernadette Fox goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica, her 15-year-old daughter Bee goes on a quest with Bernadette's husband to find her.

In the dramatic first half of the 20th century, in which dreams and traumas are so close together, almost all possibilities of modern existence are played out. How to live, how to love? These questions are different ones for women. The women around the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, his wife Ada, his three daughters Georgia, Marianne and Waltraut and his partner Lilly Reich seize the opportunities of the new age, but also experience the limitations of old patterns. When Mies emigrated to the USA in 1938, they struggled on their own through the barbarism of the Nazi era and the war. Their life was always determined by the absent husband, father and lover. The hybrid documentary «The Mies van der Rohes» tells a troubling family story and designs a moral painting of the modern age with unpublished films, images and documents - from a female perspective.

No Man Is an Island travels across Europe, from the farmers working together in the Galline Felici cooperative in Sicily to the architects, craftspersons and elected representatives who collaborate in the Swiss Alps and in Austria. All are engaged in politics through their work and all believe in a common destiny. Is the local level the last possible place for a viable utopia?

Temporality and age are inherent in every object and creature and, depending on one’s outlook, may transcend to infinity. Schaub explores, together with the architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli and Alvaro Siza Vieira, the artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias and drummer virtuoso Jojo Mayer, the magic of sacred spaces, defined here as far more than church buildings. Who owns spirituality?

The experiment is a journey through the remotest time and on the smallest scale that we can imagine: an exploration of matter about one millionth of a second following the Big Bang that generated our universe. As the new experiment at CERN proceeds in its exploration of the mysterious energy that animates the universe, scientists and artists guide us towards the shadow line where science and art, in different ways, pursue truth and beauty. Some of these men and women believe in god, while others believe only in experiment and doubt. But in their search for truth they are all alert to an elusive sixth – or seventh – sense… the sense of beauty.

A young debuting actress dreams of being a famous star admired by everybody. She lacks talent so she's planning to have plastic surgery to help her succeed. She is always an optimist, with an infectiously carefree attitude and joie de vivre. The extremely sensitive 15-year-old boy feeling at odds with the world is her opposite. He is misunderstood by his father and his stepmother, a worldly and haughty woman who is capable of true feelings only on the verge of death. A tragicomedy about destiny, the vulnerability of our existence and the inscrutability of love, a story about people whose lives are fancifully intertwined. Variety magazine has placed the director, award-wining Anna Melikian, on its list of the world's top 10 most promising film directors.

Marina is 23 and lives together with her father in an industrial village on the Greek coast. She finds the human species to be peculiar, almost daunting, if it weren't for Bella, her only and very unconventional friend. Marina derives her first sexual insights from the animal documentaries of Sir David Attenborough - "Attenberg", as she calls him. Bella, on the other hand, shows Marina a completely different approach to her own sexuality. This leads to bizarre moments in Marina's approach to an unknown table football player, as well as in discussions with her sick father. Her dad, an architect unimpressed by the twentieth century, prepares for his self-determined "exit" from life. He considers this epoch to be overestimated and does not want to surrender to his cancer. Using these two men and their friend Bella, Marina examines the last mysteries of the human fauna.

Shiraz is based on the true story of the 17th-century Mughal ruler Shah Jahan, his queen and the building of the world’s most beautiful monument to love, the Taj Mahal. Shot entirely in India, it features lavish costumes and gorgeous settings, including the extraordinary fort at Agra. Himansu Rai (also the film’s producer) stars as the humble potter Shiraz, who follows his childhood sweetheart Selima (Enakshi Rama Rau) when she is sold by slave traders to the future emperor. Newly restored by the BFI National Archive, and looking better than it ever has, the film also features a new score from world-renowned sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar.

"Grauzone" is the film by Fredi M. Murer that anticipated the 1980s movement in 1978. A mysterious epidemic haunts Switzerland. The symptoms: a sudden urge to go outside, sudden melancholy, general sensitization. An unintentionally published advertisement informs about the wave of illness and triggers uncertainty, which also penetrates the uniform suburban idyll of Zurich. Julia and her husband Alfred live here, who, in addition to his work as a commercial employee, leads a double life as an eavesdropping specialist and is increasingly plunged into a crisis of meaning.

Before an office complex is set to be demolished, it expresses one last wish: a love story. It centers around desire, security, and a melody that runs through the entire fabric of the building. So when darkness descends and everything falls silent, the routine lives of those within its walls sparkle like stars, paving the way for intimate chance encounters and absurd humor to unfold. A nocturnal kaleidoscope of longing, loneliness and freedom.

Dima Nikitin is a simple and honest plumber who works in a small Russian town. Except for his unusual integrity, nothing makes him stand out of the crowd, until one night in a dorm mainly occupied by drunkards and outcasts, the pipes burst, endangering the occupants. Everybody needs to be immediately evacuated but nobody cares, so Nikitin sets off on a night-long odyssey to fight an entire system of corrupt bureaucrats.

This captivating exploration of Alvar Aalto, the defining figure in Scandic design and one of Europe's greatest modern architects, focuses on his remarkable and loving partnership with wife, Aino. Theirs was a profoundly humanist vision that put people at the centre of design, and ranged from work in furniture design through to huge architectural projects. They mixed with, and influenced, major figures of modernist art and design including Le Corbusier, Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Come on a cinematic tour of their iconic buildings all over the world, from a library in Russia, a student dormitory at MIT, an art collector's private house near Paris, to a pavilion in Venice. Narrated by experts in the field and featuring never before seen archive footage, Aalto tells the love story of an extraordinary couple with a great passion for human scale architecture.

Isidora and Enrique are about 80 years old and live with their equally aged cats in an elegant apartment in Santiago. But it is on the eighth floor and will quickly make Isidora a prisoner if the lift fails again. On such a day, of all days, the daughter announces her visit. That can't bode well. Soon the fidgety Rosario sweeps through the apartment like a hurricane. She's allergic to cats, but that's not all. After her girlfriend "Hugo" has joined her, the real reasons for the visit shine through: They're going after the apartment. This is too much for Isidora, who can hardly hide her approaches of dementia from the guests. And suddenly it's no longer about money, but about love, transience and missed opportunities. A virtuosoly staged chamber play that glides seamlessly from comedy to tragedy and back again.

Gottfried Böhm is considered to be one of Germany’s most important architects. The Pritzker prize-winning father learned his trade from his father. At the age of 94, Gottfried still works every day on construction projects with his sons, Stephan, Peter and Paul, who are also architects. But then the family loses its emotional centre: Elisabeth – who was also an architect – wife, mother and their most important source of inspiration. Gottfried Böhm embarks on a journey to the significant buildings and milestones in his life.

Samnang faces the demolition of his lifelong home in Phnom Penh coupled with pressures from family, friends, and neighbours, which all arise and intersect at this moment of sudden change.

A poor but prideful teenager, Ulzii, lives in the yurt area of Ulaanbaatar with his family. He is a physics genius and is determined to win a science competition to earn a scholarship. When his mother finds a job in the countryside, she leaves him and his younger siblings to face a harsh winter by themselves. Ulzii will have to take a risky job to look after them all and keep his home heated.

Through her child’s eyes, Patpro will go through three periods of the history of her indigenous people, in the heart of the Brazilian forest. Tirelessly persecuted, but guided by their ancestral rites, their love of nature and their fight to preserve their freedom, the Krahô never stop inventing new forms of resistance.

North of Senegal, in a small remote village. Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families and that Adama won’t accept his blood duty as future chief. When Adama informs the village council of his intention, the whole community is disrupted. The rain that’s supposed to come doesn’t come. Banel and Adama will learn that where they live, there is no room for passions, let alone chaos.

When his father dies, anti-regime partisan Chandra must travel to his remote mountain village after nearly a decade away. Little Pooja is anxiously awaiting the man she thinks is her father, but she’s confused when Chandra arrives with Badri, a young street orphan rumoured to be his son. Chandra must face his brother Suraj, who was on the opposing side during the Nepalese civil war. The two brothers cannot put aside political feelings while carrying their father's body down the steep mountain path to the river for cremation. Suraj storms off in a rage, leaving Chandra with no other men strong enough to help. Under pressure from the village elders, Chandra must seek help from outside the village to obey the rigid caste and discriminatory gender traditions he fought to eliminate during the war. Chandra searches for a solution in neighboring villages, among the police, guests at a local wedding, and rebel guerrillas...

The 1960s in Indonesia were a period of dramatic political change and turmoil, with Suharto’s coup ousting Sukarno and leading to a violent anti-communist purge. Nana, a gentle, beautiful young woman, has been badly affected by the conflict. Her husband was kidnapped and taken into the forest. Although she managed to escape from the gang leader who wanted to force her to marry him, the incident cost her father his life and drove her into poverty. Several years later, she is living comfortably as the second wife of a rich Sundanese man, with a maid to help her adjust to her new environment. But Nana’s past re-emerges in her dreams. Kamila Andini’s elegant direction effectively adopts her protagonist’s point of view, integrating her trauma into the film’s narration. Played with subtlety by Happy Salma, the secretive Nana seems never quite certain about her husband’s death and her memories are, perhaps for her own good, not always complete. This ambiguity informs the film and, combined with lush cinematography and a deep sense of nostalgia, makes Nana an elegiac wonder. At its heart lies an unexpected female friendship that feels like a crucial lifeline among the sea of adversities caused by men’s brutality.

In the Bolivian highlands, an elderly Quechua couple has been living the same daily life for years. When an uncommonly long drought threatens their entire way of life, Virginio and his wife Sisa face the dilemma of resisting or being defeated by the environment and time itself.

On the final journey back from high in the Andes down to the Amazon jungle, the director remains haunted by the film she has just completed about the Huaorani Indians and the anthropologist Laura Rival. A farewell to this alien people, strange and unfathomable, but also to her own people who are no easier to understand – the white helpers, researchers, filmmakers… Destroyers?

On the Tibetan grasslands, Darje and Drolkar live a serene and ordinary life with their three sons and the grandfather. A condom sparks a series of embarrassment and dilemma, breaking the harmony of the family. What matters more in the circle of life and death, soul or reality?

Embrace of the Serpent tells the epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.

Mira, a young woman from Russia, comes to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, to visit her father, a player who often loses and finally even has to give away Mira to an old man. But Daler, a young player, falls in love with Mira and simply abducts her into his rather weird world. Daler is the boss of the local, thoroughly rotten aerial cableway. Its faded yellow cabins are suitable for every cargo: tourists as well as for hay, beer crates, stolen goods and even as a love-home for a clandestine rendez-vous. For Mira, Daler arranges a romantic picnic, floating between heaven and earth. And so begins the love story of Mira and Daler. When the movie ends (but not the love), Mira will have got to know a strange, sometimes exotic world. She will have seen a civil war. She will have accompanied her father to his death and Daler on the way to a new life.

In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an intertribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual freedom.

An absorbing portrait of the 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova which is brimming with metaphors and dreams. Parajanov created a melting pot based on the Armenian and Georgian cultural traditions with their rich religious symbolism and the expressive powers of cinema, the modernist folk art of the 20th century. This classic by Parajanov is not a dramatised portrait of the poet Arutyun Sayadyan, better known as Sayat-Nova (the King of Songs’), but an associative portrait full of metaphors and dreams, arabesques and still lifes. It is a film designed like an oriental tapestry: quirky and unpredictable in line and colour, but at the same time expressive of great aesthetic harmony. The Color of Pomegranates is also a statement about the Messianic role of the artist, in this case the filmmaker Parajanov, who regarded this film as his finest.

María, a 17-year-old Kaqchikel Maya, lives with her parents on a coffee plantation at the foot of an active volcano. She is set to be married to the farm’s foreman. But María longs to discover the world on the other side of the mountain, a place she cannot even imagine. And so she seduces a coffee-harvester who wants to escape to the USA. When this man leaves her behind, María discovers her own world and culture anew. Director Jayro Bustamante grew up in the region of the Kaqchikel Maya in Guatemala and returned there to make his film. He held workshops, asked people to tell stories from their own lives and examined the current living conditions of the Maya at close range. In doing so, he learnt about the special connection the women there have with the rituals of their mothers and grandmothers. The plot picks up the rhythm of a life defined by ancestral beliefs and traditions. An unfamiliar daily routine awaits the audience, far from the globalised world. IXCANUL is not a film about Indigenous culture but one that was developed from within it.

Rwanda, 1973: high up in the mountains, at the source of the Nile, a black statue of the Virgin Mary watches over a Catholic boarding school for girls. Here, during days filled with classes, mass and practical work, the daughters of politicians, officers and businessmen are educated to one day become productive members of the country’s elite. Whether Hutu or Tutsi, the girls share their curiosity, dreams and joie de vivre. However, the social dynamics and increasing conflicts that characterise the school microcosm mirror the ravages wrought by the colonial order. Deeply symbolic images hint at the genocidal violence that would later engulf the entire country in 1994.

Nanook and Sedna are the last members of their ethnic group and live in a yurt on the snow-covered fields in the far north. Spring arrives earlier than usual, ice fishing is less productive than it used to be and airplanes make their way in the sky. Sedna also notices that Nanook is beginning to forget things. In beautiful pictures Milko Lazarov tells this calm story in gentle reference to the great pioneer of the documentary film Robert J. Flaherty with his Nanook of the North.

In this newly restored Bolivian classic, a man remembers his life while on a journey which will help him expiate his sins and which will result in his death. The focus on the story is on a man who has betrayed everyone he knows. He is planning to perform an ancient ritual dance which will end with his life being taken. He journeys from where he was living back to the village where most of the people he wronged still live. As he journeys, carrying his distinctive dance costume, his story is told in flashbacks. Once he gets there, he gets involved in the affairs of the villagers once more.

In Colobane, people expect the return of Linguère Ramatou, a former local girl now rumored to be richer than the World Bank. But her generosity has its conditions: she offers a check of ten billion for the death of Dramaan Drameh who refused to admit that he was the father of her child 30 years ago. "Life made made me a whore, now I'm turning the world into a brothel" she tells the citizens of Colobane.

Félicité is a proud and independent woman who works as a singer in a bar in Kinshasa. Whenever she goes on stage, she appears to leave the world and her everyday worries behind. Her audiences are quickly infected by the rhythm of her music and her powerful, melancholy melodies. But then one day Félicité’s son has a terrible accident. Whilst he is in hospital she desperately tries to raise the money needed for his operation. A breathless tour through the impoverished streets and the wealthier districts of the Congolese capital ensues. One of the bar’s regulars is a man named Tabu who has been known to get carried away in every sense of the term. Tabu offers to help Félicité. Reluctantly, she accepts. After his spell in hospital, Félicité’s son has a hard time picking up his old life, but it is lady’s man Tabu of all people who manages to coax him out of his shell. Félicité’s sparsely furnished flat with its permanently defunct fridge becomes a mini utopia in a country that holds no hope for most of its population. The trio forms an eccentric community thrown together by fate, each of whom is free to go their separate ways together.

Unemployed Vijay is the youngest in his family consisting of his widowed mom, and two brothers. His passion is poetry - frowned upon by his brothers - who want him to find gainful employment instead. Vijay's poems are quite radical in which he laments about the poor, the destitute, and the arrogance of the rich after the departure of the British from India. His efforts to get them published are in vain. He takes to drinking, gets in trouble with the law, is disowned by his brothers, ends up at a brothel and befriends a prostitute named Gulabo. Gulabo is sympathetic, listens to him as he pours his heart out, and decides to assist Vijay. Watch what happens when Gulabo approaches some of her affluent clientèle to assist Vijay and try and get his work published, without revealing that they are written by an alcoholic, disheveled, homeless man. (imdb)

Lamb is a drama about 9 year-old Ephraim and his constant companion sheep, Chuni, in the vast volcanic canyon land of Ethiopia. Ephraim’s affection for Chuni deepened after he lost his mother to famine the year before. Consequently, his beloved father sends him and Chuni faraway from their drought-stricken homeland to live with his distant relatives in a greener part of the country. Ephraim soon finds himself to be a homesick outcast who is always getting into trouble. When his uncle orders him to slaughter the sheep for the upcoming holiday feast, Ephraim devises a devious scheme to save Chuni and return to his homeland.

The Chinese make everything and the Malagasy fix everything. The people of Madagascar pride themselves on producing things out of nothing: tires transformed into shoes, oil lamps made out of light bulbs, wheelbarrows fashioned from scrap metal. You see ingenuity, not underdevelopment, in their practices. A return to a conservationist lifestyle that encourages recycling, fraternity and self-reliance is entirely of the moment and makes perfect sense in the midst of a global economic crisis. Will the world pay attention? Filmmaker Nantenaina Lova venerates the family business, the clever artisan, the resourceful craftsman and those who possess the ability to create using everyday objects. The Malagasy Way is a poetic, proverb-packed lesson in creativity and resistance that offers fresh logic on how to live. By cultivating lifes treasuressharing, ancestral knowledge, a good soul and the sweetness in bitternessthe Malagasy hope to teach the Western superpowers a thing or two.

Nabat and her husband Iskender, an old and sick ex-forestry worker, live in a small isolated house far from the village. War has been raging for some time and their son has been killed at the front. Their sole means of survival is the sale of milk from their only cow that Nabat takes to the village every couple of days. As the shadow of war envelopes the region the village is slowly deserted by its inhabitants. Following Iskender’s death Nabat has to survive in a now abandoned village under the regard of a she-wolf.

An ageing father waits, in vain, at the bus stop for his son Raghu, a student at the University of Trivandrum, who is supposed to be coming home for the holidays. The elderly Chakyar’s eager happiness slowly turns to disappointment and then anxiety. After several days with no news of Raghu, his family learn that the police have arrested him for singing revolutionary songs at the university’s annual fête. Chakyar goes to the capital, hoping to find support from the Minister of Internal Affairs, and is soon joined by his daughter, who does not, however, share his optimism. When it becomes clear that Raghu cannot escape a jail sentence, the old man gradually loses his reason … In Piravi, Shaji N. Karun denounces not only the corruption that exists within the establishment, but also focuses on the impotence of the individual in the face of an oppressive system. By keeping Raghu off-screen, the director conveys a sense of absence and uncertainty with a rare intensity.

A man from Kathmandu and his wife have been trying unsuccessfully to have a child. The man travels to the mountains of eastern Nepal to seek help from a miracle healer. The healer indeed has a magic potion for him but tells the man he must get back to his wife within thirty-six hours for the medicine to work. The bus that winds its way through the narrow streets, hills and valleys of Nepal is full of people who all need to be somewhere else in a hurry - to meet an internet chat lover, bring someone some money for medicine, or to visit their parents. But the travellers are obliged to stop again and again on account of general strikes, traffic jams, breakdowns and angry villagers. Some of these obstacles are overcome by the passengers themselves, who get to know each other during the trip - they even dress up as a wedding party in order to be allowed to keep moving. Meanwhile, at home, everything has changed ... Deepak Rauniyar’s first feature-length drama is a road movie that is full of surprises and passion; it is also an unflinching portrayal of life in Nepal today.

A key film of Africa in restored version! In this epic drama drawing on Bambara culture, which echoes mythic legends in an invented tale, a hero undergoes ordeals that allow him to renovate a decaying society. A young man must penetrate the secrets of the Komo cult (a real caste of specialist knowledge among the Bambara), whose members have abused their spiritual powers. Niamankoro suffers his father's wrath as he travels throughout the Bambara empire and Dogon and Peul societies.

Fatimetu is born to a Sahrawi family in a Saharan refugee camp in Algeria and later sent to live with foster parents in Spain. After the death of her mother she returns to the camp. She has been absent for sixteen years. Her brother now expects her to stay and look after her sister Hayat, who has difficulty walking. Fatimetu, who unlike the other women can drive a car, finds work transporting animals, meat and bread from one administrative district to another. In time, the Sahrawi people become accustomed to the woman who tears about the desert without a hijab in her beaten up jeep. But Fatimetu is torn between life in the desert and her memories of her family and friends in Spain. The Sahrawi are a Moorish ethnic group in Algeria that is still waiting for the referendum that will define their status under international law. Told in concentrated, poetic images, Pedro Pérez Rosado’s film does not only give us the story of two reunited sisters or the clash of two different cultures; he also allows his Saharan protagonists to describe in their own words their political and social predicament.

In 2015, after Hassan Fazili’s documentary Peace aired on Afghan national television, the Taliban assassinated the film’s main subject and put a price on Hassan’s head. Hassan looked at his wife and his daughters, and he knew they had to flee their home. Over the course of their multi-year saga in search of safety, the family grasped onto the only means they had to assert control over their situation: their camera-phones. Midnight Traveler is a gripping vérité story made by a family on the run. Their unique access and artistic vision provide an intimate portrait of a loving family and the myriad fellow travelers they meet on their odyssey.

The story of a woman who searches through the country for her husband, a resistant, while the war for independence is raging. She finds him at last and saves his life. When peace finally arrives, they have to learn how to be together again and start living in a destroyed land.

Ngando and Ndomé are in love. Ngando wishes to marry Ndomé but her family reminds him that the traditional dowry must be settled. Unfortunately, Ngando is poor and unable to fulfil the tradition. Ndomé is pregnant and bears his child. According to the village tradition, she must take a husband, at least one who can afford to pay the dowry. The villagers decide that Ndomé should marry Ngando’s uncle, who has already three sterile wives. In despair, the young man kidnaps his daughter upon the day of the traditional feast. An African Romeo and Juliet story.

LIYANA is a story born in the imaginations of five orphaned children in the Kingdom of Swaziland. The film follows the children, Zweli, Sibusiso, Phumlani, Mkhuleko, and Nomcebo, as they collaborate to tell the original tale of Liyana, a fictional character whose early life bears remarkable similarities to their own. The world that the children imagine for Liyana is brought to life in an innovative style of animated artwork. This hybrid film weaves documentary scenes together with the animated adventure. LIYANA is executive produced by British-Zimbabwean actress, Thandie Newton, with artwork from rising Nigerian talent, Shofela Coker. Under the guidance of acclaimed South African storyteller, Gcina Mhlophe, the children transform their darkest memories and brightest dreams into fuel for their fairytale. After an idyllic early childhood, Liyana’s world is shattered when her father contracts HIV and both of her parents die. Inspired by a recent real-life robbery, the children decide that there will be a frightening attack at Liyana’s family homestead. In the aftermath of this terrible night, the girl and her trusty sidekick, the family bull, embark on a dangerous, beautiful, and often humorous quest into the wilderness. Hunger, wild animals, and treacherous terrain stand between Liyana and an uncertain fate. As our young storytellers move their fictional character forward through trial and temptation, we periodically return to intimate documentary scenes of the children’s lives in Swaziland - nightly rituals, herding cattle, and a trip to a local clinic for an HIV test. The children’s creative journey is echoed throughout the film by allegorical scenes of the group hiking down a steep ravine in search of a mysterious river. These intertwining narrative strands work together to draw connections between Liyana and the children. As the real and imagined worlds begin to converge the children must choose what kind of story they will tell - in fiction, and in their own lives.

The origins of the Colombian drug trade, through the epic story of an indigenous Wayúu family that becomes involved in the booming business of selling marijuana to American youth in the 1970s. When greed, passion and honour collide, a fratricidal war breaks out that will put their lives, their culture and their ancestral traditions at stake. «A film of both gangsters and spirits. A family film, an ensemble story of strong, intuitive, resilient and powerful women, who wait at home for unconscious, impulsive, fearful men, as they talk, they negotiate, they run around. Intuition vs reason, innocence vs vengeance, word vs honour. All in telling the great tragedy that would curse us forever. The great taboo that we are not allowed to discuss. Told, for once, in an intimate, personal way. Our own way. That soft breeze that seemed to come to refresh, and became the ravaging storm that showed us the true face of capitalism, its purest form. Our Jayeechi, our birdsong.» Cristina Gallego/Ciro Guerra

A rough, atmospheric drama about the construction of masculinity in South Africa's Bible Belt. South Africa, Free State region, isolated stronghold to the Afrikaans white ethnic minority culture. In this conservative farming territory obsessed with strength and masculinity, Janno is different, secretive, emotionally frail. One day his mother, fiercely religious, brings home Pieter, a hardened street orphan she wants to save, and asks Janno to make this stranger into his brother. The two boys start a fight for power, heritage and parental love.

Director Shawkat Amin Korki uses a new method to tell the story of the tragedy of war. Inside a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq, lives many refugees trying to escape Sadam Hussein’s administration. Asu lives with his younger brother who has lost his legs from a landmine. Next door lives Hilin, who has not been able to express her feelings. One of the only sources of happiness for these people who live amid fear of poverty and bombings is soccer. Asu gathers together the Kurdish, Arabs and Turkish in order to hold a soccer match. Although they are of different races, they become close neighbors. The beat up stadium in the film plays just as important a role as the plot itself. It is a living space, a playing space, and also a place to teach children. It is literally a small society. In addition, this sad and peculiar image of space plays a large role in creating a more dramatic tragedy.

Sandro is a forty-something teacher and still lives with his parents, who constantly meddle in his private life. He shows little interest in the blind dates his friend Iva pressures him to go on. On an outing to the Black Sea, he falls in love with the hairdresser Manana. When her husband Tengo is released from jail early, Sandro’s predicament takes on absurd dimensions. He gets caught up in wild family disputes and feels compelled to move Natia, pregnant with Tengo’s child, into his parents’ home. Wrong conclusions and misunderstandings are the driving force of this melancholy comedy, in which everyone meddles with everything but no one really listens, which only leads to yet further confusion. When in doubt, they all argue together with true ferocity, the situation invariably ending in intense outbursts. Levan Koguashvili’s second feature is thus in keeping with the best traditions of Georgian cinema. The narrative tone stays calm, as the events come thick and fast. Unsentimental, with various ellipses and allusions, and shot with wonderful colour compositions and an incredible feel for space, architecture and cityscapes, the film ultimately attains extraordinary profundity.

A naked woman is found murdered in the Mongolian steppe. Overnight, a young and inexperienced policeman has to secure the crime scene. Since he is not familiar with the dangers on site, a local herder is sent to guard him and the body. This resolute woman in her mid-thirties knows how to handle a rifle – and how to scare away wolves. She lights a fire against the cold. Alcohol also helps them to stay warm. At her instigation, the two get closer to each other. The next morning, they will go their separate ways. At the centre of this film is a tenacious woman in the uninhabited expanse of the steppe. This otherwise self-sufficient herder, known to everyone as ‘dinosaur’, only tolerates her caring neighbour when there is a problem with her herd. Anything that goes beyond that, she brusquely rejects. As for herself and her future, she has her very own plan, one which is related to the lonely landscape and its myths.

Jesmark, a Maltese fisherman, contends with a newfound leak in his wooden LUZZU boat. Barely getting by, he sees his livelihood—and a family tradition from generations before him—imperiled by diminishing harvests, a ruthless fishing industry, and a stagnating ecosystem. Desperate to provide for his wife and their newborn son, whose growth impediment requires treatment, Jesmark gradually slips into an illicit black-market fishing operation.

Timbuktu is silent, the doors closed, the streets empty. No more music, no tea, no cigarettes, no bright colors, no laughs. The women have become shadows. The religious fundamentalists are spreading terror in the region. In the dunes, away from the chaos, Kidane enjoys a quiet life with his wife Satima, his daughter Toya and Issan, his little shepherd. But his peace is short-lived. After accidentally killing Amadou, a fisherman who stroke down his favorite cow, Kidane must face the law of the new foreign rulers determined to defeat an open and tolerant Islam. Against the humiliations and acts of brutality performed by these complex men, Timbuktu tells the story of the silent struggle of the people, the fight for life of little Issan, and the uncertain future of the children.

Amongst the pythonic mountains of landlocked Lesotho, an 80 year old widow winds up her earthly affairs, makes arrangements for her burial and prepares to die. But when her village is threatened with forced resettlement due to the construction of a reservoir, she finds a new will to live and ignites a collective spirit of defiance within her community. In the final dramatic moments of her life, Mantoa’s legend is forged and made eternal.

In 1930s Lapland, the 14-year-old indigenous Sámi girl, Elle Marja, leaves the wild ancestral grounds and the family's reindeer camp to attend a remote draconian boarding school along with her younger sister, Njenna. However--as the bright rural student pursues a denied education and an opportunity, desirous of integrating herself into the modern Swedish society--a painful visit by a team of anthropologists paired by a traumatic experience will be the harsh reminders of an ever-present brutal prejudice and a deep-seated racism. Uppsala promises a bright future in the bustling metropolis, but to pass as a regular Swedish teenager, Elle Marja will have to make a greater sacrifice than just changing her name. But, can an outcast sever ties and renounce his proud lineage so easily?

Facing the consequences of a violent uprooting, Mateo Sobode Chiqueno has been recording stories, songs, and testimonies of his Ayoreo people since the seventies. In an attempt to preserve fragments of a disappearing culture, Mateo walks across communities in the arid and desolate Paraguayan Chaco region, and registers on cassettes the experiences of other Ayoreo who, like him, were born in the vast forest, free and nomadic, without any contact with white civilization, until religious missionaries forced them to abandon their ancestral territory, their means of subsistence, their beliefs and their home.

Peru, at the height of the political crisis of the 1980’s. Georgina is a young woman from the Andes whose newborn daughter is stolen at a fake health clinic. Her desperate search for the child leads her to the headquarters of a major newspaper, where she meets Pedro Campos, a lonely journalist who takes on the investigation. Based on a true story.

On February 19, 2023, the Teatro alla Scala opened its doors to an extraordinary event: Paolo Conte and his ensemble of instrumentalists gave a concert with a setlist specially designed for the occasion. This concert has become a documentary, with footage of the preparation of the show, the rehearsals, snapshots of the sound check. A tribute to an unforgettable career and a testimony to Paolo Conte's musical legacy.

An excavator operator who writes songs: Gerhard Gundermann is a poet, a lateral thinker and an idealist, who dreams and hopes and loves and fights, who spies on others and is spied on himself. Shortly before the end of the GDR, he works in open-cast lignite mining and releases his first records. With his bittersweet lyrics and songs about home, love and transience, he sings his way into the hearts of an ever-growing audience. When "Gundi" and his family could easily make a living from his music after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he doesn't want to give up his job as an excavator operator... "Gundermann" is a love story and a music film, a story of repression and surrender. In his new feature, director Andreas Dresen succeeds like few others in making the extraordinary visible in the everyday life of his sibjects. He takes a fresh look at a country that has disappeared, and tells the story of the life of Gerhard "Gundi" Gundermann (1955 - 1998) with sensitivity, tenderness and humor, whose story and whose songs still make the soul resonate today - and never let one go.

Boundary-pushing dancer Ida Rubinstein selects Maurice Ravel to compose the music for her next ballet. Ravel ends up creating his greatest success ever: Boléro. With Raphaël Personnaz, Doria Tillier, Jeanne Balibar, Emmanuelle Devos, Vincent Perez, Suzanne Clément and Sophie Guillemin.

Set against the backdrop of NYC's flourishing 60's music scene, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a penniless folk singer and perennial couch surfer. As he tries to rescue his career to avoid joining the merchant navy, he embarks on a journey of self discovery, involontarily leaving numerous people (jealous ex girlfriends, angry neighbours and his musician buddies) in his wake. This film by Joel and Ethan Coen, which was awarded the Grand Prix of the Jury in Cannes, is a fascinating and quirky trip through the lively folk scene in New York in the early 1960s.

Newly restored to coincide with its 40th anniversary, the 1984 film was directed by renowned filmmaker Jonathan Demme and is considered by critics as the greatest concert film of all time. "Stop Making Sense" stars core band members David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, and Jerry Harrison along with Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir, Steve Scales, Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt. The live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983 and features Talking Heads' most memorable songs.

Andrew (Miles Teller), 19, dreams of becoming one of the best jazz drummers of his generation. But competition is fierce at the Shaffer Conservatory in New York, where he trains relentlessly. His goal is to join the top orchestra led by Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), a fierce and uncompromising teacher. When Fletcher finally discovers him, Andrew embarks on a quest for excellence under his guidance...

Margreet Honig, eighty-four years old, is an internationally sought-after Dutch singing teacher. She teaches all over Europe and works with world-famous singers. She has developed her very own way of working, which is a pleasant contrast to the usual music education, which is fixated on perfection and performance. Her approach is therefore highly topical, also in relation to social changes in the areas of education and pedagogy.

"Joan Baez - I Am a Noise" is neither a conventional biopic nor a traditional concert film but an intimate portrait of the legendary folk singer and activist. The film jumps between times, following Joan Baez on her final tour and delving deep into her extraordinary archive.

Lubo (Franz Rogowski), a street artist of Yenish descent, is drafted into the Swiss army in 1939 to protect the borders from the threat of a German invasion. Shortly thereafter, he learns that his wife has died trying to stop the gendarmes from taking away their three young children. They were taken from their family as part of the national "re-education" programme for Yenish children. Lubo will not rest until he has recovered his children and obtained justice for all those who share the same fate.

Quebec, the 60s. Sylvette and Anglomard welcome their 14th child, Aline. In this modest family, music is king. When a producer discovers Aline and her golden voice, he has only one idea in mind: to make her the greatest singer in the world. Supported by her family, guided by Guy Claude’s experience and budding love for her, Aline will create an extraordinary destiny for herself. Freely inspired by the career and life of megastar Céline Dion.

"Igor Levit - No Fear" accompanies the pianist as he explores his "life after Beethoven", as he searches for the next challenges, for his identity as an artist and a human being.

France, 1995. 17-year-olds Zahia and Fettouma Ziouani have been dreaming of becoming a conductor and a cellist since they were kids. Their wish is to make classical music accessible to all, and everywhere. But this is kind of an ambitious dream for suburban teenagers. One that can only become true with dedication, passion, courage – and a project: to create their own orchestra. Its name will be "Divertimento".

Buenos Aires, November 2001. Argentina is embroiled in crisis, with the Peso plunging deeper and deeper. Julio Färber (Diego Cremonesi), the charismatic bandoneon player of the "Vecinos de Pompeya," a five-piece working-class tango band, is trying to keep his head above water, but every month he is earning less and less from their gigs as well as from the traditional shoe shop he inherited from his father. At the very moment he takes the decision to leave his beloved Buenos Aires forever, it clearly appears that life is conspiring against him: overnight, the government freezes all bank accounts in the whole country, preventing Julio from purchasing the flight tickets and sparking violent protests throughout the town. And Mariela (Marina Bellati), a witty young woman and feisty cab driver, bumps into his car at full speed, damaging Julio's last possession of value before stealing his heart. "Adiós Buenos Aires" is German Kral's feature film debut and was inspired by the real and tragic events that shook Argentina at the end of 2001.

With his band Zeal & Ardor, Swiss musician Manuel Gagneux was catapulted overnight from the underground to the big stages of the world. The bold mix of Black Metal and old work songs and field hollers by enslaved African-Americans – his answer to a racist provocation on the Internet – is politically explosive. Religion, racism, segregation and appropriation: With his music Gagneux questions and breaks taboos. But being praised as a new kind of leader by his fans frightens the introverted artist. How can he deal with the oversized expectations? Filmmakers Olivier Joliat and Matthias Willi show us the fairy-tale rise of a musician and his band - and how fame affects creative work.

The a-ha hit "Take on Me" is one of the most widely played songs of the last century. More than three decades later, this documentary follows the group over a four-year period and tells the story of how three young men realized an impossible dream.

Nightclub singer La Paloma succumbs to the persistent courting of a chubby rich admirer and marries him. Before the marriage, she was thought to be dying, but soon she is well. She believes her husband’s love has cured her, but her efforts to love him begin to fade as she discovers true love with her husband’s old school friend. An excessive film opera that brings fiction to life in its most beautiful form.

Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez. The film won Best Documentary at the 85th Academy Awards.

Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.

The film tells the story of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s marriage, one of the key points in his biography. His decision to change his life by getting married to put an end to rumors caused a serious mental crisis. When he subsequently made up his mind to separate from his wife, it devastated the young woman and ultimately drove her crazy.

Can a new generation of artists conquer the Bastille today? For the very first time, 30 dancers reinvent Rameau’s baroque masterpiece “Les Indes Galantes”. None of them has a classical training, they are all masters of krump, break, popping and voguing. It is a premiere for director Clément Cogitore and choreographer Bintou Dembélé. And it’s a premiere for the Paris Opera itself, bringing urban dance and lyrical song together in a lively, colourful dialogue. From rehearsals to the premiere, we follow the dancing adventure and its challenges. "Indes Galantes" is a vibrant film, artistic, human and politically gripping. The film tells the collective dimension of this inspiring project, while the camera gives the individual protagonists space to express their feelings and shows how they put their heart and soul into this work. In "Indes Galantes" we can see how they overcome the barriers between these different worlds. And we learn through them how we can all admire each other.

Paolo Conte is one of the greatest exponents of provincial culture in the world. His visual songs form an imaginary atlas of the soul, a compendium of sound and poetry. Often they are like short films, capable of taking on a life of their own, for Conte carries you away and enchants you with his variety show. Paolo Conte, Via con me tells the almost fifty-year-long story of an eclectic figure. An imaginary journey, an interweaving of poetry and music through the songs, concerts, friends and reflections of the singer. Verdelli has drawn on the immense stock of material in Conte’s personal archives, combining it with footage shot for the purpose: interviews, films of international tours and other occasions in a unique career. Through these images, the docufilm ventures into the labyrinth of his songs, including the ones he has written for a wide range of performers (Adriano Celentano, Enzo Jannacci, Jane Birkin, Caterina Caselli, Bruno Lauzi), and that of his passions (jazz, puzzles, painting, law, the movies) in a continual exploration of the familiar and the unfamiliar, of the stories, verses and songs of that extraordinary elsewhere which is the world of Paolo Conte.

Los Angeles, today. Henry is a stand-up comedian with a fierce sense of humor. Ann, a world-renowned opera singer. Under the spotlight, they form a wholesome and glamorous couple. The birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious little girl with an exceptional destiny, will turn their lives upside down.

A musical journey through the world of tones, sounds and noises: with Manfred Eicher, the outstanding producer of contemporary music. The film traces his life at concerts, in recording studios, in back rooms and off the beaten path with such musical contemporaries as Arvo Pärt, Dino Saluzzi, Jan Garbarek, Eleni Karaindrou, Anouar Brahem, Gianluigi Trovesi, Kim Kashkashian, Nik Bärtsch, Marilyn Mazur and many others.

Nardos, an Azmari singer from Addis Ababa, dreams of telling stories about the lives of ordinary people through her music. In her search of stories for her songs, she meets Gennet, a poet who lives on the streets with her children. As Nardos puts the lives of Ethiopian women, their visions and power at the centre of her creation, we dive deeper and deeper into a rapidly changing country.

Richie Bravo, once a celebrated «Schlager» star, is chasing his faded fame in wintry Rimini. Lost between permanent intoxication and concerts in front of bus tourists, his world begins to collapse when his adult daughter suddenly turns up. She wants money from him that he doesn't have.

A documentary film about Swiss musician and singer/songwriter Stephan Eicher, his Yéniche roots and the history and persecution of the Yéniche people in Switzerland and their links to Swiss music.

Brittany, 1980s. A bunch of friends yearning for excitement broadcast a free radio station from their hometown in the countryside. Jerome leads it with unique charisma while Philippe, the technical genius, lives in the shadow of Jerome, his big brother. When called for the military service, Philippe has no choice but to leave for West Berlin. He’s determined to keep on broadcasting, but realizes that he just lived the last glorious moments of a world on the verge of extinction.

In May 1747, the aging Johann Sebastian Bach (Vadim Glowna) meets the young King Frederick II of Prussia (Jürgen Vogel) in Potsdam. For one week, these two titans of the Baroque era play out a father-and-son relationship that is sometimes painful, yet often humorous. A battle of giants that provokes joyful chaos, both among the Bach clan as well as in the royal palace.

The documentary road movie recounts the journey of the African singer Youssou N'Dour: From Atlanta to New Orleans, from New York via Luxembourg and Dakar to the slave island of Gorée, he follows the traces of the black slaves and their music, jazz. He is guided by the blind pianist Moncef Genoud. Together with extraordinary musicians, they create a repertoire in the course of the journey that is permeated by the different cultures.

A mediocre musician dreams of becoming a rock star: Julius sets out to find legendary American guitar maker Elmore Silk, with whom he wants to make a deal. He follows Silk's tracks and meets important people from his past. A journey during which the "American Dream" is taken ad absurdum. Atmospherically staged road movie through the USA with a soundtrack by Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Arto Lindsay, Joe Strummer and David Johansen.

The film sets out in the footsteps of German writer Marc Fischer who obsessively searched for the last musical legend of our time, the founding father of Bossa Nova, Brazilian musician João Gilberto. Fischer described his journey in a book, «Hobalala», but committed suicide one week before it was published. By taking up Marc Fischer’s quest, following his steps one by one, thanks to all the clues he left us, we pursue João Gilberto to understand the history, the very soul and essence of Bossa Nova. But who can tell whether we will meet him or not?

A luthier is obsessed with the idea of crafting a violin, the sound of which is so exceptional that it will thrill the musician who plays it and caress the souls of those who hear it. This will require a special type of wood, cut from a hallowed tree that is only found in a Balkan forest. A musical quest that is as thrilling as a high-stakes treasure hunt.

Follows Holiday during her career as she is targeted by the Federal Department of Narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by black Federal Agent Jimmy Fletcher, with whom she has a tumultuous affair.

A revelatory, thrilling and emotional journey behind the scenes of Blue Note Records. Since 1939, Blue Note has been inspiring generations of musicians in search of individual expression. Through current recording sessions, rare archive material and in talks with Blue Note stars such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Ambrose Akinmusire, Sophie Huber tells of the dawn of jazz to Hip-Hop.

Leningrad, one summer in the early eighties. Smuggling LP’s by Lou Reed and David Bowie, the underground rock scene is boiling ahead of the Perestroika. Mike and his beautiful wife Natasha meet with young Viktor Tsoï. Together with friends, they will change the destiny of rock’n’roll in the Soviet Union.

Janis Joplin is one of the most revered and iconic rock & roll singers of all time, a tragic and misunderstood figure who thrilled millions of listeners and blazed new creative trails before her death in 1971 at age 27. With Janis: Little Girl Blue, Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil, West of Memphis) examines Joplin’s story in-depth for the first time on film, presenting an intimate and insightful portrait of a complicated, driven, often beleaguered artist.

Set at the Newport jazz festival in 1958, this documentary mixes images of water and the town with performers and audience. The film progresses from day to night and from improvisational music to Gospel. It's a concert film that suggests peace and leisure, jazz at a particular time and place.

Inspired by the life of Blaze Foley, the unsung songwriting legend of the Texas outlaw music movement that spawned the likes of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, Blaze weaves together three different periods of time, braiding re-imagined versions of Blaze’s past, present and future. The different strands explore his love affair with Sybil Rosen; his last, dark night on earth; and the impact his songs and death had on his fans, friends and foes. The braided storyline terminates in an ending that acknowledges Blaze’s profound highs and lows, as well as the impressions he made on the people who shared his journey.

The Music Room shows the end times of a decadent landlord in Bengal and his efforts to maintain his family's reputation even in economically difficult times. The landlord, Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), is a just but unworldly man who likes to spend time listening to music and setting up spectacles instead of managing his lands devastated by floods and the Indian government's abolition of the Zamindari system. He is challenged by a simple man who has gained wealth through business, spectacle and musical festivals.

Renowned old musician Mamo has been granted permission to perform a concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. His faithful friend Kako will drive a school bus and help gather together Mamo's ten musical adult sons, scattered throughout Iranian Kurdistan. Mamo is determined to make this trip across the majestic landscape despite all obstacles. The old Kurdish musician has waited some 35 years for the chance to perform freely again in Iraqi Kurdistan. Mamo even ignores his son's premonition that something awful awaits him before the next full moon. Mamo is convinced that the essence of the upcoming performance is the celestial voice of a woman. He has chosen Hesho, who lives in a mountain retreat with 1334 other exiled female singers. Old Mamo must persuade reluctant Hesho to join them, because her self-confidence and voice have been weakened by oppression. Since women are forbidden to sing in front of men in public in Iran, Hesho must be carefully concealed in the bus. The journey of Mamo and his musical group is not without difficulties. But persistent Mamo guides everyone toward adventure, emotion and magic ...

This is the story of a ball. A grand ball. Every summer, more than two thousand people come from accross Europe to dance together, dance even more, during seven days and seven nights, in the countryside of France. A joyful crowd of men and women from all ages, speaking different languages, beginners, virtuosos, enthusiasts. A crowd that reveals how different it is when we dare look into one's eyes, when we dare touch one another. And how life pounds.

Vitus is a boy who almost seems to be from another planet: He has hearing like a bat, he plays piano like a virtuoso and studies encyclopaedias at the age of five. No wonder his parents begin to anticipate a brilliant future for him. They want Vitus to become a pianist. However, the little genius prefers to play in his eccentric grandfather’s workshop. He dreams of flying and of a normal childhood. Ultimately, with one dramatic leap, Vitus takes control of his own life…

An international smash hit and the world's most popular film about klezmer music, A TICKLE IN THE HEART captures the story of the Epstein Brothers (Max, Willie and Julius) klezmer legends on a joyous and hilarious international tour. The Epsteins are natural performers, and their sense of life, music and family as they tour through places they loved (from Poland to Brooklyn to Florida) is as life affirming and intoxicating as the joyous music they play.

In the sorrow of exile, a group of Argentinians in Paris seek solace and connection to their culture by staging a set of tangos. The film alternates between their vibrant rehearsals and their circumscribed lives in low-rent apartments, underemployed, fitfully communicating with families back home, trying to make do with what they hope are only temporary arrangements in a foreign land. Director Fernando Solanas had to spend several years in exile, some of them in Paris. There he tells us the story of people from Argentina spending their time in Paris and longing for Buenos Aires. One of the strongest movies about living in exile.

An artist, a musician, a filmmaker. Three worlds, three ways of thinking, three interpretations. Fused to an energetic work. Beat Zoderer’s work fascinate with quiet humor and the intelligent challenge of distrusting a conventional view of things. Nik Bärtsch’s sound is characterized by his love for the architecturally articulated space and rhythmic overlaps. Filmmaker Jürg Egli has brought the two artists together in a studio session. The result is a cinematic performance of unique intensity. „The idea can sometimes only be thought out in its realization.“ Beat Zoderer Sketchbook IX 1999

This documentary is a poetic journey to the unique music of the Argentine maestro Eduardo Falú (1923 - 2013). At the same time it is a vivid portrait of this outstanding musician. Starting from his particular relationship with the landscapes of northwestern Argentina, with his beloved hometown Salta, with the vast plains of the Pampa, the enormous mountains of the Andes with their dramatic canyons, fertile valleys and deserted high plateaus, the film follows the manyfold stations of Falús life and career.

When two friends collect money for the so-called “suffering in America” in the streets of Accra, is it for fun, political provocation, or a prophecy? Two Swiss filmmakers will answer these questions with the help of seven musicians from Ghana – M3NSA, Wanlov The Kubolor, Adomaa, Worlasi, Akan, Mutombo Da Poet, and Poetra Asantewa – who have written new songs and produced video clips especially for the documentary film Contradict. Tomorrow’s ideas and trends are emerging more decentralized than ever in a globalized world. What do global developments and shifts in values look like from the ground up in Ghana and the African continent? How do we want to confront and contradict those changes? Can new visions for the future become global realities?

The story of Rafael, a fun-loving youth on the verge of manhood who is trying to make his dream of total freedom become reality. Determined to conquer the world with his Utopia Blues Band at any cost, Rafael's philosophy is that “life is a game”. But the game unexpectedly becomes bitter earnest. How much freedom is permitted?

Set in the 1960s, high school student Toru Watanabe loses his only friend Kizuki after he commits suicide. Toru, now looking for a new life, enters a university in Tokyo. By chance, Toru meets Kizuki's ex-girlfriend Naoko in the university. They grow close because they both share the same loss. As Toru and Naoko grow even closer, Naoko's sense of loss also grows. After Naoko's 20th birthday, she leaves for a sanitarium in Kyoto. Watanabe, devastated by the situation, meets pure-hearted Midori during the spring semester. Midori looks like a small animal that just came into the world ... Based on Haruki Murakami's novel of the same name.

Stéphane, a young French man from Paris, travels to Romania. He is looking for the singer Nora Luca, whom his father had heard all the time before his death. Wandering along a frozen road, he meets old Izidor, a member of the Roma and tells him of Nora Luca. Izidor seems to understand and takes him to his village. Stéphane believes that Izidor will take him to Nora Luca when the time has come. So, he lives in the Roma village for several months.

Jeffrey Levy-Hinte has brought the disparate and unedited film of Zaire '74 together into one coherent form for the first time. The rainchild of South African musician Hugh Masekela and American record producer Stewart Levine, Zaire '74 was a three-day music festival that took place in Kinshasa in 1974. The event assembled America's biggest rhythm and blues talents – including James Brown and the Mighty JBs, Bill Withers, B.B. King, and the Spinners – along with top African acts such as Miriam Makeba and Afrisa. The festival was held in conjunction with the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman known as the "Rumble in the Jungle." Most of the American performers, emboldened by the civil rights movement, were visiting Africa for the first time, exploring their roots and somewhat naive beliefs about the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The promoters hired a team of esteemed documentary cameramen to film everything, including street life in Kinshasa and behind-the-scenes footage of the show being assembled. The crew masterfully recorded classic numbers such as Makeba's "The Click Song," King's "The Thrill Is Gone," and of course, Brown's "Soul Power." And then the footage sat unedited for over thirty years, until now. DHE MUSIC *************** SOUL POWER Written by James Brown Performed by James Brown & the J.B.’s Under License from Unichappell Music, Inc. on behalf of Crited Music, Inc. (BMI) BAKOBOSANA Written by Lita Bembo Performed by Lita Bembo & Les Stukas All rights reserved - Tous droits réservés I'LL NEVER LET YOU BREAK MY HEART AGAIN Written by Fred Wesley, Charles Bobbit, Reggie Bryan Performed by “Sweet" Charles Sherrell and the J.B.’s Under License from Unichappell Music, Inc. on behalf of Dynatone Publishing Co. (BMI) ONE OF A KIND (LOVE AFFAIR) Written by Joseph B. Jefferson Performed by The Spinners Under License from Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI) SIMBA NKONI Written by François “Franco” Luambo Makiadi Performed by OK Jazz featuring Franco All rights reserved - Tous droits réservés HOPE SHE’LL BE HAPPIER Written by Bill Withers Performed by Bill Withers Under license from Songs of Universal, Inc. on behalf of Interior Music Corp. (BMI) THE CLICK SONG Written by The Manhattan Brothers Performed by Miriam Makeba Under license from Makeba Music Company ON AND ON Written by Curtis Mayfield Performed by Sister Sledge Under License from Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. on behalf of Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Todd Mayfield Publishing (BMI) THRILL IS GONE Written by Rick Ravon Darnell and Roy Hawkins Performed by B.B. King Under license from Universal Music-Careers (BMI) PUT IT WHERE YOU WANT IT Written by Joe Sample Performed by the Crusaders Under license from Chrysalis Songs (BMI) QUIMBARA Written by Junior Cepeda Performed by Celia Cruz and the Fania All Stars Under license from Universal –Musica Unica Publishing on behalf of Fania Music (BMI) PONTE DURO Written by Johnny Pacheco Performed by the Fania All Stars Under license from Universal - Musica Unica Publishing on behalf of Fania Music (BMI) BONJOUR L’AFRIQUE Written by Big Black Performed by Big Black Published by Jokot SELI-JA Written by Tabu Ley Rochereau Performed by Tabu Ley Rochereau & L’Afrisa International Under License from EMI Blackwood Music, Inc. PAYBACK Written by James Brown, John H. Starks, and Fred Wesley Performed by James Brown & the J.B.’s Under License from Unichappell Music, Inc. on behalf of Dynatone Publishing Co. (BMI) COLD SWEAT Written by James Brown and Alfred James Ellis Performed by James Brown & the J.B.’s Under License from Unichappell Music, Inc. on behalf of Dynatone Publishing Co. (BMI) I CAN’T STAND MYSELF (WHEN YOU TOUCH ME) Written by James Brown Performed by James Brown & the J.B.’s Under License from Unichappell Music, Inc. on behalf of Dynatone Publishing Co. (BMI) SAY IT LOUD (I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD) Written by James Brown and Alfred James Ellis Performed by James Brown & the J.B.’s Under License from Unichappell Music, Inc. on behalf of Dynatone Publishing Co. (BMI) . SAME BEAT Written by James Brown Performed by Fred Wesley and the J.B.’s Under License from Unichappell Music, Inc. on behalf of Dynatone Publishing Co. (BMI)

Giuseppe Verdi's «finest work», as he himself described it, still stands today on the Piazza Buonarroti in Milan. It is the «Casa di riposo», founded by Verdi in 1896 for «people who are less fortunate than I» - people who never made a big career, and people who have long spent their dream salaries. Today they live, all long forgotten, in a small room with a suitcase full of memories.

Five highly original musicians from different countries form the Accordion Tribe. Together they aim to reinforce the original power of the long disdained instrument. The film follows the energetic soundscapes and their performers on a journey through Europe. An extraordinarily intensive documentary on the communicative, connecting power of music.

Revisit with the remaining original members of the Buena Vista Social Club and explore their contribution to the unknown history of Cub

Inspired by the famous story “The Abduction of Sita” from the great classic of ancient Indian and South East-Asian literature the Ramayana, OPERA JAWA is a musical like no other in cinema. It tells of a passionate love triangle that leads inexorably to conflict, violence and death. Setio and his wife Siti, run a pottery business in a small village where Ludiro, a powerful and ruthless butcher, controls all the trading activities. When the couple’s business collapses, Ludiro, who has always been in love with Siti, seizes his chance, abducts and tries to seduce her. Inevitably the two men begin to fight over Siti...

The movie tells the story of Laerte (Lázaro Ramos), a talented violinist who after failing to be admitted into the OSESP Orchestra is forced to give music classes to teenagers in a public school at Heliopolis. His path is full of difficulties, but the transforming power of music and the friendship arising between the teacher and the students open the door into a new world.

The image of the ever-laughing clown from Ascona is well known. He is recognised as a national figure. Performing on tours throughout the world has made him renowned. This film by Friedrich Kappeler is a portrait of a clown and a man still with full of ideas and action with almost 70 years.

A woman watches time passing next to the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up, but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn’t understand that his master has abandoned him. Two living beings confronted with being abandoned. Madness and melancholy intersect to thrilling effect as Pedro Almodóvar reimagines Jean Cocteau’s short play for an era in which isolation has become a way of life. A short, sharp shot of distilled Almodóvar: passion, emotion, heartbreak, wit, and melodrama exquisitely bound up in a tale for our times.

The film is an attempt to offer an insight into the Japanese Kabuki star, Tamasaburo Bando. The film consists of four continuous acts: A prelude, the dance of the drunken snake, «Orochi», from Japan's oldest myth, is followed by a documentary section, «Tamasaburo Bando and his idols». It includes encounters with Han Takehara, geisha and dancer, Haruko Sugimura, film actress (Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa), and Butoh dancer, Kazuo Ohno. The next act, «Twilight Geisha», is a light-hearted variation on the geisha theme. In the fourth and final section, Tamasaburo dances the Kabuki drama «Sagimusume», a story of reincarnation and of a girl's transformation on a snowy winter's night.

A three-year journey with actor Bruno Ganz. He plays various roles in various places, but he also plays Bruno Ganz – filming and directing friends. Again and again he works on the role of Dr. Faust, the figure who – speaking for us all – desperately wants to discover “what holds the world together at the core”. A thousand days of searching for one's own destiny, with despair as the only companion, and placing hope in the creative power of poetry.

New Year’s Eve and three lonely people make their way to a small town in the middle of Uruguay. César, a divorced taxi driver, is visiting his ex-wife’s new family to try and win back the love of his five-year-old daughter. Antonio, a magician, becomes stranded after breaking down on his way to a New Year’s gig and spends the night with Laura, a toll officer, on a motorway in the middle of nowhere. Folk singer Miguel is in prison, but receives a free pass to perform again in front of an audience. UNA NOCHE SIN LUNA is a melancholic reflection on loneliness, love, missed chances and the passing of time.

The theater group Valendas from the Safiental in the canton of Grisons adapts Friedrich Dürrenmatt's grotesque novel "Durcheinandertal". They consider the material suitable to represent their world theatrically. The novel tells the story of a foundation that is supposed to help a remote mountain valley to prosperity. The film accompanies the creative process up to the performance in front of an audience. The Safiental is considered a "space with little potential". It is time to depopulate such valleys and leave them to nature. This is the politically pointed debate. Director Bruno Moll has adapted the book for the stage and follow the creative process from rehearsal to performance in front of an audience.

The first feature documentary about the legendary pantomime artist Marcel Marceau. He inspires several generations of artists, among them his own grandson and family, who cast a new light on his life's work.

When faced with a lack of job offers, the lovable Étienne, a passionate but frequently out-of-work actor, becomes the new director of a prison theatre workshop. Surprised by the talent he finds in the disparate troupe of inmates, he soon expands his thinking beyond the prison walls – and comes up with the idea of staging “Waiting for Godot” on a real theatre stage. When the amateur actors actually get the green light, a triumphant tour begins. The friendship between the prisoners and the kind-hearted director grows stronger with every rehearsal and performance. But while Étienne finally gets his chance to succeed in the theatre world, his actors have to return to prison at the end of every performance. Director Emmanuel Courcol tells this true-life story with plenty of heart and humour. Kad Merad excels in the leading role of this equally entertaining and touching comedy.

Photo?, the clown calls the public from the ring of the circus. The delicious number like the even more famous soap bubble number and other Pic classics can be enjoyed in "Le Cirque de Pic". They form the heart of Thomas Ott's affectionate portrait film. Emil Steinberger tells how he was enthusiastic about Pic from the beginning and how he recommended the clown from St.Gallen to the Roncalli Circus director. Ott reviews Pic's career. Pic himself tells how varied and romantic the spartan life in the circus caravan was. Photos show that the subtle art of the clown cannot be separated from the person Richard Hirzel, who knows how to enchant with his empathic poetry. The portrait closes with scenes from the current programme "Comical Bones", in which Pic shines as the narrator. It is Emil once again who praises Pic's subtle and expressive facial expressions.

The first real professional success for famed French actress Maria Enders was twenty years ago as the co-lead in writer Wilhelm Melchoir's play and subsequent movie "Maloja Snake", he who picked Maria, then an unknown, personally. She played Sigrid, an opportunistic eighteen year old in an emotionally dependent lesbian relationship with forty year old Helena, who was at a vulnerable stage of her life. Maria has turned down the play's upcoming London revival in which she would now play Helena, it remounted by director Klaus Diesterweg. Her reasons for turning down the role are many including: being at a vulnerable stage of her own life going through a painful divorce; remembering the suicide of Susan Rosenberg, the original Helena, following the original run of the play, the suicide purportedly mirroring what happens to Helena; and the painful memories of the production in still having hard feelings toward who was her older male costar, Henryk Wald, with who she had an affair at the time. Maria reconsiders and accepts the role when Wilhelm unexpectedly passes away, she hearing the news en route to the Zurich Film Festival where she was to accept an award on recluse Wilhelm's behalf. Maria begins to regret her decision, largely due to having to work with nineteen year old Jo-Ann Ellis as Sigrid, Jo-Ann a trained actress whose Hollywood lifestyle is making her self-destruct, this behavior which Maria, who hates the Internet and the Hollywood gossip on it, did not know before signing the contract. But what may be most difficult for Maria is the role opening up her own professional relationship and friendship with her younger American personal assistant, Valentine, the two who are staying at Wilhelm's mountain retreat in Sils Maria in the Swiss Alps, where Maria is preparing for the play and where many of the locations were inspiration for the play's themes

The Travelling Players is a film of epic proportions. The action takes place during the years 1939-52 and is seen as a series of individual, often inexplicable events or tableaux, commentated by monologues, by slogans written on the walls, or by songs. It reveals the period's turbulent history while focusing on a travelling company of actors who spend those fourteen years wandering through provinces, cities and villages, performing, in increasingly threadbare circumstances, a 19th century pastoral melodrama, Persiadis' Golfo the Shepherdess. They never get to finish the play and the tranquil sheep painted on their back cloth gaze down upon generations of anguish and bloodshed. The passage of history reverberates in individual incidents or is summarized in symbols. These sad, shabby, often hungry folk, whose relationship is based on the family of the House of Atreus, are of varying political hues - from active collaborators with the Nazis (Aegisthus), to opportunists (Chrysothemis), to centrist Greek patriots (Agamemnon), to the apolitical (Clytemnestra), to left-wing idealists (Electra), to communist guerillas (Orestes). And they fill these roles as much as they do the mythic ones of wandering general, faithless wife, betrayer or vengeful son. As they travel amid the constant wartime convulsions, they begin, unconsciously, to enact parallels to Aeschylus' tragic cycle.

One of a string of late-career masterworks made by Kenji Mizoguchi in the first half of the 1950s, A Story from Chikamatsu (a.k.a. The Crucified Lovers) is an exquisitely moving tale of forbidden love struggling to survive in the face of persecution. Based on a classic of eighteenth-century Japanese drama, the film traces the injustices that befall a Kyoto scroll maker’s wife and his apprentice after each is unfairly accused of wrongdoing. Bound by fate in an illicit, star-crossed romance, they go on the run in search of refuge from the punishment prescribed them: death. Shot in gorgeous, painterly style by master cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, this delicately delivered indictment of societal oppression was heralded by Akira Kurosawa as a “great masterpiece that could only have been made by Mizoguchi.

Läppli is arrested as a supposed opponent of the army and misses the general mobilisation. Eventually he arrives at the barracks after all. There, as HD Läppli, he drives every superior mad in record time with his obtuseness and sense of justice.

Giuseppe Verdi's «finest work», as he himself described it, still stands today on the Piazza Buonarroti in Milan. It is the «Casa di riposo», founded by Verdi in 1896 for «people who are less fortunate than I» - people who never made a big career, and people who have long spent their dream salaries. Today they live, all long forgotten, in a small room with a suitcase full of memories.

Three different characters in a Havana, that always seems to be like today, must choose between clinging to their self-restricting beliefs, or getting rid of them to live more freely. Ballerina Mariana has recently promised God celibacy, if she gets the main role of "Giselle"; Social-worker Julia always faints after hearing a certain word, like other people do in the streets to different words; and percussionist Elpidio was abandoned by his mother named Cuba quite some time ago and has not yet gotten over the loss. Now he fells in love with an northern activist. BONUS: Als Zugabe gibt's den Bergsteiger-Dokumentarfilm mit Daniel Anker, der in den 1990er Jahren eine neue Route durch die Eiger-Nordwand gelegt hat und sie als Liebhaber des Films «La vida es silbar» nannte. Sie erfreut sich bei jenen, die gerne Klettern, als beliebt.

A young debuting actress dreams of being a famous star admired by everybody. She lacks talent so she's planning to have plastic surgery to help her succeed. She is always an optimist, with an infectiously carefree attitude and joie de vivre. The extremely sensitive 15-year-old boy feeling at odds with the world is her opposite. He is misunderstood by his father and his stepmother, a worldly and haughty woman who is capable of true feelings only on the verge of death. A tragicomedy about destiny, the vulnerability of our existence and the inscrutability of love, a story about people whose lives are fancifully intertwined. Variety magazine has placed the director, award-wining Anna Melikian, on its list of the world's top 10 most promising film directors.

In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an intertribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual freedom.

Dat and his sister live with their eternally drunk father in a small village in the Vietnamese mountains. One day a travelling circus appears. Dat makes friends with the girl from the circus: He hopes to get behind the trick with which the jugglers suddenly conjure up rice for everyone from an empty basket. Could Dat and his sister, could all the starving people from now on have enough to eat through this incredible miracle? Dat is bitterly disappointed: everything was just dizziness and lazy magic. Set in the central highlands of Vietnam, Travelling Circus is a bittersweet story of famine-ridden villagers and was one of the most internationally acclaimed Vietnamese movies from the 1980s.

In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinematograph and made the first films in history. Directing, tracking shots, special effects - the two brothers also influenced the art of film design. Thierry Frémaux's exciting compilation of their partly world-famous, partly newly discovered masterpieces in restored copies is a moving journey back to the beginnings of cinema. The unforgettable film jewels also offer a unique view of the world on the threshold of the 20th century. Lumière - the adventure of cinema begins!

Giovanni, a renowned Italian filmmaker, is about to start shooting a political film. But between his marriage in crisis, his co-producer on the verge of bankruptcy and the rapidly changing film industry, everything seems to be working against him! Always on the edge, Giovanni will have to rethink his way of doing things if he wants to lead his little world towards a bright tomorrow. The story of a filmmaker whose life has always been shaped by cinema, and whose films have always accompanied him in his own life - a film about cinema.

This time, Jafar Panahi is making a film about a pair of lovers who want to flee to France with forged passports - from Turkey. But how does the Iranian director, who is banned from working and not allowed to leave the country, manage this? "No Bears" portrays two parallel love stories. In both, the lovers are troubled by hidden, inevitable obstacles, the force of superstition and the mechanics of power. Like in some of his earlier work, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi plays a version of himself.

Director Sonia Kronlund accompanies the Afghan director, actor and screenwriter Salim Shaheen in her film Nothingwood. He is a well-known figure on the film scene in his home country, but hardly known abroad. About a hundred kilometers away from Kabul, Salim Shaheen comes to show some of his 110 films and to shoot the 111th in the process.

Max Haufler hated acting, but while he left his mark on Swiss filmmaking of the 1950s with his character roles, success as a film director eluded him. He tried in vain in the last years of his life to film the novel "Der Stumme" by Otto F. Walter. Max Haufler fought for his dream - until it broke him.

Nominated for an Oscar in the category "Best Documentary Film": The life of Olfa, a Tunisian woman and mother of 4 daughters, oscillates between light and shadow. One day, her two eldest daughters disappear. To fill their absence, director Kaouther Ben Hania calls upon professional actors and sets up an extraordinary film mechanism to unveil the story of Olfa and her daughters. An intimate journey full of hope, rebellion, violence, intergenerational transmission and sisterhood, which will question the very foundation of our societies.

In Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life, a group of people, recently deceased, arrives at the outskirts of heaven. There they spend a week deciding which of all the memories from their lives they most want to spend eternity in, and heavenly counselors help them in the process. The dead souls help each other come to terms with what was most important to them while they were alive. Shot in a realistic yet slightly dreamy light, this touching and humanistic look at life and death carefully avoids being overly sentimental: a masterpiece.

An aging, Argentine, Serge Gainsbourg wannabe struggles to deal with a career he can't seem to get on track, an affair he doesn't want, and a crime he didn't mean to commit.

Djibril Diop Mambéty followed and filmed the shooting of Yaaba, Idrissa Ouédraogo's (Burkina Faso, 1989) second feature film. A documentary full of humorous anecdotes regarding the dangers of shooting in Burkina Faso.

Forty years ago, during the uprising to overthrow the Shah’s regime in Iran, protestors set fire to movie theaters as a way of showing opposition to Western culture. Many cinemas were burned down. In one tragic case, a theater was set on fire with four hundred people inside, most of whom were burned alive. Forty years have passed and, in contemporary Iran, four individuals also decide to burn a cinema down. Their intended target is a theater showing a film about an unearthed, unexploded missile. Will past and present meet?

Hasan is full of rage. He's been blacklisted and hasn't been allowed to make a film in years. His star, a woman he adores, is impatient and wants to work with other directors. His wife seems to have fallen out of love with him, and his mother has become old and is slowly losing her mind. Worst of all, film directors across the city are being murdered one after the other, but the serial killer is inexplicably ignoring him. Hasan's feelings are hurt: isn't he the most accomplished filmmaker in town? So why is he being neglected? All these frustrations come to a head when, through a series of bizarre misunderstandings, he becomes the prime suspect in the serial murder case. Social media are abuzz, Hasan has to come up with an ingenious plan to restore his reputation.

Peter von Kant, a successful, famous director, lives with his assistant Karl, whom he likes to mistreat and humiliate. Through the great actress Sidonie, he meets and falls in love with Amir, a handsome young man of modest means. He offers to share his apartment and help Amir break into the world of cinema. Several months later, Amir becomes a star. But as soon as he acquires fame, he breaks up, leaving Peter alone to face himself.

In 1968, Czechoslovakian director Jiří Menzel wins the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS - his first feature film ever. Only one year later his next film LARKS ON A STRING is banned by the government. But Menzel decides to stay in socialist Czechoslovakia and continues working as director and actor for theatre and film. His comedies and costume dramas are a commercial success, gently testing the boundaries of authorities with his well hidden political messages. Today, filmmakers like Miloš Forman, Ken Loach, Emir Kusturica or István Szabó are amongst his admirers and friends. JIRÍ MENZEL - TO MAKE A COMEDY IS NO FUN tells the story of this exceptional filmmaker for the first time.

Yoko (Atsuko Maeda) hosts a popular global travel show yet is cautious and insular like many young Japanese. But she has a bigger dream. On assignment in Uzbekistan, Yoko and her small TV crew attempt to catch a mythical fish but fail. They also film segments in Samarkand but feel it’s lacking. Indifferent to her job, Yoko prefers texting her boyfriend in Tokyo. At night, she comes across a tied up goat and suggests releasing it on camera. The plan goes awry and Yoko feels indignant and naive. The team move to Tashkent where Yoko wanders into an opulent theatre, fantasizing she's on stage. She confides her ambitions to her cameraman but admits her heart's not ready. While filming, Yoko's timid nature inadvertently gets her in trouble with the police. At the station she hears of a disaster in Tokyo and realizes how important human communication truly is. Some of the team return to Japan but Yoko stays. As she ventures into the mountains she sings from the heart and her spirit is freed.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a film projectionist tours through Bohemian villages and dreams of opening a cinema in Prague. He allies himself with a young cameraman (played by Jiří Menzel), who in turn has a dream: He longs for true-to-life films that deal with the reality of people. Menzel's Those Wonderful Movie Cranks is one of the most beautiful tributes to the pioneers of the silent era, and the film is also a melancholic reflection on necessary concessions.