In 1943 a cosmic ray research station was set up on the top of Mount Aragaz in Armenia. During the 1980s the team of scientists here embarked upon an ambitious research project which was never completed. Today the vast complex located at an altitude of 3,500 metres is home to only six isolated people.
In his first documentary since “Grizzly Man”, Werner Herzog, accompanied only by his cameraman, traveled to Antarctica, with rare access to the raw beauty and raw humanity of the ultimate Down Under. Herzog’s latest meditation on nature, explores this land of Fire, Ice and corrosive Solitude.
Amadeo was not only a great painter but also a total artist. Trapped by the country where he was born, by the time of destruction in which he lived and by himself, he had a short life and the international recognition that few Portuguese artists could have had was not assented to him.
In the autumn 2006, I found out that my mother and her sister Jacqueline were extras in the movie “Z” by Costa-Gavras. They acted in the demonstration scenes and the film was filmed in Algeria in 1969. I decided to find her in the film. I recall different events from our life together that I comment in the video.
Vinh, a Vietnamese refugee, was adopted 20 years earlier by a Swiss family and is now about to get married. His Vietnamese mother seizes this opportunity to finally meet the family that loved and raised her son. They are now going to have to have to play the fragile comedy of happiness.
Night sequence shot feeding from the inspiration in road movies. Here the landscape of typical “North American roadside” gradually becomes a built landscape: the neon lights are substituted by the human element in an installation/performance that brings the viewer into a new invented landscape. (Rita Figueiredo)
Two boys, in a harbour, talk about leaving their home and city. Although they feel they can’t live outside, When one of them remembers a dream in which they were walking inside the sea, the other one reacts and takes the lead.
Ai Weiwei was involved in the conception of the famous Bird’s Nest Stadium, built for the Olimpics in Beijing. Maintaing the partnership with the same two Swiss architects, Herzog & de Meuron, Ai Weiwei was assigned a task: to build a city inside the desert of Mongolia. That is how the Ordos 100 project was born and in it’s implementation 100 architects from 27 countries were invited to design a villa with 1000 square meters. In this film we keep up with three periods of visits from the architects to the construction area. It is fascinating to watch how they dazzle and get involved in this megalomaniac project and how Ai Weiwei keeps his bonhomie even when they have to deal with childish organization flaws from official entities promoting the project. (Rui Pereira)
70 critics and filmmakers discuss cinema from the age-old conflict between the artist and the observer, the creator and the critic. From 1998 to 2007, Kleber Mendonça Filho has collected points of view about this relationship in Brazil, USA and Europe, using his personal experience as both filmmaker and critic.
A satire on the state of war and peace and the absurdities it inspires.
It is in the spirit of the Nuremberga Trials that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) convenes in Arusha, Tanzania, at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro. It was established to prosecute those responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which killed nearly one million people, most of them Tutsis, over the course of three months while the rest of the world stood by and watched.
Once upon a time there were three fierce robbers. In the dark of the night they walked the roads hidden under large black capes and tall black hats. The first had a blunderbuss. The second had a pepper-blower. The third a huge red ax. They terrified everyone; plundered everyplace they went!
Paula lives between the education of her daughter Beatriz, who gives her a vital strength to face the days, and the undesired heritage of looking after her own mother Carminda, a demented and unpredictable woman. It’s summertime and is sizzling. Paula, is no longer a daughter, but a full-time mother. She dresses, feeds, bathes, cleans and beautifies. However, one unforeseen morning, somewhere, and with no apparent reason besides exhaustion, the crack opens. Explodes. (Cláudia Varejão)
In May of 2011, Neil Young brought his solo tour to Toronto’s Massey Hall, an iconic venue in the city of his birth. He drove a 1956 Crown Victoria from his idyllic hometown of Omemee, Ontario. Along the drive, Young recounted insightful and introspective stories from his youth to filmmaker and long-time fan and collaborator Jonathan Demme.
The collective Flatform has been a part of IndieLisboa’s memory for a long time. Movimenti brings us a wonderful sucession of weather events that take part of a dreamlike sequence shot. A string quartet creates specific sound environment for each weather fluctuation. The sound of Ravel endures even after the film is over. (Miguel Valverde)
A heavy metal band plays in a stage half forgotten in the dark and the powerful sound of the guitar pierces a curtain of smoke. But the night has many stages and when the concert is over, one of the elements returns home alone, in silence. Waiting for him is an apartment almost empty and a grandmother needing some company. (Ágata Pinho)
A young couple is spending the day in bed. He asks her, if she wants to marry him. At first she says no.
Documentary film made as part of a series for a German television station, about celebrated ski-jumper champion Walter Steiner who works as a carpenter for his full-time occupation.