Vowellet - An Essay by Sarah Vowell(2005)

Flow(en)

way(en)

San Francisco filmmaker Konrad Steiner took 12 years to complete a montage cycle set to the late Leslie Scalapino’s most celebrated poem, way—a sprawling book-length odyssey of shardlike urban impressions, fraught with obliquely felt social and sexual tensions. Six stylistically distinctive films for each section of way, using sources ranging from Kodachrome footage of sun-kissed S.F. street scenes to internet clips of the Iraq war to a fragmented Fred Astaire dance number.

Heavenly Touch(tl)

Jonard is having trouble making ends meet. His mother is suffering from depression, and he and his sister are forced to quit school in order to take care of her. One day, Jonard meets up his friend Rodel, and Rodel introduces him to the world of massage parlors. Rodel teaches him massage, and brings him to Heavenly Touch, a syndicate-run massage parlor that mostly caters to homosexuals.

An Ideal Father(fr)

Michel, the jovial owner of the only café in a small Normandy town, sees his life turned upside down when his teenage daughter is murdered. The community has his back but soon rumor spreads and Michel is singled out. From the ideal father, he becomes the ideal culprit.

Sonic & Shadow Lovely Lavat(fa)

Sonic sends TikToks to his husband Shadow everyday but Shadow never respond, Sonic thinks his husband Shadow doesn't love him and don't care about him, they fight and Shadow makes Sonic cry and now Shadow doesn't know what to do.

Lion(en)

The lion has to become more physically fit. The gazelle does not think he is capable of doing so.

Raiders of the Lost Library(ru)

While digging one of the many tunnels for the Moscow metro, Soviet workers unearth ruins of a dungeon. The site is closed, the metro tunnel is diverted, and amidst the bustle no one notices the tunnel workers’ foreman pocketing a little ‘souvenir’ – a book-sized frame made of precious metals featuring an inscription in an unknown language. Decades later, the foreman’s grandson Ilya, who works as a courier, discovers the ancient relic in a pile of old junk. Oblivious to the true value of the family heirloom, he soon learns about it from a mysterious stranger. The relic is the key to the secret location of the priceless ancient library that belonged to Ivan the Terrible. What Ilya doesn’t know is that the search for the lost library has been going on for centuries, and now very powerful people are after him. Ilya and the mysterious stranger decide to try their luck in finding the library.

Old Man Junior(en)

Morbius Jr, now an OId Man, is nearing the end of life, when he finds the last hope for all Morbkind. However, as he fights to protect the future of Morbheads, he finds himself facing off against an unlikely of enemy... HIMSELF.

Pimpinero: Blood and Oil(es)

When Juan, a young gasoline smuggler, is forced to work for a mysterious organization in the desert bordering Colombia and Venezuela, his girlfriend Diana embarks on a journey to uncover the secrets that inhabit this no-man’s-land.

Secrets of Palace coup d'etat. Russia, 18th century. Film №5. Second Bride Emperor(ru)

As a result of a successful conspiracy against Menshikov, Peter II is prematurely recognized as an adult and is in a hurry to be crowned in Moscow. The Dolgoruky brothers gather for this celebration. There were eight of them - all-powerful and influential representatives of the ancient Rurikovich family - and among them the beautiful Ekaterina, the daughter of the huntsman Alexei.

National Family(es)

Don Poli, the patriarch of a family embedded in politics, faces the change of party in his state - after a hundred years in power - losing all his privileges. Humiliated and angry, he threatens to disinherit his family and leave to rebuild his life. This forces his children (Kippy, Ramses and Belén) to take extreme measures to ensure their future, causing everything that could go wrong to turn out worse.

Mad(en)

A matriarch past the point of a nervous breakdown, her two daughters that don't give a damn, and the heat-seeking missiles of resentment they toss at each other.

Panda Plan(zh)

International action star Jackie Chan is invited to the adoption ceremony of a rare baby panda, but after an international crime syndicate attempts to kidnap the bear, Jackie has to save the bear using his stunt work skills.

Transmorphers: Mech Beasts(en)

20 years after the events of Transmorphers, a newer, more advanced species of alien robot descends on a rebuilt Earth, threatening once again to destroy the planet.

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar(hi)

After an unsolved diamond heist, a hard-nosed cop’s pursuit of his key suspect turns into obsession, until they finally face each other — and the truth.

The Price of Money: A Largo Winch Adventure(fr)

Largo Winch, devastated by the kidnapping of his son, realizes that if he finds those responsible for his bankruptcy, maybe he'll see his son again.

Sugarcane(en)

An investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in Canada ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.

J the Film(bs)

'J' tells the story of a man who lives an isolated life before encountering a woman that will open up, for a while, his controlled world. In 'J', time is at first an internal condition and, as the story unfolds, the effect of a mysterious mirror, where solitude is a condition of space itself and nearness and love are but a position of an impossible witness. Can space hold all the memories of a life without witnesses?

The Silent Hour(en)

While working a case as an interpreter, a hearing-impaired police detective must confront a group of criminals trying to eliminate a deaf murder witness in her apartment building.

Step(en)

The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.

Affirmations(en)

A look at what it's like to be gay and black in America.

P.M.(es)

Controversial cinéma vérité analysis of Havana’s lumpenproletariat in waterfront bars and cafés shortly after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Fire in Paradise(en)

In this documentary, survivors recall the catastrophic 2018 Camp Fire, which razed the town of Paradise and became California’s deadliest wildfire.

The Making of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'(en)

A documentary film on the making of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

Men Counting Their Beads(tr)

An experimental documentary based on photographs of the director's grandfathers whom he never had the chance to meet, his grandmothers, and the stories they told.

Journey into Amazing Caves(en)

Journey into Amazing Caves is an extraordinary IMAX adventure into the depths of the earth to uncover the secrets to life underground.

The Forger(en)

Adolfo Kaminsky started saving lives when chance and necessity made him a master forger. As a teenager, he became a member of the French Resistance and used his talent to save the lives of thousands of Jews. The Forger is a well-crafted origin story of a real-life superhero.

Liquid Love(es)

A critique of liquid love through sarcasm and crude humor. With the desire that the viewer empathize with the protagonists and reflect on the ephemerality of sexual-affective relationships in modern society. At the end of the short film, the transformation of people into mere consumer goods will be clear, which, once they have been used, are discarded

Award Presentation to Andy Warhol(en)

In 1964 Film Culture magazine chose Andy Warhol for its annual Independent Film award. The plan was to show some of Andy's films and have Andy come on stage and hand him the award. Andy said, no, he didn't want a public presentation.

This was the MARY(en)

Short 18 minute film about QM and her last Transatlantic voyage from New York to Southampton. Joan Crawford makes an appearance and also narrates the first part of the film.

Return to Crystal Lake: Making 'Friday the 13th'(en)

Au coeur de Nikita(fr)

A documentary that captures some moments on set of filming of Luc Besson's "Nikita".

The Presence III(hu)

Two rabbis show the ruins of an abandoned synagogue to a group of primary school-age Jewish children, and stand by as the children dip bread in honey, drink wine, pray, and sing.

Chris on Chris(en)

A short film on Chris Marker

The Green Fog(en)

A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…

Alone(en)

This investigation into the layers of mass incarceration and its shaping of the modern black American family is seen through the eyes of a single mother in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Tickle King(en)

Featuring new, previously unseen footage documenting the bizarre and unsettling things that happened to filmmakers David Farrier and Dylan Reeve as Tickled premiered at film festivals and theaters in 2016. Lawsuits, private investigators, disrupted screenings and surprise appearances are just part of what they encounter along the way. Amidst new threats, the duo begins to answer questions that remained once the credits rolled on Tickled, including whether the disturbing behavior they uncovered will ever come to an end.

Arabian Coffee(es)

'Coffea arábiga' was sponsored as a propaganda documentary to show how to sow coffee around Havana. In fact, Guillén Landrián made a film critical of Castro, exhibited but banned as soon as the coffee plan collapsed.

Haida Carver(en)

On Canada's Pacific coast this film finds a young Haida artist, Robert Davidson, shaping miniature totems from argillite, a jet-like stone. The film follows the artist to the island where he finds the stone, and then shows how he carves it in the manner of his grandfather, who taught him the craft.