Lubitsch, le patron

Jiří z Poděbrad(cs)

Pavarotti, Birth of a Pop Star(fr)

Although he is unanimously credited with having democratised opera, making it accessible to the greatest number, focus is rarely put on the strategy he devised and implemented in order to carry out his actions, nor what his actions reveal of the man and artist, and of the resulting metamorphosis from opera singer to pop artist. Through this angle, this film sets out to pay tribute to the man who summed up his credo, obsession and life’s work, in the following way: “They led the public to believe that classical music belonged to a restricted elite. I was the way to prove to the world that was wrong.

Søren Kam: Nazisten, der aldrig fortrød(da)

Marguerite Duras, l'écriture et la vie(fr)

25 years ago, Marguerite Duras passed away at the age of 81. At the evocation of this name, one spontaneously thinks of the intellectual superstar Duras, adulated or hated, with her big glasses and turtleneck, who received the Goncourt prize for her mythical novel, "L'Amant". But behind the superstar writer, who either fascinates or annoys, and behind his double novel, the young Indochinese girl, with her hair pulled back and lips underlined with lipstick, which is precisely the subject of "L'Amant", are hidden other, perhaps less well-known facets of the character, a writer, but also a filmmaker, journalist, a woman committed to the left, a transient lover or a loving mother. Marguerite Duras will have had 1000 lives in one and many other faces. This film attempts to get as close as possible to this extraordinary destiny.

Trespassing Bergman(en)

In the sixties, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) built a house on the remote island of Fårö, located in the Baltic Sea, and left Stockholm to live there. When he died, the house was preserved. A group of very special film buffs, came from all over the world, travel to Fårö in search of the genius and his legacy. (An abridged version of Bergman's Video, 2012.)

Steel Mask Versus Blue Abyss(pt)

A world of strong colours between documentary and fiction, centered on the life and work of modernist painter Amadeo de Souza Cardoso.

Blakey(en)

The life and times of sailor and adventurer Sir Peter Blake, one of New Zealand's favourite sons.

The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry(es)

King of Horror, legendary actor, scriptwriter and director, Paul Naschy is regarded as the Spanish Lon Chaney and the most prolific filmmaker dedicated to the fantastic cinema in Spain.

Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work(sv)

TV Documentary about Ingmar Bergman from 1998.

Yuri Olesha, nicknamed "The Writer"(ru)

Animated documentary film about the fate of the writer - Yuri Olesha. About how he was strangled by the grip of the era that fell to him, and in such an embrace he was forced to live not his life. Created on the basis of the writer's diaries, the film tells about the inner throwing of a talented man who died in literature thirty years before his physical death.

Jean-François Stévenin - Simple Messieurs(fr)

Being the Queen(en)

The story of Queen Elizabeth II from those who know her best.

Bambi(fr)

Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of ‘Bambi’ and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages.

Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country(en)

A documentary insight behind the scenes of Roberts Altman's Short Cuts.

I Am My Films: A Portrait of Werner Herzog(de)

Interview film with German director Werner Herzog revisiting the films he made up to ca. 1977.

The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins(en)

A performance artist works tirelessly to fulfill her dream of adopting Sudanese twins, placing her marriage and career at risk in this documentary.

Philip Roth: Unmasked(en)

Philip Roth, arguably America’s greatest living novelist, turns 80 on March 19. In 1959, his collection of short stories, Goodbye, Columbus, put him on the map, and 10 years later his hilarious, ribald best-seller, Portnoy’s Complaint, gave rise to the first of many Roth-related controversies in which Judaism, sex, the role of women, and the parent-child relationship would take center stage. In candid interviews, the Pulitzer Prize-winner discusses his distinctly unliterary upbringing in Newark, NJ, his admiration for Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud, and how Zuckerman may or may not be his alter-ego. Nathan Englander, Mia Farrow, Jonathan Franzen, and Martin Garbus are among those who talk about the man and his writing. Franzen in particular praises Roth for “how brave he must have been to have methodically offended everybody and to have exposed parts of himself no one had ever exposed before.”

Dear Mr. Watterson(en)

20 years after Calvin and Hobbes stopped appearing in daily newspapers, filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder has set out to explore the reasons behind the comic strip's loyal and devoted following.

Resident Alien(en)

At age 73, writer and melancholy master of the bon mot, Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), became an Englishman in New York. Nossiter's camera follows Crisp about the streets of Manhattan, where Crisp seems very much at home, wearing eye shadow, appearing on a makeshift stage, making and repeating wry observations, talking to John Hurt (who played Crisp in the autobiographical TV movie, "The Naked Civil Servant"), and dining with friends. Others who know Crisp comment on him, on his life as an openly gay man with an effeminate manner, and on his place in the history of gays' social struggle. The portrait that emerges is of one wit and of suffering.

Elvis Presley: The Searcher(en)

Two-part documentary about the life of Elvis Presley featuring interviews with his ex-wife Priscilla Presley, guitarist Scotty Moore, childhood friend Red West and musicians Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris and Robbie Robertson.