Europe

The new film from the visionary director of Pacifiction, Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude is a spellbinding documentary that turns its gaze on the ceremonial splendor and devastating brutality of bullfighting in Spain. With quiet intensity, Serra follows famed matador Andrés Roca Rey, from the solitude of his hotel room and the meticulousness of his preparations to the charged spectacle of the arena.

I'M NOT EVERYTHING I WANT TO BE

Before Libuše Jarcovjáková was known as the “Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia,” she was a young female photographer. Striving to break free from the constraints of Czechoslovakian normalization she embarks on a wild journey towards freedom, capturing her experiences through thousands of photographs

LITTLE, BIG, AND FAR

Austrian astronomer Karl is at a crossroads in his life and work. He finds his physicist wife growing distant and his job being reshaped by environmental crises as thoughts about science, fascism, and his grandson’s future spin above his head. After attending a conference in Greece, Karl decides not to return home and heads for a small island in hopes of finding a dark enough sky to reconnect with the stars.

WE WILL NOT FADE AWAY

Written and directed by Ukranian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, We Will Not Fade Away is a tender and emotional multi-portrait of five Ukrainian teenagers, trapped in the war zone in Donbas, who dream of freedom and discovering the world outside. Andriy, Lisa, Ruslan, Lera and Illia grew up in small coal mining towns, right on the front line. They fight against the boredom and the multiple frustrations of finding out who you are.

APOLONIA, APOLONIA

Lea Glob has followed French artist Apolonia Sokol over 13 years. The result is an extraordinarily up-close and personal film that is both a portrait of the life of a unique artist and of the budding friendship and intimacy between two women over a long and formative period in their lives. A look at art, love, motherhood, sexuality, representation, and how to succeed in a world dominated by patriarchy, capitalism and war, without losing oneself.

HERBERT. BARBARIAN IN THE GARDEN

Polish author Zbigniew Herbert is one of the most remarkable poets of the 20th century. His works have been translated into 40 languages, acclaimed and awarded around the world, mainly because of its timeless and universal dimension. However, behind the crystalline beauty of his poetry, there was a man struggling with everyday life. Featuring exclusive and intimate interviews with the poet and his wife, Katarzyna Herbert.

THIS RAIN WILL NEVER STOP

This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of peace and violence.

PEOPLE OF THE LAKE

On the northern shores of Lake Geneva where he has settled, Jean-Marie Straub brings to the water’s peaceful surface the history of a local resistance that shaped Switzerland’s post-war political landscape.

DEAR THIRTEEN

An incisive and timely documentary, Dear Thirteen weaves together nine stories of thirteen-year-olds from across the globe. Video diaries and candid interviews reveal how global issues are shaping – and being shaped by – young people: gender identity, rising anti-Semitism, gun violence, and racial divisions. This empathetic portrait of a new generation goes beyond stereotypes of adolescence to capture the complexity of finding a way into adulthood today.

THE GRAVE OF ST. ORAN

Master storyteller Neil Gaiman narrates this strange tale of saintly murder and the dark history behind the chapel on the island of Iona. The story is brought to life by director Jim Batt with beautifully illustrated paper cutouts, meticulously animated using stop motion techniques and in-camera visual effects.

THE STRANGE MISTER VICTOR

Setting its scene in the rowdy, wide-open port city of Toulon, Grémillon’s acclaimed drama stars legendary actor Raimu (“The greatest actor who ever lived.” - Orson Welles) as a well-respected shopkeeper who, unbeknownst to his neighbors, is running a front for a ruthless criminal gang. "Gremillon’s films are among the most innovative and expressive… and in many ways they look ahead to the rule breaking of the French New Wave." - The New York Times. New 4K Restoration

GUEULE D'MOUR (LADY KILLER)

The first collaboration between filmmaker Jean Grémillon and legendary actor Jean Gabin, this adaptation of a novel by André Boucler features the young Gabin as a foreign-legion Casanova – the “lady killer” of the title – who meets his match in the mysterious seductress Madeleine. "Not every rarity is a revelation, but Lady Killer strikes me as the real deal." – The New Yorker. New 4K Restoration

OUTSIDE

Ukrainian filmmaker Olha Zhurba’s debut feature tells the story of Roma, who at the age of 13 became the poster child of the Maidan revolution. A street kid who ran around the front lines of Kyiv throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, Roma’s face defined an uprising. But behind the camouflage uniform, sunglasses and fearlessness hid a lonely boy from an orphanage. When Roma turns 18, his only option is returning to the streets and the company of his loyal older brother, who has resorted to crime to survive.

ANAMNESIS

How to portray a murderer? For many years filmmakers of this documentary were in intensive contact with Stefan S., who murdered a colleague 15 years ago. Now it’s his last year in jail, and he is being prepared for his return to society. This includes undergoing various types of therapy, including group sessions on “Masculinity and Identity.” An intriguing study on the elusiveness of truth and one of the most progressive programs for the treatment of violent criminals.

REWIND AND PLAY

In 1969, at the end of a European tour, Thelonious Monk was invited to appear on a television program, where he would perform and answer questions in an intimate studio stage. Using newly discovered footage, filmmaker Alain Gomis reveals the troubling dynamic between Monk and his white interviewer. Gomis’s gripping film is a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary; a subtle yet searing exposé of casual racism; and, above all, a chance to see one of the monumental geniuses of 20th-century music at work.

O SANGUE (BLOOD)

Admirers of Pedro Costa’s more recent work are often thrown for a thrilling loop by the glossy, liquid textures and lush atmospherics of the director’s first feature, a beguiling fairytale about the trials undergone by two brothers in the wake of their father’s violent death. “O Sangue,” Costa said in an interview, “was also the beginning of my love—maybe love is the wrong word—for domestic cinema. A kind of cinema that shows how people live.”

PUBLIC LIBRARY

Every day, hundreds of visitors seek refuge at the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information (Public Information Library) in the heart of Paris. Between the bookshelves, we meet inspired students, passionate experts, and researchers exploring a topic , as well as individuals just seeking quiet and respite from the outside world. Each of these people “inhabits” the library in their own way. And through this wonderful documentary, they share with us what this public space means to them.

SLOW RETURN

Slow Return travels up the Rhône, from one end to the other. Between the fishermen of Salin-de-Giraud and the Rhône glacier, filmmaker Philip Cartelli has numerous encounters and examines the relationship the population maintains with the river. Blending archive images with new technologies, the film composes a sensitive archaeology of the natural environment, while also casting a delicate gaze over a time that seems long gone.

FUTURA

"A kaleidoscopic, open-ended collective portrait… a film that will be examined in the future for clues about what’s happening now" (NYT), Futura is an extraordinary documentary by a collective of three filmmakers known for their politically acute cinema — Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden), Francesco Munzi (Black Souls), and Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) — who set out to interview a cross-section of their nation’s youth about their hopes, dreams, and fears for the future.

LANDSCAPES OF RESISTANCE

97-year-old antifascist fighter Sonja was one of the first female partisans in Yugoslavia and a member of the resistance in Auschwitz. By listening to Sonja’s stories, we travel through the landscapes of her revolutionary past, as her memories start to intertwine with the filmmakers’ own confrontation with the rising fascism in Europe today.

1970

1970. Striking workers in communist Poland demonstrate against price increases. In the dignitaries’ offices, tension and violent repression grow as the revolt intensifies. Using stop motion animation to bring the telephone recordings to life, Tomasz Wolski composes a highly precise and prodigious film that looks at labor and rebellion, but told from the perspective of the oppressors.

THE AMERICAN SECTOR

Universal Studios in Florida, a Hilton Hotel in Dallas, Museum of World Treasures in Kansas, and private homes in the Hollywood Hills are just some of the places that slabs of the Berlin wall have ended up on display. From coast to coast, The American Sector documents the present remnants of the wall’s architecture while evoking the past with home video footage, offering a new perspective on history, what we ascribe to it, and how easily it is scattered.

THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF

This haunting documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Pietro Marcello, director of Martin Eden and Lost and Beautiful is a sui generis love story, following the 20-year relationship between a Sicilian heavy named Vincenzo and a trans convict named Mary after their meet-cute in prison. But Marcello isn’t merely content to render their romance in all its love and complexity: The Mouth of the Wolf is also a lyrical, sensuous, and melancholy tribute to the port city of Genoa, capturing its singular aura and its intoxicating air of eternity.

THE GREEN YEARS

Never before released in the US, Paulo Rocha’s debut feature The Green Years, gloriously shot in black and white, is an extraordinary and haunting coming-of-age tale. Nineteen-year-old Julio heads to Lisbon from the provinces and gets a job as a shoemaker for his uncle Raul. But when he meets Ilda, a confident young housemaid who becomes a regular shop visitor, the two begin a tentative romance until the realities of the outside world come crashing through.

HERE FOR LIFE

“A film of great compassion and political and aesthetic ambition in which the idea of a collective is prioritised for a change, but without sacrificing or downplaying the individual voices and idiosyncrasies that it comprises... Beautifully exuberant and optimistic" (Sight & Sound), Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Adrian Jackson's documentary, Here for Life, follows ten unruly Londoners as they navigate their wild and wayward way towards a co-existence far stronger than 'community'.

SAN VITTORE

Every time children visit their parents at San Vittore, Milan’s oldest prison, they’re subjected to thorough security checks – backpacks searched, toys checked, pat downs, metal detectors, endless waks down bare corridors. Incorporating drawings made by the children while they wait (in some the prison is transformed into a castle, the prisoners into kings and queens), this striking short documentary from Yuri Ancarini meticulously depicts the lingering psychological and emotional trauma of this process.

ZIVA POSTEC: The Woman Who Edited Shoah

In 1985, Claude Lanzmann debuted Shoah, one of the most monumental cinematic works of all time. Ziva Postec was an indispensable part of the project. In this fascinating documentary, Postec recalls this gargantuan, painful and necessary experience which consumed six years of her life. With previously unseen footage from the making of Shoah, it's a moving portrait of an artist who for a long time has largely gone unnoticed, eclipsed by the towering presence of her male colleague.

THE LOAD

During NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, a truck driver is hired to undertake a treacherous journey across his war-torn country to deliver mysterious cargo. Brilliantly photographed and overwhelmingly atmospheric - recalling Clouzot's The Wages of Fear and Friedkin's Sorcerer - The Load is a taut suspense thriller about the choices we make in difficult times.

THE JOYCEAN SOCIETY

James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake has long been considered one of the most difficult texts in the English Language. The Joycean Society is an utterly absorbing and fascinating documentary about a small but dedicated group of Joyce devotees who have been reading the book for the last thirty years – highlighting the significance not just of Joyce’s novel but of the all-consuming power of literature.

DISTANT CONSTELLATION

A beautifully composed and magical documentary, Distant Constellation introduces us to the colorful residents of a Turkish retirement home, a community made up of pranksters, historians, artists and would-be Casanovas. An Independent Spirit Award nominee, this playful, dreamy film is one of the most unforgettable cinematic experiences of the year.

WALDEN

Deep inside a pristine forest, we hear the sudden sound of a chainsaw felling a fir tree. So begins this breathtakingly photographed, puzzle-like documentary which follows the mysterious journey of the tree’s lumber entirely through thirteen 360° panning shots; a wide-angle picture of the role nature plays in a world defined by globalization.

LOVERS OF THE NIGHT

A heartwarming and sublime documentary, this portrait of a monastery in rural Ireland focuses on seven elderly monks who reflect on faith, aging and the challenges they face with frankness and humour. Anna Frances Ewert's film is a wonder, an attempt to capture the heart of a place before it vanishes and to portray the yearning of the human spirit for the infinite in a transient world.

IN THE STILLNESS OF SOUNDS

A magical documentary that asks us to reconsider how we see – and hear – our world, In The Stillness of Sounds follows the work of a renowned sound engineer and biologist who ventures deep into the forest to capture sounds no one’s heard before: a bee rubbing its legs together, the drumbeat of marching ants, the songs of nocturnal animals, for a wondrous appreciation of nature’s ecosystem.

PARABETON: PIER LUIGI NERVI AND ROMAN CONCRETE

Considered the Architect‘s Architect of the 20th century, Nervi is the creator of style-forming constructions and a grand master of concrete buildings. Directed by Heinz Emigholz, Parabeton presents seventeen of his buildings punctuated by Ancient Roman constructions, suggesting, with its gorgeous compositions, a relationship between the two.

PERRET IN FRANCE AND ALGERIA

Both biography and cultural commentary, Perret tells the story of architectural pioneer Auguste Perret, whose groundbreaking works in two countries are mired in their volatile histories, including Parisian buildings destroyed (and later rebuilt) during WWII. Directed by Heinz Emigholz, this visually stunning documentary presents thirty of Perret's buildings.

INGELORE

Combining first person accounts, archival footage, and simple recreations, Ingelore is a mesmerizing documentary about a remarkable woman, Ingelore Herz Honigstein, who, born in 1924, narrates her heartbreaking and inspiring story of living as an outcast in Nazi Germany not only as a Jew, but also as a deaf woman.

SHE STARTED IT

An essential documentary on women tech entrepreneurs, She Started It upends the popular perception of a male-dominated Silicon Valley. Featuring interviews with leading female CEO's and entrepreneurs, it follows four passionate, trailblazing young women as they strive to launch their companies in the ruthlessly competitive world of high tech start-ups.

MACHORKA-MUFF

A powerful, almost surreal distillation of a story by Heinrich Böll, Straub-Huillet's debut work concerns a former Nazi colonel who takes advantage of his political and sexual status in post-war Germany.

SICILIA!

Something as simple as a herring roasting on a hearth, or a meal of bread, wine and winter melon, takes on the humble aura of a Caravaggio painting in Straub-Huillet's masterful tragicomedy about Sicilians who are poor of means but rich in spirit. “A passionate and wide-ranging masterwork by Straub and Huillet." (The New Yorker). New 20th anniversary digital restoration.

A VISIT TO THE LOUVRE

Straub-Huillet's visit to the Louvre reflects their fierce sentiments on art and their way of looking, using the words of Paul Cézanne to critique images, to be venomous about some artists and honey-tongued about others.

SPETTACOLO

From the directors of Marwencol, Spettacolo tells the story of a small town in Tuscany that came up with a remarkable way to confront their issues – they turned their lives into a play. Every summer for the past 50 years, their piazza has become their stage and residents of all ages play a part – the role of themselves.

NOCTURAMA

A terrorism thriller like no other, recalling Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably as much as it does George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, the acclaimed new film from Bertrand Bonello (Saint Laurent) is one of the 21st century’s most provocative and stirring cinematic experiences.

GENERAL REPORT II

A fascinating investigation of the economic, political, social, and environmental crises currently affecting Europe, Catalan filmmaker Pere Portabella's new documentary updates and expands the scope of its 1976 predecessor, positing that European reality today is every bit as unhinged as it was 40 years ago.

GENERAL REPORT

Shot in the months following Franco's death, whose regime had ruled Spain for nearly 40 years, Pere Portabella's landmark documentary combines clandestinely filmed footage of public protests with extensive conversations between politicians as they try to determine how to transition from a dictatorship to a democracy.

THE DREAMED ONES

The tormented romance between celebrated poets Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann – a Holocaust survivor and a daughter of a Nazi party member – is the subject of this innovative documentary in which two actors read from their nearly two decades worth of correspondence.

LOST AND BEAUTIFUL

Conceived as a documentary, director Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden) had to change course when his lead, a humble shepherd turned local hero, passed away during production. The resulting film is a beautiful and fantastical ode to his memory and their beloved country.

SAPPHIRE OF ST. LOUIS

In this wondrous documentary, celebrated filmmaker Jose Luis Guerin peers inside an 18th century painting hidden away in a French cathedral to vividly recount a little-known, but pivotal slave revolt on the high seas.

UNSEEN: THE LIVES OF LOOKING

A revelatory documentary exploring the physical act of looking; from the work of an eye surgeon to a NASA explorer to a human rights lawyer.

CASA DE LAVA

In only his second feature, Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa (Horse Money) brilliantly reworked Jacques Tourneur's classic I Walked with a Zombie into a reflection on his country’s colonial legacy. Never before released in the U.S. and now beautifully restored.

TAKE WHAT YOU CAN CARRY

The first film made outside his native Baltimore, a luminous short film exploring place, character and transition from filmmaker Matt Porterfield (Putty Hill).

ESTATE, A REVERIE

The utopian dream of public housing is explored in this incandescent, artful documentary.