Part of BBC Four's Black Music Legends of the 1980s, this documentary explores how Prince - showman, artist, enigma - revolutionized the perception of black music in the 1980s with worldwide hits such as "1999," "Kiss," "Raspberry Beret" and "Alphabet Street." He became a global sensation with the release of the Oscar-winning, semi-autobiographical movie "Purple Rain" in 1984, embarking on an incredible journey of musical self-discovery that continues to this day.
A new look at the public and private life of one of the most important statesmen in the history of Europe: Winston Churchill (1874-1965), soldier, politician, writer, painter, leader of his country in the darkest hours, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, a myth, a giant of the 20th century.
Britney Spears has said that her conservatorship had become “an oppressive and controlling tool against her”. This New York Times investigation reveals much of how it worked, including an intense surveillance apparatus that monitored every move she made.
A portrait of Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund.
Mae West achieved great acclaim in every entertainment medium that existed during her lifetime, spanning eight decades of the 20th century. A full-time actress at seven, a vaudevillian at 14, a dancing sensation at 25, a playwright at 33, a silver screen ingénue at 40, a Vegas nightclub act at 62, a recording artist at 73, a camp icon at 85 - West left no format unconquered. She possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s and still rare today. Though a comedian, West grappled with some of the more complex social issues of the 20th century, including race and class tensions, and imbued even her most salacious plotlines with commentary about gender conformity, societal restrictions and what she perceived as moral hypocrisy. Mae West: Dirty Blonde is the first major documentary film to explore West's life and career, as she "climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong" to become a writer, performer and subversive agitator for social change.
Madrid, Spain, August 11, 1976; just a few months after the death of the ruthless dictator Francisco Franco. The famous vedette Susana Estrada is the first artist to perform a full nude on the stage of a cabaret. The story of a revolutionary woman and her struggle against censorship and sexual repression, nested in a society narcotized by decades of persecution and prohibitions, who had to assume the many consequences of her reckless act.
The story of Austrian, Johann "Jack" Unterweger, who wrote a book about his criminal past while serving a life term in prison for assault. In 1974, Unterweger murdered 18-year-old German citizen Margaret Schäfer by strangling her with her own bra, and in 1976 was arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
A sequence of nine individual biographical sketches with a prologue and epilogue on Golzow and the long-term observation. Deepening of the preceding chronicle. The Golzow people in the present, from which retrospective views of the previous life and the life conflicts of the individual are given.
He was an anarchist and provocateur. Underground filmmaker and a cheeky fuck. Several of today's veterans in the Norwegian film industry started their career with him. Yet there are few today who know Bredo Greve. In Bredo Greve - filmrebell you will get to know the filmmaker's marvelous film history. Greve was always ready for a good fight, and he used film to pinpoint problems in society that are still scarily relevant.
Between 1950 and 1955, Henri Langlois tried to produce, on behalf of the Cinémathèque française, several films devoted to great artists, with their cooperation, by entrusting them with virgin film stock. Wrote Langlois on the unfinished project, epic in scope: "We had the idea of asking poets, painters, scholars, writers and even repressed filmmakers [...] to make films in 16mm, with the means at hand, without taking into account any commercial concern or censorship." What precious little came of the project was eight minutes of film from Matisse and twenty-some from Marc Chagall, released at a later date.
An account of the life and work of the multidisciplinary Spanish artist Mariano Fortuny Madrazo (1871-1949), textile and fashion designer, set designer, photographer, painter and engraver, known as the Leonardo Da Vinci of the 20th century.
The life story of an unassuming, modest, yet extremely principled woman is also a dramatic portrait of a time when criticism of the regime and defense of the unjustly prosecuted was punished by imprisonment and constant surveillance from the secret state security. The story also reflects the turning point after the Velvet Revolution, when Dana Němcová briefly entered politics as an active member of the Federal Assembly, or when, in response to the war in the former Yugoslavia, she founded a counselling center for refugees and refugee women in the Czech Republic. In the film, she also meets some of those she helped again after many years.
"The Undefeated Femininity" - a film about Gun Grut Bergman. In September 1949 Ingmar Bergman left his wife and five children, and escaped to Paris with a new woman, Gun Grut. It was the beginning of a passionate love affair, an enduring jealousy drama and a new theme in Bergman's films. Now their son, Ingmar Bergman Jr, walks in his parents' footsteps, from Paris to the home on Grev Turegatan 69 in Stockholm.
An invaluable imprint of the world tour of the play Maria Callas: Letters and Memoirs, starring Monica Bellucci as the great opera diva. Through the chronicle of the tour, which lasted from November 2019 to January 2023, we observe and compare two different eras (the current one and the one in which Callas reached the apex of fame), while at the same time, we partake to and witness an essential dialogue between the great contemporary Italian actress and the voice that marked the 20th century: two women who, despite their different background, meet in retrospect due to their love of art.
Armed with a camcorder, farmer-filmmaker-activist Severine von Tscharner Fleming spent two years crisscrossing America, meeting and mobilizing a network of revolutionary young farmers resettling the land. 'The Greenhorns' is an ode to their grit and entrepreneurial spirit, an exploration of sustainable agriculture, and an enticement to reclaim our national soil. The ninety minute feature is the culmination of well over 200 hours of original footage from all regions of the United States, as well as original animation by young urban farmer and artist Brooke Budner, and rare agricultural archival footage from the Prelinger Archives. Ultimately, The Greenhorns shows us how farmers can move out of the margins recent history has consigned them to, and back to the heart of the American food landscape.
In 1968 Roger Smith ate a peach during a break from work. When he was finished he took out a pocketknife and began carving the peach pit into a tiny pig. 43 years later the retired meter reader and cattle rancher from Culloeka, Tennessee, has carved hundreds of peach seeds into hummingbirds, stingrays, gospel choirs, entire villages, even a baseball stadium with more than 100 figures. "Given enough time," says Smith, "I don't think there is anything you can't make out of a peach seed."
Janette Bertrand will soon celebrate her 100th birthday. This intimate documentary, dotted with archives, pays tribute to this great lady, who devoted her life to providing popular education and breaking taboos. Through her daily life as a nearly century-old woman, Janette takes stock of her career.