Hitchcock/Truffaut

Four Belgian-Moroccan filmmakers in their thirties produce their latest film. Since adolescence they have managed to produce over thirty low-budget movies in which they often have played the main characters. Their movies are not only the sum of their fears and desires, but also a way of projecting an image of themselves towards their own community and the outside world. When one of them decides to radically change his life, their friendship and the future of their common cinema goals are threatened.

Highlighting one of the most innovative American directors, this film reveals the path traveled by the auteur from his small-town Texas roots to his warm reception on the awards circuit. Long before he directed Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s intense desire to create fueled his work outside the Hollywood system. Rather than leave Texas, he chose to collaborate with like-minded artists crafting modest, low-budget films in a DIY style. His ability to showcase realistic characters and tell honest stories was evident from his films, and others soon took notice of his raw talent.

The Name of this Film is Dogme95 is an irreverent documentary exploring the origins of Dogme95, the most influential movement in world cinema for a generation. The film tells how a 'brotherhood' of four Danish directors armed with a radical Manifesto, has inspired, outraged and provoked filmmakers and filmgoers the world over. The rules of Dogme95 take filmmaking back to its brass-tacks - stories must be set in the here and now; the films must be shot on location, with a handheld camera, using natural light, and direct sound; the rules forbid murders and weapons (staples of the much-loved action-movie genre); and, most amusingly, the director must not be credited (that holds also for the director of The Name of this Film is Dogme95...).

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

A look at avant-garde filmmaker Marie Menken.

A look at the legendary Czech sound designer and his profession. Editor and documentary filmmaker Adéla Špaljová has her father Ivo Špalj talk about his life, career, and working methods. Over the course of his long life, sound designer Ivo Špalj (*1940) has collaborated on hundreds of films and become a mentor for at least one generation of men and women behind the mixing board. This gentle documentary also shows “Engi” (as he is known to his colleagues) again working with Jan Švankmajer, whose films he has lent their typical, dense, and sophisticated sound mix.

This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew her firsthand: Jean Rouch, Jonas Mekas, Alexander Hammid, Cecile Starr etc. Maya Deren (1917-1961) was an experimental filmmaker. In the 1940s and 1950s she made several influential avant-garde films, such as Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Images from this and her other work are used in this documentary. You can also hear her voice, as well as accounts by contemporaries such as Jean Rouch and Jonas Mekas.

This documentary covers Hitchcock's early British career, up to his move to America in 1940.

A short documentary about the making of D. W. Griffith's controversial 'The Birth of a Nation'.

The film comprises edited excerpts from 40 Hitchcock films in six chapters, each focusing on a different motif that reveals some of Hitchcock’s dark obsessions and techniques.

Rarely in the history of the cinema, a company films productions will have marked the history and the culture of its country like "Svensk Filmindustri". Since its creation in 1919 by Charles Magnusson, Svensk Filmindustri have produced 1200 films including the major works of Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjöström and Ingmar Bergman. The uncontested talent of the actresses Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman have given Swedish cinema a world recognition, a cinema that celebrates the power of the forces of nature, and where the inner life of its characters remains in our memories.