Embrace the Panda: Making Turning Red

Michael Dudok de Wit was asked by the famous Japanese animation studio Ghibli, to create his first feature length animated film. This would be Ghibli's first international co-production ever. Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele followed Dudok de Wit and his team during the complex creative process for over two years. He is a perfectionist that is used to making his own hand drawn animated films by himself. For this new and timely production, he was assisted by a team of 20 to 30 artists from all over Europe.

After a "diplomatic mission" into a neighboring town Kell returns to his town to see that his not so bright team of idiots have screwed up everything.

On the island of La Gomera, children imagine stories while they examine archeological remains. An ethno-fictional journey in which past and present coalesce, creating resonances between the volcanic landscape and Silbo, the whistled language of the island.

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 behind the scenes of Robert Zemeckis' 1994 Oscar-winning film, 'Forrest Gump'.

Leonardi's film about the Living Theatre is less concerned with a straight documentary presentation of the exile theatre group from New York, but rather is concerned with the specific atmospheric factor which is indicated by their name, and which constitutes the highly suggestive effect of their playing. Cutting, for Leonardi, is the most decisive aesthetic device. The result is a wonderfully composed furioso of pictures. The hand-held camera catches rehearsals, conversations without sound, bits of theatre and daily life actions (which, for Living Theatre people, is very often intermixed).