The 1966 construction of Alexander Calder's 'La Grande Voile' (The Big Sail), a monumental sculpture installed in McDermott Court at MIT in Cambridge.
Social & External
Self
A documentary on the history of the Institute and America, spanning from World War 2 to COVID-19. Features AI-enhanced archival footage of MIT from throughout the past century. View now at https://regressions.net.
The Romans saw the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as the crowning achievements of their predecessors. Through stunning on-location and re-created visuals, learn how and why they were built and how they dazzled the ancients.
A smaller scale Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Elysées can be found just outside Shanghai; a copy of St. Peter’s in Rome can be found in Yamoussoukro, in the Ivory Coast: a journey over three continents to see the architecture of imitation, the uncanny world of the fake.
Filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Mark Lewis use rare archival footage and interviews with artists, art historians, and museum directors to examine the fate of Soviet-era monuments during successive political regimes, from the Russian Revolution through the collapse of communism. Mulvey and Lewis highlight both the social relevance of these relics and the cyclical nature of history. Broadcast on Channel Four as part of the 'Global Image' series (1992-1994).
The dramatic inside story of the monumental collision of interests at Ground Zero in the decade after 9/11.
A documentary that investigates the complexity of a nation, Albania, through the narration of the convoluted history of its monuments. What happens to the statues when they are destroyed, what are they replaced with and where do their marble shreds end up? What happens to their expensive bronze? And again: what do the sculptors who made these statues think of these destructions, what is their opinion. And today? Which statues are being destroyed in Albania today?
On the island of Amorgos, during summer. Small monuments were erected at the scene of a fatal accident: a photograph, a few words, flowers, religious or pagan objects. The deceased "stayed there": dead in transit, on a road, frozen forever.
The film was shot in an old, decrepit building where dozens of guest-workers' families live. The owner, a local influential politician, has avoided paying for the maintenance of the building under the legal standards by using his connections to proclaim the building a national cultural heritage. However, the rent he has been charging was as if the building were an object that offered standard comfort. The only German tenant takes the crew around and speaks of his battle against the landlord’s manipulation.
A listening journey into South Africa's stories and memories of the past, challenges of the present and dream of the future.
With the help of their high school's newest teacher, four Hispanic students form a robotics club. Although they have no experience, the youths set their sights on a national robotics contest. With $800 and parts scavenged from old cars, they build a robot and compete against reigning champion MIT. Along the way, the students learn not only how to build a robot but something far more important: how to forge bonds that will last a lifetime.
The notorious and mysterious criminal Furax steals France's famous monuments, replacing them with replicas.
A young, cynical French film student comes to London for the weekend to make a film project for his course. Disillusioned by his London experience, he's befriended by a stranger who shows him a side of the city, and himself, that he never would have seen. The story unfolds through his Super 8 film footage, and his voice-over narration gives us an insight into his thoughts and feelings throughout the journey.
Sean's gunning for MIT. Flora's ditching the SAT. A secret deal with her tenured parents sparks a romance that challenges everything they believe in.
Margaret is a young woman working at MIT. Amid a time of great innovation in space travel, she's hard at work in the mathematics department, working in the emerging field of software engineering. She and her colleagues are working on the software for NASA, having worked her way up from her initial application for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Building her team from the ground up, she earns the respect of those she works with, though she's still mistaken for a secretary. But when NASA's Apollo 8 mission goes awry, it's up to her and her team's programming abilities to save the astronauts stranded in space.
Timo Novotny labels his new project an experimental music documentary film, in a remix of the celebrated film Megacities (1997), a visually refined essay on the hidden faces of several world "megacities" by leading Austrian documentarist Michael Glawogger. Novotny complements 30 % of material taken straight from the film (and re-edited) with 70 % as yet unseen footage in which he blends original shots unused by Glawogger with his own sequences (shot by Megacities cameraman Wolfgang Thaler) from Tokyo. Alongside the Japanese metropolis, Life in Loops takes us right into the atmosphere of Mexico City, New York, Moscow and Bombay. This electrifying combination of fascinating film images and an equally compelling soundtrack from Sofa Surfers sets us off on a stunning audiovisual adventure across the continents. The film also makes an original contribution to the discussion on new trends in documentary filmmaking.
Animal Charm makes videos from other people's videos. By compositing TV and reducing it to a kind of tic-ridden babble, they force television to not make sense. While this disruption is playful, it also reveals an overall 'essence' of mass culture that would not be apprehended otherwise. Videos such as Stuffing, Ashley, and Lightfoot Fever upset the hypnotic spectacle of TV viewing, revealing how advertising creates anxiety, how culture constructs "nature" and how conventional morality is dictated through seemingly neutral images. By forcing television to convulse like a raving lunatic, we might finally hear what it is actually saying.
In an effort to cure her smoking habit a middle-aged woman discovers that she can communicate with her long lost son while watching a Halloween safety program on TV. After suffering a nervous breakdown, her husband, a used car salesman, is revitalized when he travels back in time to drive the first car he ever sold. Seventeen years later a powerful canned food manufacturer crashes the same car into a toaster truck while endorsing a brand of yams on live TV. At the funeral his clergyman experiences a crisis of faith when he and a lifelike Mexican continue their search for a married couple who have befriended an insect who enjoys drinking lime soda. They later meet a young man whose bizarre murder scheme involves four innocent members of an experimental rock band who have all given up smoking.
A whirlwind of improvisation combines the images of animator Pierre Hébert with the avant-garde sound of techno whiz Bob Ostertag in this singular multimedia experience, a hybrid of live animation and performance art.
This documentary is a journey into our own fascination, a collection of portraits of folk musicians living in New England, and a study of the ground on which their music is founded. We listen to them as they tell their stories and play their music. First and foremost, Behind a Hill is a tribute to these musicians and a rare peep into the house parties and basement jams of New England, in the northwestern corner of the USA, with the vain hope attached that maybe you, the viewer, will grow as fond of the music as we have. When we first encountered these musicians, we were overwhelmed by the quality of their musical output. We were entranced by the melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and tempos and every other element that constitutes a song (or, as is often the case, a piece of abstract drone music, heavy feedback, or someone banging a steel pipe against a bag of dirt while chanting in a yet undiscovered language, or...).
A journey in the footsteps of the most famous initiate of Italian Trecento, the author of the celebrated "Divine Comedy". A poet who has inspired some of the most outstanding minds in History.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
JB Smoove and Martin Starr host a celebration of 20 years of "Spider-Man" movies, from the Sam Raimi trilogy to Marc Webb's movies and the trio from Jon Watts.
A tribute to Chadwick Boseman, celebrating his life and legacy.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
Performance artist Marina Abramovic prepares for a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
A candid look at rehearsal footage in support of a focus on pre-viz.
The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.
Filmmakers discuss the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock and the book “Hitchcock/Truffaut” (“Le cinéma selon Hitchcock”), written by François Truffaut and published in 1966.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
The Making-of James Cameron's Avatar. It shows interesting parts of the work on the set.
A backstage and on-stage look at Justin Bieber during his rise to super stardom.
A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.
In this concert film, 'Hannah Montana' star Miley Cyrus performs a slew of hit songs, including 'Just Like You' and 'Life's What You Make It.'