Dona welcomes us inside the parisian erotic cabaret she works at. The hollow corridors act as a second stage where she and her colleagues get ready and share their thoughts.
Social & External
The oldest Quebecois Benedictine convent open its gates to a documentary filmmaker for the first time. Observed up close, life behind its walls is busier than one would expect. About twenty cloistered nuns, most of them over 70, share their daily life with diligence and humor. A contemplative portrait of a community of sisterhood and solidarity emerges, punctuated by prayer, work and games evenings.
From transvestites to transformers, we will follow the trail that will lead us in different and famous Parisian music-halls, such as the mythical Alcazar of Paris, La Grande Eugène. Whether they are below or beyond their character, often these men who are looking for themselves look at life with the humor of despair. Why this need to "transform" themselves? Why is it always the men who cross-dress and not the women? Why did the public flock to these shows in the 1970s and 1980s? Interpretations of famous characters such as Diana Ross, Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, the Peter Sisters, the Andrew Sisters, Zizi Jeanmaire, Judy Garland, Sarah Bernhardt, among others, contribute to making this musical document an essential testimony of this era.
What might be revealed in the process of inviting strangers to act out and respond to 1970s feminism forty years later? Between 2015 and 2017, hundreds of strangers in communities all over the US were invited to read aloud and respond to letters from the 70s sent to the editor of Ms. Magazine–the first mainstream feminist magazine in the US. The intimate, provocative, and sometimes heartbreaking conversations that emerge from these spontaneous performances make us think critically about the past, present, and future of feminism.
Adopted from South Korea, raised on different continents & connected through social media, Samantha & Anaïs believe that they are twin sisters separated at birth.
The Crazy Horse has staged unique shows on Paris' avenue George V every evening since 1951. Enjoy some of the most spectacular numbers seen at Crazy Horse in an exceptional film shot in High Definition video, including previously unreleased sequences of the dancers and their lives backstage!
It’s Girl Scout Cookie season, and four tenacious girls strive to be a top-selling “Cookie Queen,” navigating an $800 million business in which childhood and ambition collide.
«this short film visits memories of the past, truths of the present + hopes for the future. healing for sisters who are in process, in ritual.» (Rikkí Wright)
Isa and Zoe are eleven years old, they are best friends. Through their video diaries, they tell their perspectives on the transition from childhood to adolescence, the changes they are undergoing and their concerns when they stop being girls to become women.
Filmmaker Sophie Dros enters into a dialogue with strong women in a powerfull document about being a woman in the Netherlands today. Inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's essay The second sex, filmmaker Sophie Dros (winner of the NFF Debut Competition 2017) talks to four women and a group of young girls. Together they go in search of universal stories; about dealing with expectations, empathy and connection, desires, fear, need for confirmation and losing control.
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.
Approximately half a year after the strip debut that shook Japan, the original strip movie realized in collaboration with SOD and Asakusa Rockza is completely recorded. In addition to the bewitching stage at Rockza, a passionate strip image in the sun will be unveiled for the first time! There is no doubt that it will be the biggest shocking work in 2010! [* This work is an image video] [* Bonus footage, bonus images, etc. are not included]
Marie-Philip is a PhD student and part-time professor who loves cats and Harry Potter. But one week before her 29th birthday, she is diagnosed with breast cancer. For a year, without false modesty, we follow her through each step as she confides in us with shocking honesty. An ode to life, to courage and to the resilience of all those who fight every day against disease.
Documentary on Les Charlots, known as The Crazy Boys in the English-speaking world, a group of French musicians, singers, comedians and film actors who were popular in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.
Italian documentary film shot in several European towns (Berlin, Hamburg, London, Paris, Venice) as well as in Rome's De Paolis Studios. The movie features a series of strip-tease numbers intermixed with real-life scenes and interviews.
Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of ‘Bambi’ and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages.
Antonio Gracia José (1942-2011), known as “Pierrot,” was a prominent member of the Barcelona art scene, a pioneer in the filmmaking of underground short films and Fantaterror movies, writer and playwright, magazine editor, movie poster painter, cartoonist and cabaret showman.
In a drought-struck region in India, suffering from climate change and a high suicide rate amongst farmers, a group of resilient women farmers, who recently lost their husbands, is coming together with a local psychologist to learn counselling and help others in grief.
An amateur fighter is lured by a trafficking syndicate specializing in elite underground fighting where her brutal captor forces her to fight or face certain death.
In 1972, a seemingly typical shoestring budget pornographic film was made in a Florida hotel: "Deep Throat," starring Linda Lovelace. This film would surpass the wildest expectation of everyone involved to become one of the most successful independent films of all time. It caught the public imagination which met the spirit of the times, even as the self-appointed guardians of public morality struggled to suppress it, and created, for a brief moment, a possible future where sexuality in film had a bold artistic potential. This film covers the story of the making of this controversial film, its stunning success, its hysterical opposition along with its dark side of mob influence and allegations of the on set mistreatment of the film's star.
In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.
When Pippa and Thomas move into their dream apartment, they notice that their windows look directly into the apartment opposite – inviting them to witness the volatile relationship of the attractive couple across the street. But what starts as a simple curiosity turns into full-blown obsession with increasingly dangerous consequences.
Ten of Muhammad Ali's former rivals pay tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion.
Catherine, a novelist with an insatiable sexual appetite, becomes a prime suspect when her boyfriend is brutally murdered -- a crime she had described in her latest story.
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
Over the past 25 years, Lauren Greenfield's documentary photography and film projects have explored youth culture, gender, body image, and affluence. Underscoring the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, portraits reveal a focus on cultivating image over substance, where subjects unable to attain actual wealth instead settle for its trappings, no matter their ability to pay for it.
Some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.
An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
When New York is caught in the grip of a sadistic serial killer who preys on patrons of the city's underground bars, rookie cop Steve Burns infiltrates the S&M subculture to try and lure him out of the shadows.
A former assassin, known simply as The Bride, wakes from a coma four years after her jealous ex-lover Bill attempts to murder her on her wedding day. Fueled by an insatiable desire for revenge, she vows to get even with every person who contributed to the loss of her unborn child, her entire wedding party, and four years of her life. After devising a hit list, The Bride sets off on her quest, enduring unspeakable injury and unscrupulous enemies.
Alex Gibney explores the phenomenon of Stuxnet, a self-replicating computer virus discovered in 2010 by international IT experts. Evidently commissioned by the US and Israeli governments, this malware was designed to specifically sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the complex computer worm ended up not only infecting its intended target but also spreading uncontrollably.
After being slain by a group of criminals, a man is reborn with animal-like superpowers and makes it his mission to right the wrongs of his city.
A look behind the curtain of Washington politics following three "renegade" Republican Congressmen as they bring libertarian and conservative zeal to champion the President’s call to “drain the swamp.”
In this documentary, recovering addict and amputee John Wood finds himself in a stranger-than-fiction battle to reclaim his mummified leg from Southern entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant, who found it in a grill he bought at an auction and believes it therefore to be his rightful property.
Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.
The vicious, power-mad Kano is determined to take over Earthrealm, one soul at a time. Assisted by a trio of cold Black Dragon mercenaries, he embarks on a brutal assault from town to defenseless town. The choice is simple: kneel or be annihilated. Kenshi, a rebel warrior, calls on Kuai Liang, the only one powerful enough to challenge the malevolent Kano. But Kuai Liang has given up the ways of the warrior, and Kenshi is too undisciplined to defeat Kano himself. If Kuai Liang cannot break through the glacier of doubt that holds him back, Earthrealm will fall.
Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.
This movie chronicles the life and times of R. Crumb. Robert Crumb is the cartoonist/artist who drew Keep On Truckin', Fritz the Cat, and played a major pioneering role in the genesis of underground comix. Through interviews with his mother, two brothers, wife, ex-wife and ex-girlfriends, as well as selections from his vast quantity of graphic art, we are treated to a darkly comic ride through one man's subconscious mind.