Explore the vision behind the iconic American jazz record label. Since 1939, Blue Note artists have been encouraged to push creative boundaries in search of uncompromising expressions. Through current recording sessions, rare archive and conversations with iconic Blue Note artists, the film reveals an intimate perspective of a legacy that continues to be vital in today’s political climate.
In 1979, a revolution in Iran. In 1980, a revolution in Poland. The fall of the Shah, the “King of Kings,” in Iran. Mass strikes and the foundation of Solidarność (Solidarity) in Poland. What was in the minds of the young women and men who fomented revolution in their own country? What did they think when their revolution was quelled, or – as in Iran – an authoritarian regime was instituted under the name of an “Islamic Republic”?
Georgia’s former prime minister has found a unique hobby. He collects century-old trees, some as tall as 15-story buildings, from communities along the Georgian coast. At a great expense and inconvenience, these ancient giants are uprooted from their lands to be transplanted in his private garden.
Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long term inmates or those newly admitted: women re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison, in trance and balance, voguing and singing. A hybrid musical and charming piece of collective empowerment.
Director Miriam Pucitta grew up as the child of Italian migrant workers in Switzerland in the 1960s and 1970s. She herself has only fragmentary memories of this time; her mother and other relatives evade Miriam's questions. Together with her daughter Giulia, she researches her family's living conditions in Switzerland and finds a new understanding of her parents' difficult decisions.
Documentary about Svetlana Geier, a Ukranian who has translated the great works of Dostoyevsky into German. First her father ends up in one of Stalin's prison camps, then young Svetlana herself experiences the German invasion. In order to survive she learns German at home in Kiev. She is good and gets work as a translator before ending up in a German camp in 1943. Now, 65 years later, she is a renowned translator who in her twilight years has translated the great works of Dostoevsky. For the first time in all these years, she returns to Kiev together with her granddaughter.
In 1939, Walter Otto Wyss emigrated to the USA after a tragic car accident. There he developed a revolutionary hybrid automobile that was never produced. After a love affair with an African-American dancer in Los Angeles he lived in Tokyo at the end of the 1950s as a recluse and learned Japanese. He spent the last 30 years of his life alone on Hawaii. Despite many opportunities to fulfil his dreams of freedom, success and security, he can never quite set himself free from Switzerland, his mother and his self-reproach and misses the chance to find happiness. Walter's nephew, director Tobias Wyss, tells the story of his uncle in a personal manner, making use of moving photographs and videos from the family archive. The Zurich director reconstructs the contradictory biography of his uncle in seven episodes.
Cash, securities and debt are based on the fact that everyone honors their obligations and gets into debt. Can we free ourselves when money becomes a shackle? Do we serve money or does it serve us?
A documentary & cross-media project about the creativity of non-violent resistance and modern forms of civil disobedience.
For a hundred years, the former fishing village of Campione d'Italia, an Italian enclave in Switzerland, has drawn enormous wealth from a monumental casino. There is hardly a resident who has not benefited economically or socially from it. But the bankruptcy of this colossus destroys all prospects and autonomy. The reopening gives the village one last chance.
A dive, the midday sunlight filtering down through the water. The air in her lungs has to last until she can dislodge the abalone. Dives like these have been carried out in Japan for over 2000 years by the Ama-San.
Two morticians, one originally from Portugal and the other a Romani from Serbia, drive to southern Italy from Switzerland in order to deliver a body.
Paulina is a 17-year-old girl who lives with her grandfather, whom he adores. It's a modern girl, full of dreams, who sings in a hip-hop band. One day she meets Paul and falls in love, he is a distant boy full of contradictions.
Does history with all its nightmares have to keep repeating itself? What bolsters the thin layer that shields us from the abyss?
The filmmaker's sister, Nasreen, a housewife with two children, is married to a traditional and often unavailable husband. Despite the restrictions on women in Iran, she decides to pursue her lifelong dream of singing.
Art is merely a label of no relevance according to the artist Christian Eisenberger. At the age of 40 he has created over 45,000 works. He deposited thousands of them on streets and squares, where anyone could gather them up. He defies galleries, art fairs and museums with his unrestrained production. His art runs rampant, eluding all control. In a milieu that desperately struggles for attention and recognition, Eisenberger again and again asks, "What really constitutes artistic freedom? And does it require artists at all?”
A film about a photographer's search for the last valid image. Paradoxically, he travels to places where there is hardly any light.
Martin indulged in his excessive use of drugs. He recorded his frenzied life in his diaries while his friend Ivo passionately captured everything on film with his Super 8 camera. Both sought for the absolute – average was not an option. Through the lens of this journal, Ivo Zen tells the story of his generation, a story about friendship and the desire to fly higher than anybody else.
Football Inside dives deep into football culture – and makes the locker room its stage. As soon as they put on their jerseys, pros, women, and juniors all take on different roles, with one thing in common: Their love for the game.
Architects from Europe, America and China are invited to a Chinese provincial town. Within several months, they are to construct a park in Jinhua, intended to form the centre of a new district of that town. Where green fields now flourish and farmers plough the land, investors will soon flock, followed by new inhabitants and political reforms. But the project ends up being drawn out over years. The euphoria of the early stages runs up against a reality in which torn-open earth and the ambitious hopes of politicians, workers and locals are the only manifest features. The film documents the changes leading to the Jinhua Architecture Park - from the laying of the foundation stone to its final opening. In giving all participants in this process an opportunity to comment.
