Making of: Porsche Macan

A Film Like Any Other

An analysis of the social upheaval of May 1968, made in the immediate wake of the workers’ and students’ protests. The picture consists of two parts, each with with identical image tracks, and differing narration.

La Vie sexuelle des Belges partie 3 - Fermeture de l'usine Renault à Vilvoorde

The Renault factory in Belgium must close down. Nobody can believe it. We follow the investigations by the director who is at the heart of the action and who interviews main politicians, the workers who violently protest and the direction. In the fiction part the president-director of Renault, Schweitzer is killed by one of the workers.

High Performance Imports: Volume 3

High Performance Imports checks out Tokyo Auto Salon 2002, tours Mine's factory and demonstrates drift action from Mitsui Mike plus an update on the HPI project car tuning.

British Sounds

Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society. Constructed as a montage of various disconnected political acts (in line with Godard's then appropriation of Soviet director Dziga Vertov's agitprop techniques), it combines a diverse range of footage, from students discussing The Beatles to the production line at the MG factory in Oxfordshire, burnished with onscreen political sloganeering.

A Faster Horse

David Gelb (Jiro Dreams of Sushi) tackles another venerable, beloved, and long-standing institution: the Mustang, crown jewel of the Ford fleet. Only this institution is in turmoil. As the fiftieth anniversary of the Mustang approaches and the car industry struggles through the deepest trough of the financial crisis, Ford launches a redesign. Now the jobs of workers at Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant, the expectations of the thousands of Mustang devotees, and the livelihood of the city of Detroit are all placed squarely on the shoulders of Dave Pericak. As chief program engineer, he will guide the 2015 Mustang from assembly floor to showroom—if only he can get that vibration out of the steering wheel.

Blow It to Bits

A mix of Rock and Roll and Blues are the secret for successful rebellion. When I took my camera to the middle of France where the GM&S factory was threatened by a permanent shut down, I felt like something extraordinary was about to take place. And it did. The lyrics were written by workers who have had enough! The tune was composed by people not afraid to go against even the rules of revolt! The volume was loud enough to attract the media. Their working-class concert spread across France like wild fire. I sat out of sight, camera in hand, filming like catching fish in a barrel.

Rhythm

Intended as a publicity film for Chrysler, Rhythm uses rapid editing to speed up the assembly of a car, synchronizing it to African drum music. The sponsor was horrified by the music and suspicious of the way a worker was shown winking at the camera; although Rhythm won first prize at a New York advertising festival, it was disqualified because Chrysler had never given it a television screening. P. Adams Sitney wrote, “Although his reputation has been sustained by the invention of direct painting on film, Lye deserves equal credit as one of the great masters of montage.” And in Film Culture, Jonas Mekas said to Peter Kubelka, “Have you seen Len Lye’s 50-second automobile commercial? Nothing happens there…except that it’s filled with some kind of secret action of cinema.” - Harvard Film Archive

Gung Ho

When a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson faces the tricky challenge of mediating the assimilation of two clashing corporate cultures. At one end is the Japanese plant manager and the sycophant who is angling for his position. At the other, a number of disgruntled long-time union members struggle with the new exigencies of Japanese quality control.

Blue Collar

Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.

Madrepérola

In a tide oblivious to diversity, pearl oysters live under attack for not fitting into the standards and sizes. This is the story of how their pearls are born.

笑赢这一年

Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie and Tupac

Last Man Standing takes a look at Death Row and how L.A.’s street gang culture had come to dominate its business workings, as well as an association with corrupt LA police officers who were also gang affiliated. It would be this world of gang rivalry and dirty cops that would claim the lives of the world’s two greatest rappers: Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.

Bengalen - Die Musiker von Kalimpong

Raising a School Shooter

As the disaster of yet another school shooting hits, some parents are faced with a brutal fact: their child was the one pulling the trigger. Jeff Williams is the father of Andy, who in 2001, at the age of 15, shot and killed two classmates and wounded 13 other students. Andy, 25 at the time of filming, is now serving life in prison. Clarence Elliot’s son Nicholas shot and killed his teacher and wounded another in 1988. He too is serving life in prison. Sue Klebold’s son Dylan was one of the two teenagers behind the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, one of the deadliest school shootings in history. Dylan ended the shooting by committing suicide. Through the three parents' deeply personal stories and raw, honest testimony, the film explores multiple themes that emerge from terrible tragedies - guilt, failure, responsibility, sorrow, friendship and love.

O parto

Documentary based on archive material focusing on the dictatorial regimen in Portugal and its fall with the "Revolução dos Cravos" (Carnation Revolution), in 1974, after 48 years of Salazarism.

Something in the Air: Making "sex, lies, and videotape"

Produced for the Criterion Collection in 2018, the documentary features actors Peter Gallagher, Andie MacDowell, and Laura San Giacomo discussing their work with director Steven Soderbergh on his first feature, and the ways that the film transformed their careers.

UN Sex Abuse Scandal

A documentary about the UN sex abuse scandal where companies and staff working for the United Nations in the Congo and other Central African countries were involved in rape and sex abuse of local women. There have been over 1700 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against UN peacekeepers in the last 15 years. Ramita Navai reveals why it keeps happening despite UN promises to stamp it out. It was produced for Channel 4 and for PBS Frontline – and ARTE. The film won the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Journalism award for Television – International. Nominated for 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Documentary. Shortlisted for 2019 Grierson Awards for Best Single Documentary – International and Best Current Affairs Documentary. In 2020, the documentary won the 22nd Media Awards for “Children’s Rights in One World” in Germany.

De la ilusión al desconcierto: Cine colombiano 1970-1995

Candidats pour du beur ?

Looking back at the history of the struggle for true equality, we follow the daughters and sons of immigrant workers who have been nominated as candidates representing "diversity" in various election campaigns since the 2007 presidential election. On the ground, through meetings, debates, and more "intimate" encounters with candidates and actors from past struggles, a great diversity of thought emerges. But they all have the same goal: not to be just "candidates for Beurs." With many activists from working-class neighborhoods, from Clichy-sous-Bois to Marseille, via Roubaix, and candidates Mouloud Aounit, Kamel Hamza, Faouzi Lamdaoui, Halima Boumedienne, Omar Slaouti, Samia Ghali, Karim Zeribi, Rama Yade, and others... Will these "new faces" of the Republic be in the picture when the votes are counted, or will they simply be "candidates for the Beurs"?

I Will Speak, I Will Speak

A powerful story of loss, stigma, friendship, and being alive! "I will speak, I will speak!" tells how five HIV-infected men and women from Zambia (Lusaka), Russia (Moscow), the USA (San Francisco), Cambodia and England brave life while infected with the deadly virus.