Introduction
A documentary is a film, short or long, shot filming reality without a pre-established script, and without an intent to manipulate real facts. The director makes himself available to follow the flow of real-life events, to bring the events to the screen as they actually take place. The documentary film therefore acquires a different value from fictional cinema: it is a document, a testimony of what was filmed, of a historical period, of a place, of people. It is a fundamental and important genre in the field of independent cinema.
What Is The Documentary
In fictional cinema, reality is mediated by the imagination of the director and screenwriters. In fact, the characters and environments are manipulated and organized to be filmed with the camera in a certain way, to express the director’s inner world. Certain films want to tell a story in the most likely way possible and where a pact is created with the viewer. Such as films inspired by a true story, or cinema truth. The spectator, even knowing that it is a staging with actors, suspends his judgment to immerse himself in the impression of reality. This implicit pact is at the basis of the enjoyment of the cinematographic show. If the film tries to create this impression of reality and fails, the viewer’s disinterest soon arrives. On the other hand, some films explicitly tell a story through an unrealistic style, making clear the staging and the filmic construction of the fiction. In this case, the director becomes a storyteller in the eyes of the viewer: what he tells could be true, or it could be a lie, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is how fascinating and engaging his story is.
The Director’s Vision in The Documentary
In reality, the difference between documentary cinema and fictional cinema is very complex and involves important philosophical and spiritual questions. Is it possible for a director to film an objective reality in a totally impartial way? Even if it is not the director who imposes a vision, as in the case of propaganda documentaries, it is always present and reality is always manipulated. Even in the so-called observation documentaries, in which the author tries to disappear by looking for a totally realistic image, becoming a sort of supreme observer, the manipulation typical of cinema is also present there.
In fact, it is the director who chooses what to observe In which place from which angle of observation. The director chooses what to highlight and what not to choose a close-up or a long shot. The film In practice, despite being a pure documentary, it does nothing but reflect the inner world and the personality of the director or creator. Reality is organized and assembled according to its specific sensitivity and interests. The narrative is organized according to its worldview and its values. It is therefore not wrong to say that documentary cinema is also a cinema of artifices, a world built by those who create it. Absolute reality is not perceptible to the human being.
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A Brief History of Documentary Cinema
The Birth Of The Documentary
Cinema was born with the documentary film, in the projections of the first films of the Lumiere brothers shot in France. Subsequently, the inventors of the cinema will send dozens of operators around the world to film distant countries: exotic places never seen by the less affluent that could now be known on the big screen. Documentary cinema can open wide windows of otherwise inaccessible worlds in our space and in our time.
The Travel Documentary
Cinema has always represented for the public the possibility of traveling to other worlds while sitting on an armchair. Even today, even if the world has changed radically and many distant places have become easily accessible, we watch documentaries to discover distant places and people. Worlds that we will probably never meet in real life. Or that maybe we will decide to reach out right after seeing a documentary. Some of the earliest short documentaries consisted of filmed landscapes that were shown at fairs. They were called Hale’s Tours, and they were projections of landscapes that spectators saw from the window of fake railway carriages, made between 1905 and 1912 by the American George C. Hale. A wealthy Parisian banker, Kahn, promoted in the 1910s and 1920s Les Archives de la planète, making a team of operators films various parts of the world destined for a utopian encyclopedic-geographical catalog. Another travel film director was the Italian Luca Comerio. His shots were used as archive material in the film From the Pole to the Equator, in 1986.
The Documentary In The 1920s
The documentary can multiply knowledge and perception of reality incredibly. the exploration documentary could give viewers both the thrill of a dangerous adventure and the knowledge of distant worlds. The places that most attracted the filmmakers were certainly the ice of the poles. The great white silence (1924) by Herbert G. Ponting, It was one of the first important exploration films. The signed materials were first used in lectures, then reassembled with a soundtrack in 1933, with the title 90 ° South. South (1917) by Frank Hurley, is a documentary film dedicated to another expedition to the South Pole, that of E. Shackleton. The list of exploration films shot in Britain is long. Perhaps the most important is The epic of Everest Joel BL Noel’s(1924).
In the United States, is worth seeing Grass (1925) and Chang (1927, Elefante) by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, the authors of the future King Kong,. They are films shot in Kurdistan, Turkestan, and Northern Thailand. Simba, the King of beasts (1928) by Martin and Osa Johnson, was shot in Africa; in France, La croisière Noire (1926) by Léon Poirier and, in the sound era, La croisière Jaune (1933) by André Sauvage, the promotional expeditions of Citroën in Africa and Asia; Voyage au Congo (1927), in which Marc Allégret follows his uncle André Gide on his African journey, followed in 1952 by the biopic Avec André Gide.
In the Soviet Union,is produced Document on Shanghai by Jakov M. Blioch, Turksib (1929) by Viktor A. Turin, on the construction of the railway line between Turkestan and Siberia. Salt for Svanetia, 1930, by Georgian Mikhail K. Kalatozov. In Germany, we find Arnold Fanck’s mountain films, specialized in the genre, such as Der Heilige Berg (1926) and The Tragedy of Pizzo Palù, in 1929. Die letzten Segelschiffe (1926-1930) by Heinrich Hauser, on the latest sailing ships. The genre of exploration films had become so popular that someone decided to parody it, as in the short film, Crossing the Great Sagrada (1924) by the English director Adrian Brunel.
In the 1920s the documentary mixes with fiction thanks to the extraordinary films of Robert Flaherty: Nanook, The Last Eden, and The Man of Aran. Flaherty invented poetic documentary cinema, a genre which artists such as confronted themselves with Jean Epstein and Luchino Visconti. In 1929 the director Dziga Vertov, convinced of the superiority of the documentary over fictional cinema, condensed his experience as a propaganda documentary maker, an editing theorist, and his cinematographic talent to shoot an avant-garde documentary that would mark the history of cinema: Man with a Movie Camera.
The Sound In The Documentary
In the thirties, with the arrival of sound, the production of documentaries and fiction films becomes much more expensive. The means of sound recording were very heavy and limited the possibilities of documentary makers to move easily on trips. A very original use of sound to circumvent this production problem is Enthusiasm, also known as the Don Basin Symphony. Director Dziga Vertov, after the cine-eye, theorizes the radio-eye by putting the new instrument into practice with real enthusiasm. He uses sound in synchrony and counterpoint in a game of voices, noises, and music that compose, with a very complex and layered montage, at a time when the mixing of sounds was still impossible, the first great documentary symphony and abstract of cinema sound. The film remains an example with no successors.
Due to technical difficulties, few other directors try to use live sound in their documentary films. Some examples can be found in La croisière jaune, Campo de ‘Fiori, Housing problems (1935) by the English Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton. Newsreels also use the dubbing method by recording sounds and narrating voices in the studio. Subsequently shooting. Only a few directors decide to record ambient noises and sound on the real shooting location, and then insert it in post-production.
Documentary And The Creative Use of Sound
Some directors choose a creative use of sound in their documentary films, confirming what Jean Luc Godard said years after: every great documentary film is a fiction film. In Philips radio (1931) the director Ivens makes a rhythmic use of sound. In North Sea Watt’s(1938) it is used as a tool for realistic identification. In some English films, sound is used as a literary and poetic tool: Coal Face (1935) by Cavalcanti, Night Mail (1936) by Watt and Basil Wright, and Listen to Britain (1942) by Jennings. In Las Hurdes – Tierra sin pan (1932) Luis Buñuel uses voice and music in an apparently conventional way, but in reality, they conflict with the images of extreme poverty shown in the film.
The Fictional Documentary
In the Thirties, documentary cinema mixes with fiction He begins to use non-professional actors with the direction of directors. For example in Hunger in Waldenburg Phil Jutzi’s, Chang, L’or des mers, a Swiss propaganda documentary. Ein werktag Richard Schweizer’s(1931); the unfinished ¡Qué viva México! (1931-32) by Sergej M. Ejzenštejn, Redes (1935) by Strand and Fred Zinnemann, Man of Aran (1934) by Flaherty. The Edge of the world (1937), shot by Michael Powell in the Shetland Islands, A Handful of Rice (1938), shot in Thailand by the Hungarian Paul Fejos and the Swede Gunnar Skoglund. Native Land, Fires were started (1943) by Jennings, a documentary film about the firefighters during a German raid on London.
Documentary And Neorealism
Italian Neorealism owes a great deal to documentary cinema, from which it draws enormous inspiration. Men at the Bottom (1941) Alfa Tau! (1942) by Francesco De Robertis and La Nave Bianca (1941) by Roberto Rossellini are the first examples of neorealist documentaries. As Jean-Luc Godard said, “all great fictional films tend towards the documentary, just as all great documentaries tend towards fiction.
Documentary And Television
After the arrival of television, it devoted itself to spreading the popular documentary, while the cinema continued to propose the documentary as arthouse films with high-level artistic, dramaturgical, and aesthetic content. In recent years, the documentary has been re-evaluated compared to fictional films. Documentary films have won the most prestigious awards at festivals around the world. The distinction between documentary and fictional film is now obsolete.
The Voice-Off In Documentaries
The first narrating voices in the 30s and 40s were often entrusted to a male voice. It was a very impersonal method that didn’t give the film any personality. It almost seemed that it was a single narrator that was the same for all documentaries, so much so that many dubbed it ironically the voice of God. Some directors tried to give their films a more original sound narrative, in some cases playing the role of the narrator themselves. For example in Nieuwe Gronden, in The Land (1942) by Flaherty, in The Battle of San Pietro (1944) by John Huston.
In other films, a popular voice was employed, such as that of Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles in Spanish Earth. In The 400 Million (1938), both by Ivens; in Native Land (1942) by Leo Hurwitz and P. Strand, with the voice of black actor Paul Robeson. In the documentaries of the English Humphrey Jennings, London can take it (1940) with the voice of the American commentator Quentin Reynolds. In Words for Battle (1941) the voice of Laurence Olivier, The True Story of Lili Marlene (1944), voice of Marius Goring, A Diary for Timothy (1945) voice of Michael Redgrave. Let There Be Light (1946) by Huston, with the voice of his father Walter Huston, a documentary about soldiers suffering from psychotic disorders, was censored until 1980.
Independent Cinema And Documentary
If there is a favorite genre from independent cinema and avant-gardeis certainly the documentary, because it allows, without the artifices of fictional cinema, to experiment with new languages and create important works without having large budgets. The difference between documentary and fictional cinema has no reason to exist because even the author of the documentary, if he films reality, filters it through his own vision of the world. Nothing is as real as the subjective gaze of the beholder. The documentary maker also creates his film starting from his imagination, making choices of storytelling, framing, editing and sound. The documentary interprets and reinvents reality as fictional cinema, using “pieces” of real life.
Types of Documentary
The Fake Documentary
It’s all true and F for fake: with these two titles Orson Welles experiments with the fake documentary as a pioneer. The false documentary is a genre in which events are staged through the method of fiction, but are presented as evidence of real facts and actions. The director can use actors directing them as in a fiction film but making the audience believe that it is all true, recorded in direct contact with reality, without his intervention.
In reality, the fake documentary is a much older invention. Among the first films that we can mention is the masterpiece Haxan, by Benjamin Christiansen, a film that mixes horror, documentary, and essay films. In this film, we move with incredible ease from a rich fantasy staging, to sequences in which the narration is carried on as a (fake) scientific documentary. The false documentary found, in the late nineties and early 2000s, a great application in Horror cinema. Many horror films, such as The Blair Witch Project, are shot in a realistic style, often with the camera used by hand, to create an impression of reality that makes the narrative scarier.
This is the technique of found footage, where the discovery of a video constitutes the principle of narration. In some cases, such as Don’t Open That Door, the found footage makes up only a small part of the film and is embedded within a general structure of fiction. In The Blair Witch Project, on the other hand, the pretext of found footage is the basis for the storytelling and style of the entire film, from start to finish. Other directors like Woody Allen use the fake documentary by creating newsreels with a very realistic style, similar to propaganda newsreels. An example is Allen’s film Zelig, where the adventures of the main character are told through these fake journalistic inserts.
Mockumentary
While the false documentary has a narrative intent and the tone with which the narrator tells the story is plausible, the mockumentary has an intent to manipulate reality with parody effects. In the mockumentary, the director can go into abstract territory, where he uses reality to make fun of reality. The mockumentary is therefore primarily a question of style. The narrator uses the aesthetics of the documentary but the events are obviously unreal, grotesque, and excessive. As for example in that strange cinematographic object that is Fellini: A Director’s Notebook by Federico Fellini: a masterpiece that takes the mockumentary genre to a level never yet experienced.
Docufiction
Docufiction should not be confused with fake documentary or mockumentary. These are generally films in which some events of the narrative are reconstructed with fiction, due to the impossibility of actually filming them. For example, documentaries where there is a need for period reconstructions with actors, documentaries in which a staging of the past, of the future is necessary. Or a present that cannot be filmed.
Cult and Independent Documentaries to Watch
A vision curated by a filmmaker, not an algorithm
In this video I explain our vision
Night and Fog (1955)
Night and Fog” (Nuit et Brouillard) by Alain Resnais, a 1955 documentary about the Holocaust. The title is a reference to the German phrase “Nacht und Nebel”, which means “night and fog” and was the name of a Nazi decree that authorized the internment in concentration camps and the subsequent physical elimination through gas chambers of all opponents of the regime.
The film is composed of a series of black-and-white images of archival footage, photographs, and objects belonging to the deportees, alternated with color footage of the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps, as they appeared in 1955, the year the film was made. The audio commentary, read by Jean Cayrol, is poetic and reflective and focuses on the need to remember the horror of the Holocaust and to prevent it from happening again. Night and Fog” is an important and moving film that has helped to raise awareness of the Holocaust. It was a critical and commercial success and won numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
About Nice
Documentary, by Jean Vigo, France, 1930.
With an old used movie camera bought with the money loaned by his wife's father, Jean Vigo shoots a documentary about Nice. Meeting Boris Kaufman changes the French director's initial project, which will be influenced by Dziga Vertov's operator. The nature and tourist locations of Nice: casinos, carnivals, beaches, bars with tables in the sun. Upper bourgeois Nice is compared with poor neighborhoods. There is no staging. Sometimes people filmed are secretly filmed: the idea of Vigo and Kaufman is to restore the maximum of realism by anticipating the rules of cinema-truth. The montage is inspired by Soviet theories and pursues free associations and symbolic meanings, with rapid rhythm and sudden slowdowns. Without Dialogues, inspired by The Man with the Camera, is an avant-garde film.
Without dialogue
The Endless Summer (1966)
“The Endless Summer” is a surf movie from 1966 directed by Bruce Brown. The film follows two surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, on a journey around the world to find the best surfing waves. Crossing Africa, Australia, Hawaii, and other exotic places, surfers encounter new cultures and face exciting challenges on their surfboards. The Endless Summer’ has been hailed as one of the most influential surf movies of all time and has helped spread surf culture globally.
The Endless Summer” follows the story of two young surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, who decide to travel around the world in search of the best surfing waves. The film shows them as they traverse different parts of the world, encountering new cultures and challenges along the way. Throughout their journey, surfers meet people who share their passion for surfing and face challenges such as language and cultural barriers as well as harsh weather conditions. However, despite these obstacles, the two surfers continue to pursue their dreams and enjoy the waves they ride. The film was acclaimed for its spectacular visuals and soundtrack, as well as its message of adventure and freedom. “The Endless Summer” has also influenced many generations of surfers and helped spread surf culture globally.
Salesman (1968)
Salesman (1968) is an American documentary film directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin. It follows four door-to-door Bible salesmen as they travel across America trying to sell expensive Bibles to working-class Catholics. The film is considered a landmark in direct cinema filmmaking. It was shot in a highly naturalistic style, with the filmmakers using minimal narration and interference. This allowed the film to capture the raw emotions and struggles of the four salesmen, as well as the everyday lives of the people they interacted with. The film was praised for its honesty and its insights into the lives of ordinary Americans. It was also criticized for its portrayal of the salesmen, who were sometimes shown to be manipulative and exploitative.
Apollo 11 (1969)
Apollo 11 (1969) is a critically acclaimed documentary film that chronicles the first manned mission to land on the Moon. Directed by Todd Douglas Miller, the film utilizes archival footage, audio recordings, and interviews with the astronauts to create a compelling and immersive experience for viewers. The film follows the astronauts of Apollo 11 – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins – from their training at NASA to their journey to the Moon and their historic landing on July 20, 1969. Miller’s use of archival footage and audio recordings is masterful, allowing viewers to feel as if they are right there with the astronauts as they experience the highs and lows of their mission.
The interviews with the astronauts are also revealing, providing insights into their motivations, their fears, and their sense of accomplishment. Miller’s thoughtful editing and narration weave together these elements to create a comprehensive and moving portrait of this landmark achievement.
Gimmie Shelter (1970)
Gimme Shelter (1970) is a documentary film that chronicles the Rolling Stones’ 1969 U.S. Tour and culminates in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert. Directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, the film is a raw and unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. The film follows the Stones as they travel from city to city, performing to sold-out stadiums and packing arenas with screaming fans. However, the tour is marred by violence and chaos, with the Altamont Free Concert serving as the nadir. The concert, which was intended to be a peaceful gathering of hippies and rock fans, descended into chaos and violence, culminating in the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter.
Adriatico - United sea of Europe
Documentary, by Cristiana Lucia Grilli, Italy, 2019.
Adriatic - United sea of Europe is a fascinating journey between Italy and the Balkans to discover the Slavic and Albanian communities that settled in central Italy, in the Molise region, as early as the 15th century, following the Ottoman invasion of the Balkan Peninsula. The documentary is divided into two chapters: the first dedicated to the Italian-Albanians, the second to the Italian-Croats. A journey to discover the arbëreshë communities that for the first time find themselves united in a common destiny. The mother earth of Albania, and a sea that separates but does not cancel stories, art, dreams, destinies. A film in which the voices of researchers, academics, scholars, teachers and musicians, including the well-known Bosnian composer Goran Bregović, are mixed, with the aim of recovering the historical memory of ethnic-linguistic minorities, enhancing their language, customs and costumes. History links Italy and the Balkans and has its roots in the era of the Kingdom of Naples, when the communities settled in the area, contributing to its growth. The Adriatic is the bridge that unites the two shores, which brings salvation and ensures a future.
“Adriatico” was shot in the central Italian countries with Arbëreshë and Croatian minorities, in Croatia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in particular in the area of the Biokovo mountain range and the Narenta river, places of origin of the Slavs of Molise. But also in Albania and Geneva where the testimony of the Bosnian musician Goran Bregović was collected, who embodies the concept of cultural contamination. The documentary was born from the personal story of the director, on the maternal side belonging to the Arbëreshë community, descendant of the Albanians who arrived in Italy hundreds of years ago. Instead, she inherited the Greek roots from her paternal grandmother. The mountains of the Balkans have always been part of her life and she has always been fascinated by them: the story of peoples who have been able to rebuild their lives.
LANGUAGE: Italian
SUBTITLES: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese
F for Fake (1973)
F for Fake (1973) is a groundbreaking documentary film directed by Orson Welles. The film is a labyrinthine exploration of the nature of truth and illusion, using as its jumping-off point the story of Elmyr de Hory, a renowned art forger. Weaving together interviews, archival footage, and Welles’ own signature narration, F for Fake delves into the world of art, deception, and the power of the media. Welles examines how reality is often manipulated and distorted, and he questions our ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. F for Fake was a critical and commercial success. It was praised for its innovative structure, its complex themes, and Welles’ masterful narration. The film has been cited as one of the most important documentaries ever made.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) is an experimental documentary film directed by Godfrey Reggio. The title is a Hopi word meaning “life out of balance”. The film is an exploration of nature and civilization, using images of natural and urban landscapes, set to a minimalist score by Philip Glass. The film begins with images of natural landscapes, such as rivers, forests, and mountains. These images are accompanied by a Glass score that creates a sense of peace and tranquility. As the film progresses, the images become more urban and frenetic. Urban landscapes, factories, and cars are shown. The Glass score becomes more intense and cacophonous.
The film ends with images of a burning city. These images are accompanied by a Glass score that creates a sense of chaos and destruction. Koyaanisqatsi is a powerful and provocative film that has had a profound impact on experimental cinema. The film has been praised for its visual beauty and its engaging score. It has also sparked discussions about the relationship between nature and civilization.
Baraka (1992)
Baraka is a documentary film without narration or commentary. Explore the motifs through a collection of natural events, life, human activities and phenomena filmed in 24 countries on 6 continents over 14 months. The film takes its name from the Sufi idea of baraka, which indicates essence, blessing, or breath.
The film is Ron Fricke‘s sequel to Godfrey Reggio’s non-verbal documentary Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was director of photography and collaborator of the Reggio film, and for Baraka, he began by himself to refine and expand the photographic strategies used on Koyaanisqatsi. Shot in 70mm, it is made up of a mix of photographic styles consisting of slow motion and time-lapse. To achieve this, two shooting systems were used. A Todd-AO system was used to shoot traditional pricing, but to make the time-lapse series of the film Fricke built a special camera that integrated time-lapse digital photography with impeccably handled motion.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Bowling for Columbine (2002) is a documentary film directed by Michael Moore that examines the high rate of gun violence in the United States. It explores the reasons behind the violence and proposes solutions to the problem.
Moore travels to Littleton, Colorado, the site of the Columbine High School massacre, to interview survivors and witnesses. He also visits gun shows, NRA conventions, and homes where gun violence has occurred.
Bowling for Columbine was a critical and commercial success. It was praised for its insightful and provocative look at gun violence in America. The film won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Apennines
Documentary, by Emiliano Dante, Italy, 2017.
Appennino is a cinematographic diary that begins with the slow reconstruction of L 'Aquila, the director's city, in Italy, and continues with the earthquakes in the central Apennines of 2016-17, up to the very long and exhausting asylum of the new earthquake victims in S. Benedetto of Tronto. An intimate and ironic, lyrical and geometric story, where the question of living in a seismic area becomes the tool to reflect on the very meaning of making cinema of reality.
LANGUAGE: Italian
SUBTITLES: English
Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Capturing the Friedmans (2003) is a disturbing and thought-provoking documentary film that explores the 1980s child sex abuse scandal involving the Friedman family of Great Neck, New York.
Directed by Andrew Jarecki, the film uses archival footage, interviews with family members and friends, and legal documents to create a complex and unsettling portrait of the case.
Capturing the Friedmans was a critical and commercial success. It was praised for its nuanced and unsettling portrayal of the case. The film won numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Documentary Feature Award at the Academy Awards.
Grizzly Man (2005)
Grizzly Man (2005) is a German-American documentary film directed by Werner Herzog that explores the life of Timothy Treadwell, an American bear enthusiast who spent thirteen summers living among grizzly bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
The film is composed entirely of Treadwell’s own video footage, which he shot throughout his time in the park. Herzog uses this footage to piece together a portrait of Treadwell’s life and his obsession with bears.
Treadwell’s footage is often intimate and revealing, giving viewers a glimpse into his daily life and his interactions with the bears. However, it is also disturbing at times, as it shows the sometimes dangerous nature of Treadwell’s encounters with the bears.
Herzog juxtaposes Treadwell’s footage with his own commentary, which provides a more critical perspective on Treadwell’s actions. Herzog questions Treadwell’s motivations and his belief that he could live in harmony with the bears. He also questions the ethics of Treadwell’s actions, as he put himself and others at risk by living among the bears.
Tuning In (2008)
Tuning is a practice that refers to the moments when a person, normally in a trance state, establishes a psychic bond with a spiritual being. The channeler is then able to act as a dimensional intermediary in bringing various other humans to touch the entity, along with analyzing the entity’s messages.
For the first time ever, six of the most famous American channelers are featured in the same film to get the right understanding of the sensation, along with the information obtained. The entities that come through each with a strong and distinctive character were interviewed in detail by the director and the result is exceptional: through space and time we discover that the entities speak as one, conveying a clear and broad message of empowerment for humanity.
Kymatica (2009)
Kymatica is an enthralling documentary that delves into the unsettling belief that a shadowy elite orchestrates global events, steering the world towards inevitable ruin. It explores the pervasive anxiety that grips many as they contemplate the impending end times—visions of apocalypse and Armageddon—that seem to seal the fate of humanity. But this narrative flips a mirror onto the audience, suggesting that the real harbinger of this perceived downfall is not an external force, but ourselves. There is profound reasoning behind this assertion, inviting us to pause and confront our own contributions to these fears.
The film challenges viewers to shift their focus from the chaotic and alarming concepts of global domination and catastrophic disasters to a more introspective mindset. It encourages them to be vigilant and attentive, urging us to listen to the latent messages the world is sending, like subtle warnings about our personal shortcomings. Rather than succumbing to the fear of tyranny and doom, Kymatica prompts us to reflect on the underlying issues within and presents a pathway to address and rectify these flaws, offering hope and insight into our shared path forward.
Feast
Documentary, by Franco Piavoli, 2018, Italy.
Franco Piavoli, author of the masterpiece "The Blue Planet", returns to the director to capture the "evening of the day of celebration", between Leopardi and Pascoli. A journey between the poetic and the anthropological. What is a "party"? What does it represent, from a symbolic and material point of view? What burdens, or what relieves, does it bring to people's minds? And what value does it take when it turns into a collective act? It does not need any tinsel, Festa, and arrives right in the spectator's heart without stratification, without any deviation from the path, without any addition.
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English
I Am (2010)
I Am is a 2010 American documentary created, directed, and also narrated by Tom Shadyac. The film raises the concern: “What’s wrong with the world, and what can we do about it?”, And uncovers Shadyac’s individual journey after a bicycle accident in 2007 that led him to the answer “the nature of ‘humanity’, ‘the world’s ever-increasing dependence on materialism’, as well as ‘human bonds. Shot with a group of 4, the film stands in stark contrast to the director’s most prominent comic works, such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar, and even Bruce Almighty, all of whom worked alongside Canadian comedian Jim Carrey.
Samsara (2012)
Completed over 5 years in 25 different countries around the world, it was filmed in 70mm in electronic format. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and had a limited release in August 2012.
The main website describes the film: “Expanding on the themes they covered in Baraka (1992) and Chronos (1985), Samsara discovers the wonders of our world from the mundane to the transcendent, considering the incomprehensible limits of the spirituality of humanity and also the human experience. a conventional documentary or a travelogue, Samsara feels more like a non-verbal guided meditation.
Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds (2012)
Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds (2012) explores the concept of a vibrational field that serves as the unifying connection between all elements of existence. This field has been recognized and referred to by numerous names across various cultures and disciplines—Akasha, Logos, the primordial om, the music of the spheres, the Higgs field, dark energy, and countless others all describe this mysterious and unifying force. Akasha, in particular, is seen as the common thread weaving through the fabric of all religions and scientific inquiries, symbolizing the intrinsic connection between our internal consciousness and the external universe. This documentary seeks to illuminate the profound understanding that, despite the diverse terminologies and interpretations, there exists a fundamental link that binds our inner realities with the vast outer expanses, suggesting a deeply interconnected and holistic view of the universe. By delving into these ancient and modern concepts, Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds invites viewers to explore the relationship between the metaphysical and the empirical, encouraging a more integrated perspective on existence.
Pezzi (2012)
Pezzi (2012) is an Italian documentary film directed by Luca Ferrari. The film follows the life of Massimo, a man living in the outskirts of Rome. Massimo is a former convict who has suffered from drug addiction and alcoholism. He is a troubled and violent man who is desperately trying to find his place in the world. The film is shot in a raw and realistic way. Ferrari does not try to sugarcoat Massimo’s life. He shows his falls and rises, his hopes, and his disappointments. Pezzi is a powerful and moving film that offers an unfiltered look at life on the margins of society. It is a film that makes us reflect on the nature of human suffering and the possibility of redemption.
France, almost a self-portrait
Documentary, by Ilaria Pezone, 2017, Italy.
Avid cinephile, filmmaker, film essayist, teacher. Who is really Francesco Ballo? Maybe it's all these things together, and more: an Inter fan, a wine expert, a careful jazz lover ... A truly independent filmmaker out of any commercial logic, Francesco talks about himself in this documentary, guiding the viewer through his world, his life full of passions and his creativity. A journey without maps and without pre-established routes, as dizzying as a Buster Keaton film and as free as a Charlie Parker jam session, full of reflections on cinema and how to make films.
LANGUAGE: italian
SUBTITLES: English
Planetary (2015)
Planetary asks us to rethink who we really are, to reconsider our relationship with ourselves, others and the world around us – to remember that. In a stunning visual exploration, the film weaves images of NASA’s Apollo missions with visions of the Milky Way, Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas and the cacophonous sounds of downtown Tokyo and Manhattan, with intimate interviews from renowned experts including astronauts Ron Garan and Mae Jemison (the first African American woman in space), celebrated environmentalist Bill McKibben, National Book Award winner Barry Lopez, anthropologist Wade Davis, National Geographic explorer Elizabeth Lindsey, and the head of the Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist school, the 17th Karmapa. They shed new light on the ways our worldview is profoundly affecting life on our planet.
Titicut Follies
Frederick Wiseman’s first, shocking feature film, Titicut Follies is an unfiltered immersion into the daily life of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts. Shot in a rigorous observational style, without interviews or narration, the film exposes with brutal clarity the inhumane conditions, abuse, and systematic indifference to which the inmate-patients are subjected by the guards and medical staff.
Wiseman’s work is a milestone of American direct cinema. His approach is radical in its apparent neutrality: the camera merely records, is present, letting the images and sounds speak for themselves. Yet, this objectivity is the film’s most powerful weapon. Wiseman does not need to comment on the humiliation of a patient stripped naked and mocked, or the grotesque sequence of a doctor force-feeding a man while dropping his cigarette ash into the funnel. The film’s power lies precisely in this absence of explicit judgment, which forces the viewer to confront directly the horror of “unspectacular coercion” and the “everyday gestures of humiliation.”
The film was so powerful that it was banned for decades in Massachusetts. The legal controversy arose not so much from a genuine concern for the patients’ privacy, but from the disruptive political power of Wiseman’s images. The state’s request to censor the film was, in fact, an admission of its overwhelming truthfulness. By refusing to editorialize, Wiseman gave his images an irrefutable authority that the institutional power could not deny, but only hide. Titicut Follies thus demonstrates that the seemingly passive act of showing reality, without filters, can become the most radical and subversive form of social critique and political cinema.
Grey Gardens
This iconic documentary by the Maysles brothers offers an intimate and unforgettable portrait of Edith “Big Edie” Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith “Little Edie,” the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The two women live in near-total isolation in a dilapidated 28-room mansion in the Hamptons, surrounded by cats, garbage, and the ghosts of an aristocratic past. The film captures their symbiotic relationship, their bickering, their broken dreams, and their eccentric daily life.
Grey Gardens is a masterpiece of direct cinema that transcends a simple portrait to become a complex exploration of memory, identity, and performance. The film uniquely blends genres, evoking gothic horror in the image of the decaying mansion, almost a haunted house infested by the past, and domestic melodrama in the constant recriminations and nostalgic tales of missed loves. The central ethical question—whether the film is an act of exploitation or a collaboration—remains open, although Little Edie herself fiercely defended it, calling it a meeting between “two very talented people and two very talented ladies.”
The film is fundamentally a work about the construction of personal myth. The Edies are not passive subjects; they are the lead actresses in the drama of their own lives, fully aware of the camera’s presence and eager to tell their version of the story. Little Edie’s famous line, “it’s very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present,” is the key to understanding the film. The dilapidated mansion is not just a backdrop, but the physical manifestation of their inability to escape their memories. Grey Gardens is a poignant and fascinating work about how nostalgia, when it becomes all-consuming, can turn into a gilded cage, and how every family builds its own truths through the stories it tells itself.
Harlan County, USA
Winner of the Academy Award, this powerful documentary by Barbara Kopple immerses itself in the heart of a 13-month coal miners’ strike in Brookside, Kentucky. The film documents the grueling struggle of 180 miners and their families against the Duke Power Company to secure a union contract, amidst violence, intimidation, and a long history of exploitation known as “Bloody Harlan.
Harlan County, USA is a paradigmatic example of investigative and activist cinema, a film that demonstrates how the principles of direct cinema do not necessarily imply political neutrality. Barbara Kopple’s camera is not an objective observer, but a tool of struggle, an active participant siding with the miners. The energy, immediacy, and passion that pervade every frame are born from this total involvement. Kopple and her crew lived with the community, marched on the picket lines, and faced the same dangers, including being shot at by scabs.
The film’s style reflects the rawness of the struggle: the editing is at times “jagged,” the narrative structure follows the chaotic flow of events, and the soundtrack is dominated by the folk ballads and protest songs of the local tradition, which become the very voice of the resistance. Unlike Wiseman’s detached approach, which observes power from within, Kopple positions her camera alongside the oppressed. In doing so, she redefines the potential of cinema vérité, demonstrating that the search for truth is not just an act of observation, but can be an act of militancy, a way to fight for it.
Keep it real!
Short film, by Antonello Matarazzo, Italy.
In an old abandoned house a girl finds in a trunk a pair of red shoes that make her fantasy fly... her are dreams of a Star.
Sans Soleil
An unclassifiable work by the mysterious French filmmaker Chris Marker, Sans Soleil is an essay film that meditates on the nature of memory, time, and the image. Structured as a stream of consciousness, the film is narrated by a woman reading letters from a fictional cameraman, Sandor Krasna. His wandering reflections connect seemingly disparate images, shot primarily in Japan and Guinea-Bissau, defined as “two extreme poles of survival.”
Sans Soleil is the apotheosis of the auteur documentary, a work in which the true protagonist is the director’s own consciousness. More than a factual account, the film is a philosophical and poetic journey through the landscapes of the mind. Marker explores how memory functions non-linearly, by association, and how technology (particularly the video synthesizer with which he manipulates some images) can alter and question our relationship with the past. The film is a labyrinth of ideas ranging from Japanese pop culture to African rituals, from video games to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
The use of the fictional narrator Sandor Krasna is not a mere whim to mask Marker’s signature, but a profound statement on the very nature of memory. Memory, like Krasna, is an intermediary, a subjective, imperfect, and reconstructed version of the past. We never have direct access to events, only to the story that is told about them. The film’s fragmented and associative structure perfectly mimics the workings of the human mind, creating a total symbiosis between form and content. Sans Soleil is a hypnotic cinematic experience that teaches us that to remember is not to relive, but to constantly reinterpret.
The Gleaners and I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse)
In this late-career masterpiece, the legendary director Agnès Varda explores the world of modern-day “gleaners.” Inspired by Jean-François Millet’s famous painting, Varda travels across France, from the countryside to the cities, to meet people who live by recovering food and objects discarded by consumer society. With her small digital video camera, Varda herself becomes a “gleaner,” a collector of images, stories, and encounters.
The Gleaners and I is a deeply personal and political essay film. Varda uses the ancient act of gleaning as a metaphor to critique the waste of contemporary society and to celebrate the resilience and creativity of those who live on the margins. The film is a mosaic of human portraits: there are people who glean out of necessity, others for ethical reasons, and artists who transform waste into works of art. Varda weaves these stories with personal reflections on her own creative process, on aging (often framing her wrinkled hands), and on the very nature of cinema.
Varda’s choice to use a consumer digital video camera is not random, but a philosophical and political gesture. By embracing a “humble” tool, she aligns herself aesthetically with her subjects, rejecting the distance and “mastery of the gaze” typical of traditional cinema. Her camera becomes a gleaning tool, allowing her to get close, to be tactile, to place herself on the same level as the people she films. Her method of filmmaking thus becomes the perfect metaphor for the film’s theme, an act of modesty and recovery that finds beauty and value where others see only waste.
Stories We Tell
Director Sarah Polley turns the camera on her own family to uncover a long-held secret: the identity of her biological father. Through candid and contradictory interviews with her siblings, her father Michael, and other witnesses, Polley constructs a mosaic of memories about her late mother, Diane, a vibrant and enigmatic woman. The film explores the subjective nature of truth and how the stories we tell define our families and ourselves.
Stories We Tell is a revolutionary biographical documentary that deconstructs the genre from within. Polley does not just collect testimonies; she questions the very act of storytelling. Her most radical innovation is mixing interviews and authentic archival footage with fake “home movies” shot on Super 8 with actors, which the viewer initially believes to be real. The revelation, towards the end of the film, that much of the nostalgic material is a reenactment, is not a deception, but the very thesis of the work.
Polley masterfully demonstrates that even our most cherished memories are, in a sense, reconstructions, narratives we shape to make sense of the past. By revealing her own artifice—showing herself directing the actors who play her parents—she forces the audience to recognize that every documentary is a construction, a curated selection of stories, not a transparent window onto reality. Stories We Tell is a moving and intellectually dizzying work that teaches us that a family’s truth lies not in a single fact, but in the polyphony of voices and versions that compose it.
Cameraperson
Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson creates a unique and powerful autobiography by assembling discarded footage from documentaries she has worked on over 25 years. From a meeting with a former Guantánamo guard in Bosnia to a maternity clinic in Nigeria, to intimate moments with her mother suffering from Alzheimer’s, the film is a mosaic of fragments that explore the relationship between the filmer and the filmed, and the complex ethical questions of documentary cinema.
Cameraperson is a deeply self-reflexive essay film that transforms the “scraps” of the filmmaking process into its beating heart. Johnson, whose presence is felt only through the movement of her camera and her off-screen voice, invites us to consider the weight and responsibility of every single shot. The film is a meditation on the power of the gaze and the implicit contract created between the documentarian and their subject.
The film’s central idea is that there is no such thing as “unused” material. By recontextualizing these discarded moments, Johnson demonstrates that the emotional and ethical meaning of an image is not intrinsic, but is created through editing, juxtaposition, and the narrative frame given to it. A shot discarded from a film about a war crime can become, in the context of Cameraperson, a reflection on memory and personal loss. The film is a moving elegy and a rigorous investigation that reminds us that the documentarian is never a neutral observer, but a participant whose presence and choices inevitably shape the reality they intend to capture.
Lightning part 1
Documentary, by Manuela Morgaine, France, 2013.
A film divided into two parts, a legend intertwining with a documentary across four seasons. This portrait unfolds like a cinematic kaleidoscope, zigzagging like the branching of lightning bolts. The narrative is set in different countries around the world and spans various centuries, simultaneously presented in both documentary and legendary forms. In the autumn segment, a lightning hunter races forth, embodying the Syrian lightning god, Baal. With visionary insight, Baal projects 25 years' worth of video archives onto lightning, unveiling the scientific keys to this remarkable yet devastating phenomenon. In winter, an exploration of melancholy, the final stage of depression, and how it can be overcome takes place. A psychiatrist personifies the enigmatic god Saturn, journeying from Africa to Syria to trace back to his origins and certain ancestral practices. Among these is a ritual practiced by women in the depths of Guinea Bissau, spinning dervishes, and a catfish that holds the secret of healing in the ancient city of Aleppo.
Running for nearly four hours, this documentary undoubtedly stands among the most original ever made, delivering an exceptional audiovisual experience that merges documentary and myth. For those who wish to rediscover, even symbolically, lost energies, watching this film divided into four parts is imperative. One of the most rare and magnificent cinematic creations. A film that truly shakes to the core and, after viewing, necessitates a thorough analysis of the experience.
LANGUAGE: French
SUBTITLES: English, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese
Crumb
Terry Zwigoff’s documentary is a ruthless and fascinating portrait of Robert Crumb, the legendary underground cartoonist. The film explores Crumb’s life, his sexual obsessions, his controversial views on race and women, and his relationship with fame. But the dark heart of the film is the encounter with his dysfunctional family, particularly his two brothers, Charles and Maxon, talented artists consumed by mental illness and a traumatic childhood.
Crumb redefined the biographical documentary about an artist, rejecting any form of celebration to offer instead a raw and disturbing psychological analysis. Zwigoff, a friend of Crumb’s, does not try to justify or sweeten the most controversial aspects of his work. On the contrary, the film establishes an inseparable link between Crumb’s transgressive art and his personal pathologies, suggesting that his creativity is fueled directly by the traumas he suffered.
The film demolishes the romantic myth of the “tortured artist” and replaces it with a much more complex and unsettling reality, in which art becomes a “bulwark against madness.” Robert’s genius is contrasted with the tragedy of his brothers, forcing us to question the thin line that separates creativity from mental illness. Crumb forces us into an uncomfortable position: to appreciate the power of art, we must confront its darkest psychological origins, accepting that genius can be born from pain without being redeemed by it.
Finding Vivian Maier
This documentary tells the incredible story of Vivian Maier, a nanny who secretly took over 100,000 photographs throughout her life, posthumously revealing herself as one of the greatest street photographers of the 20th century. The film follows the search of co-director John Maloof, who accidentally discovered her immense archive at an auction, as he tries to piece together the enigmatic life of this solitary, eccentric, and at times dark woman.
Finding Vivian Maier is a compelling investigation that raises complex questions about art, anonymity, and the ethics of posthumous fame. The film unfolds on a dual track: on one hand, Maloof’s detective story as he tries to give a name and a history to the images he found; on the other, the fragmented portrait of a woman who deliberately chose to hide her talent from the world. The testimonies of those who knew her paint a contradictory picture of a brilliant but also deeply tormented woman.
The film is also a meta-cinematic narrative about the process of creating an artistic legacy in the 21st century. Maloof is not just a director, but also the curator, promoter, and de facto executor of Maier’s work. The documentary does not just “find” Vivian Maier; it documents the very act of “constructing” the figure of “Vivian Maier, the artist.” This makes the film a fascinating reflection on the power dynamics of the art world and the ethics of giving a voice and a narrative to an artist who, throughout her life, chose silence.
Paris Is Burning
Jennie Livingston’s documentary is a vibrant and essential immersion into the “ball culture” of 1980s Harlem, a subculture created by young gay and transgender African Americans and Latinos. The film takes us inside the “houses,” chosen families that offer support and belonging, and shows us the “balls,” lavish competitions where participants walk in different categories, striving to achieve “realness”—the ability to perfectly embody an ideal unattainable in everyday life.
Paris Is Burning is a foundational work of queer cinema and a social document of inestimable value. Beyond the glitz and energy of the competitions, the film reveals the harsh realities faced by its protagonists: poverty, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and the threat of AIDS. The concept of “realness” becomes the film’s thematic core: it is not simple imitation, but a political act of reappropriation and subversion of the symbols of power and privilege of white, heteronormative culture.
The film is a profound and heartbreaking critique of the American Dream. For the communities represented, that dream is not something to be achieved, but something to be staged, to be performed with virtuosic skill. The ballroom runway is a utopian space of self-affirmation, but the tragedy, underscored by the death of one of its protagonists, Venus Xtravaganza, is that this performance, however perfect, cannot protect them from the violence of the outside world. The film, though subject to debates about its creation by a white filmmaker, remains an irreplaceable testament to resilience, creativity, and the universal search for love and acceptance.
The Thin Blue Line
Errol Morris’s film revolutionized the investigative documentary by telling the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man sentenced to death for the murder of a Dallas police officer, a crime he did not commit. Through a series of interviews and stylized reenactments, Morris dismantles the prosecution’s case piece by piece, exposing the contradictions, the lies of the witnesses, and the haste of the justice system, ultimately obtaining a confession from the real culprit.
The Thin Blue Line shattered the conventions of the documentary of its time. The use of dramatic reenactments with actors, a hypnotic score by Philip Glass, and interviews in which subjects look directly into the camera (a technique Morris would call the “Interrotron”) was considered so radical that the film was disqualified from the documentary category at the Oscars. Critics argued that the reenactments made it a work of fiction, but they failed to grasp the genius of Morris’s approach.
The reenactments were not an attempt to betray the truth, but a tool to interrogate it. By staging the conflicting and patently false versions of the witnesses, Morris visually exposed their unreliability in a way that simple interviews never could have. He used the aesthetic language of film noir not to create a false reality, but to deconstruct the one built by the justice system. The film not only led to the exoneration of an innocent man but also demonstrated that style and artifice could become the most effective tools in the search for truth.
Lightning part 2
Documentary, directed by Manuela Morgaine, France, 2013.
This fresco is a cinema of zig-zags, akin to the branching of lightning bolts. It unfolds its subject across different countries of the world and over the span of several centuries, concurrently presented in both documentary and legendary forms. Spring brings back to life Syméon the stylite, a madman who lived atop his column for 40 years. Simeon was killed in Syria, in the Cham desert near Palmira. But he is also the one who scrutinizes the earth, recounting the true story of Aleppo soap, which is a cauldron brimming with mythology. Additionally, it delves into how lightning generates an aphrodisiac truffle called Kama once a year, in spring – a phenomenon known to exist as the "Vegetable of Allah" in the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. Summer stages, from Marivaux's "La dispute," the love at first sight between two creatures, Azor and Églé, isolated on an island called Sutra. On this paradisiacal island, they consume the Kama, the forbidden fruit, and then, consumed by love, they are banished. Finally branching out, Baal, Saturn, Simeon, the melancholic, and the downtrodden unite with the torn-apart lovers in the night lightning.
Running for almost four hours, this documentary is undoubtedly among the most original ever created, offering a fantastic auditory and visual experience that straddles the line between documentary and legend. For those who seek to rediscover, even symbolically, lost energies, watching this film divided into four parts is a must. One of the rarest and most magnificent cinematic artifacts. A film that truly shakes you to the core and demands introspection after viewing.
LANGUAGE: French
SUBTITLES: English, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese
Shoah
Claude Lanzmann’s monumental work, nine and a half hours long and the result of eleven years of labor, is perhaps the definitive film on the Holocaust. Its methodological choice is as simple as it is radical: no archival footage, no period photographs. The film is composed entirely of testimonies collected in the 1970s and ’80s from survivors, perpetrators (often filmed secretly), and eyewitnesses, interspersed with long, meditative shots of the extermination sites as they appeared at the time of filming.
Shoah is not a film about memory, but an act of memory. Lanzmann’s refusal to use archival images is a powerful ethical and philosophical stance. For the director, using those images would mean historicizing the horror, confining it to a safe past, and, in a sense, making it bearable through aesthetics. Instead, Lanzmann forces the viewer to confront the present: a grassy field, a silent forest, the tracks of a railway. Over these empty images, the voices of the witnesses evoke the unspeakable horror that those places hosted.
The film makes the present the visible trace of an unbearable absence. It does not seek to “represent” the Holocaust, an undertaking Lanzmann considered impossible and obscene, but to evoke it through the words of those who were there and the silence of the places. The past is not shown, but becomes an oppressive presence that haunts the present. Shoah is an exhausting and necessary cinematic experience that does not document history, but forces us to live its legacy, demonstrating that emptiness and absence can be the most damning evidence of a crime.
Waltz with Bashir
Director Ari Folman embarks on a journey to recover his repressed memories of his service in the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War, which culminated in the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Since he has no direct memory of the events, Folman interviews old comrades, a journalist, and his therapist in an attempt to piece together the puzzle of his past. The film uses animation to bring these memories, dreams, and hallucinations to life.
Waltz with Bashir is a pioneering work that demonstrated the potential of animation as a tool for auteur documentary. The choice of this format is not purely stylistic; it is a visual metaphor for the psychological dissociation caused by trauma. The hyperrealistic yet dreamlike style of the animation perfectly captures the mental state of someone trying to process an unspeakable experience. Memories are not presented as objective facts, but as subjective, distorted, and surreal fragments, just as they appear in the mind of someone suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The film’s stroke of genius is its ending. In the final moments, the animation abruptly stops to give way to real, chilling archival footage of the aftermath of the massacre. This formal break is a shock to the viewer, who is torn from the “safe” aesthetic distance of the animated world and thrown into the unbearable reality of the event. Folman suggests that some truths are so horrific that they can only be approached through the filter of art, but that ultimately, that filter must be torn away to face reality in all its rawness.
Burden of Dreams
This legendary documentary by Les Blank follows the chaotic, obsessive, and nearly impossible production of Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo deep in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. The film captures Herzog’s titanic struggle against nature, conflicts with indigenous tribes, problems with actors (including the infamous Klaus Kinski), and, above all, his mad determination to drag a real 320-ton steamship up a hill.
Considered by many to be the greatest “making-of” documentary ever made, Burden of Dreams transcends its genre to become a profound meditation on the nature of artistic creation, on the arrogance and madness that often accompany genius. The “burden of dreams” of the title is twofold: on one hand, the physical weight of the ship that must be moved; on the other, the psychological weight of Herzog’s artistic vision, a dream that threatens to destroy him and everyone around him.
Les Blank’s lyrical and observational style serves as the perfect rational counterpoint to Herzog’s romantic and nihilistic obsession. While Herzog, in his famous monologues, describes the jungle as a “vile and base” place where only “the harmony of an overwhelming and collective murder” reigns, Blank’s camera captures moments of quiet beauty and cultural interaction. The film thus becomes a dialogue between two worldviews and two ways of making cinema, a Sisyphean allegory of the artist’s struggle against matter and against his own demons, and an unforgettable portrait of the price, sometimes terrible, that is paid to turn a dream into reality.
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Presented as a film by the mysterious street artist Banksy, this documentary follows Thierry Guetta, an eccentric French shopkeeper in Los Angeles with an obsession for filming everything. Guetta immerses himself in the world of street art, documenting artists like Shepard Fairey and Banksy himself. But when Guetta decides to become an artist himself, under the name Mr. Brainwash, the story takes an unexpected and surreal turn, culminating in a successful exhibition that questions the very nature of art and authenticity.
Exit Through the Gift Shop is a brilliant and layered work, a “mockumentary” that functions as a fierce and funny critique of the contemporary art world. Is it a true story or a complex setup orchestrated by Banksy? The doubt is the engine of the film and the heart of its message. Through the parable of Mr. Brainwash, an artist who achieves fame without any apparent vision or talent, simply by imitating and reproducing others’ styles on a large scale, Banksy raises fundamental questions.
The film explores the commodification of art, the power of marketing, and the obsession with the artist’s “brand,” which often becomes more important than the work itself. It is a biting satire on the credulity of the public and collectors, and on the increasingly blurred line between art and commerce, between authentic expression and cynical opportunism. Whether it is a true story or a hoax, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a brilliant and subversive commentary that uses the language of documentary to stage its own thesis: in the art world, as in cinema, perception is everything.
A vision curated by a filmmaker, not an algorithm
In this video I explain our vision
