essentia

In 1974, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky embarked on the quixotic project of adapting Frank Herbert's influential novel Dune (1969) for the big screen. After investing two years, and millions of dollars, the gigantic project ended in failure; but the artists Jodorowsky brought together to carry it out continued to work together, and ended up laying the foundations for modern science fiction cinema.

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

Following a tense encounter with a mysterious stranger with otherworldly powers, a man finds himself banished to a parallel, tyrannical Earth, where he fights to get back to the woman he loves.

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.

Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Keanu Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.

After a former model is drowned in her bathtub, Detective James Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon attempt to piece together her murder.

Will is looking for an escape from his family when he encounters Lee, the school bully. Armed with a video camera and a copy of Rambo, Lee plans to make his own action-packed video epic.

When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with Jean by chance. This leaves her with the choice between a glamorous life in Paris, and the true love she left behind.

Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

Experience the meteoric rise of Oasis through rare footage and untold stories as the band reunites for Oasis Live '25, chronicling their journey from Manchester streets to global rock stardom.

Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.

A documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.

Captured during Billie Eilish's sold-out world tour, a concert experience from one of the most celebrated and successful artists of her generation, presented in immersive 3D.

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

A widowed professor living in Paris develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.

Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s Chinatown, this cross-cultural biopic chronicles Bruce Lee’s emergence as a martial-arts superstar after his legendary secret showdown with fellow martial artist Wong Jack Man.

The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.

Documentary about the making of American Pie (1999), American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding (2003).

Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. But Tala is not ready to accept the implications of the choice her heart has made for her and escapes back to Jordan, while Leyla tries to move on with her new-found life, to the shock of her tradition-loving parents. As Tala's wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.

In one of those wonderful coincidences of history, lumière, the French word for “light,” was also the last name of brothers Auguste and Louis, whose brilliant invention, the cinematograph, helped to inaugurate the most beloved art form of the last 130 years. Institute Lumière director Thierry Frémaux uses Lumière, Le Cinema! to guide the viewer through over a hundred shorts—some famous, some forgotten, some never before seen—directed by Lumière and company. In the process, Frémaux illuminates how the brothers employed the camera as a creative instrument as they (and their operators) mastered framing, staging, and subject selection for quotidian and exotic microdocumentaries as well as the first ever fictional motion pictures. The result is not only a glorious re(telling) of the genesis of cinema but a profound meditation on the beautiful world captured—and the mysterious world imagined—by the Lumières.

A sort of non-narrative itinerary between Lyon, Vienne and Valence-Ville that goes exploring the relationships between the interactions and the light it exposes, a reflection of identity and beauty that the shadows goes preserving the perceptions of new space.

Julia experiences a confused world seemingly against her after receiving a pessimistic tarot reading, as her feelings inevitably differ from her thoughts. Which way to go?

As people overrun tourist attractions, the inherent beauty crumbles to dust.

Bud Clay races motorcycles in the 250cc Formula II class of road racing. After a race in New Hampshire, he has five days to get to his next race in California. During his road trip, he is haunted by memories of the last time he saw Daisy, his true love.

A woman reflects under the parapet.

A theoretical exercise can stem from a physical one: using the camera as if it was the vibrating device placed on the olive trees for the harvest of its fruit, the final result is a series of original and intriguing images. The camera shakes, gets in and out of focus, and we don’t exactly know what is happening. At first this is a strange disorientation, but then you get used to it through the cyclical mechanical noise that joins the images. The words of a peaceful female voice allows you to frame the film: a visual exercise after all can also be free.

A loose interpretation of the poem of the same name by Dutch poet M. Vasalis, "Time" follows a grieving man who is plagued by a strange and prophetic dream.

Two robots embark on a quest to become human.

The story of a girl, after a breakup, removing her makeup and finding herself again in grief. About life, places, being yourself wherever you are, in love, and not losing yourself, moving through things. "Balaclava Quemado is about not ceasing to be yourself no matter what situation you find yourself in; with or without wearing it, it's the strength to keep going, it's a bit of a symbol of taking the freedom that one can and carries within." Daniela.

A reflection on man's relationship and needs with the earth, with the self and with hope.

SWARAM is an experimental cinematic documentary film that explores the transformative power of music and sound. Through vivid field recordings and intricate depictions of sacred rituals, it immerses viewers in the profound connection between sound and the human experience. At its core, SWARAM looks into Kerala’s ritualistic art forms—Thottam Pattu, Pulluvan Pattu, and Kalamezhuthu Pattu—examining how rhythm and sound evoke trance states and facilitate spiritual transformation. It also blends ancient traditions with contemporary sonic explorations. Structured as a visual research publication, the film adopts the format of an academic paper, with distinct sections such as Backdrop, Abstract, Introduction, Case Studies, Conclusion, and Expert References. This unique approach seamlessly blends research with cinematic storytelling, offering viewers both an academic exploration and an immersive cinematic experience.

An experience of a camera swinging in different gestures facing the optical distortion of the Sun. The last appearance of the smudge.

After so many generational repetitions and beneath so many layers is a territory to be negotiated beyond each person’s skin, inside: the cavity that echoes the intimate and singular identity of everyone. The voice that populate this film bring us to various spaces in Matera, from tourist agglomerations to the town’s internal spaces (grottes, caves, cisterns, lanes, rooms) and the body’s own unassailable space: pleasure and desire for other bodies that no one can cancel.

In countless meeting rooms, an employee wants to resign. Her motivations don't matter, what matters is the catharsis of resignation.

A film essay that intertwines the director's gaze with that of her late mother. Beyond exploring mourning and absence as exclusively painful experiences, the film pays tribute to her mother through memories embodied by places and objects that evidence the traces of her existence. The filmmaker asks herself: What does she owe her mother for who she is and how she films? To what extent does her film belong to her?

Experimental Colombian short documentary on the treatment of livestock.