Political Cinema

The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.

Eduardo Coutinho was filming a movie with the same name in the Northeast of Brazil, in 1964, when there came the military coup. He had to interrupt the project, and came back to it in 1981, looking for the same places and people, showing what had ocurred since then, and trying to gather a family whose patriarch, a political leader fighting for rights of country people, had been murdered.

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

Oliver Stone charts the history of the United States from the Second World War to the present.

A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.

He's devoted his career to uncovering stories the powerful want buried. From My Lai to Abu Ghraib, dig into the life's work of journalist Seymour Hersh.

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

A look at the origins, history and conspiracies behind the "Majestic 12", a clandestine group of military and corporate figureheads charged with reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.

Decades after her untimely death, Princess Diana continues to evoke mystery, glamour, and the quintessential modern fairy tale gone wrong. As a symbol of both the widening fissures weakening the British monarchy and the destructive machinery of the press, the Princess of Wales navigated an unparalleled rise to fame and the corrosive challenges that came alongside it. Crafted entirely from immersive archival footage and free from the distraction of retrospective voices, this hypnotic and audaciously revealing documentary takes a distinctive formal approach, allowing the story of the People’s Princess to unfold before us like never before.

An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.

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 compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Follow the evolution of the 'Halloween' movies over the past twenty-five years. It examines why the films are so popular and revisits many of the original locations used in the films - seeing the effects on the local community. For the first time, cast, crew, critics and fans join together in the ultimate 'Halloween' retrospective.

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

A road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents.

Experience the events of September 11, 2001 through the eyes of President Bush and his closest advisors as they personally detail the crucial hours and key decisions from that historic day.

Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

The Making-of James Cameron's Avatar. It shows interesting parts of the work on the set.

A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.

Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity

The film follows the final days of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election through livestreams and edits on the Chinese social media platform TikTok, which at that time had around 80 million active users in the country.

Blue for a Moment is a documentary portrait of Swedish-born, Berlin-based musician Sven-Åke Johansson, a key figure in European improvised and experimental music. Active as a jazz drummer, composer, poet and visual artist, Johansson has spent decades challenging artistic conventions and genre boundaries. Born in 1943, he moved to Berlin in the late 1960s and became involved in the city’s experimental scene, including the Zodiak Free Arts Lab. During the 1970s and 1980s he played an important role in the West Berlin free jazz movement around the FMP/SÅJ label, collaborating with musicians such as Alexander von Schlippenbach and Rüdiger Carl. Influenced by Fluxus and modernist traditions, Johansson developed a distinctive approach based on noise, reduction and the use of everyday materials, anticipating the Echtzeitmusik scene that emerged in Berlin after 1990. The film explores his creative process, artistic philosophy and lasting impact on contemporary experimental music.

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.

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.

Relationships, rehearsals, performances, hobbies, and family life of the members of the Guarneri String Quartet.

Weaving blistering performance footage from Europe, Japan, and the U.S. with a sublimely restrained, intimate glimpse into a world-renowned jazz percussionist’s singular voice and complex cosmology.

The story of the iconic electronic music group Yello and the phenomenon of their 1980's hit song, exploring the song’s cultural impact and its enduring place in the American psyche.

Developed from footage filmed during a road trip between São Paulo and Caraíva at the turn of 2008 to 2009, "coração-PALAVRA" grows from a domestic record into an essay film about memory, time, and plural forms of fatherhood. Drawing on a home archive accumulated over nearly two decades, the film moves between past and present to explore what endures and what changes in relationships between fathers and sons.

A study of observation, perceptions and sensations of nature and human interactions from the eye of a digital camera

To understand the obsession with federal deputy and presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) and how his network of support is structured on the internet, VICE went to São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul to investigate its largest bases of support in the country.

Although the free jazz movement of the 1960s and '70s was much maligned in some jazz circles, its pioneers - brilliant talents like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane - are today acknowledged as central to the evolution of jazz as America's most innovative art form. FIRE MUSIC showcases the architects of a movement whose radical brand of improvisation pushed harmonic and rhythmic boundaries, and produced landmark albums like Coleman's Free Jazz: A Collective Inspiration and Coltrane's Ascension. A rich trove of archival footage conjures the 1960s jazz scene along with incisive reflections by critic Gary Giddins and a number of the movement's key players.

Portrait about the planning and rehearsal of Richard Wagner's Parsifal directed by Calixto Bieito at the opera house in Stuttgart.

Shirley Clarke's frenetic documentary about multi-talented musician Ornette Coleman.

"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." A 7 day vlog during the summer of 2023, a story of dreamers and drowners.

Buenos Aires seems like the ideal metropolis: stunning views, art and warm people. However, apathy and control threaten to overtake the city’s spirit to turn it into a place where the cruel are rewarded while the righteous are punished. Can we change the path?

Cecil Taylor was the grand master of free jazz piano. "All the Notes" captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.