After the disappearance of Aldemar his wife decided to get overall uncertainty by including him in the list of deaths in the 1938 Colombian National Census. Today, 83 years later, I repeat her. I try to find myself among the numbers in the digital database in order to finish the torture that has also implied my own disappearance.
Debra Paget, For Example (2016)
A video essay where the author presumes motivations and insights in a fictionalized biography regarding Debra Paget, a contract player for 20th-Century Fox whom they groomed and coached for stardom.
The Barbie Movie (2025)
Equal parts documentary, visual essay, experimental collage narrative, and parodic homage to and of all things Barbie, this caustic and exciting visual foray embraces the complicated terrain of feminist discourse, cultural criticism, and political rhetoric, as well as insights on gender, identity, and personal experience where all roads lead back to the phenomena that is Barbie.
Obit (2017)
How do you put a life into 500 words? Ask the staff obituary writers at the New York Times. OBIT is a first-ever glimpse into the daily rituals, joys and existential angst of the Times obit writers, as they chronicle life after death on the front lines of history.
Visions of Europe (2004)
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
D is for Division (2018)
1940. On the border between Latvia and the USSR, a woman is killed in front of her house as she tried to protect her son from the liberating attack of the Soviets. Almost 80 years later, the archive photo bearing witness to this news item and representing a collateral victim of the European Union’s founding conflict forms the starting point for a journey undertaken by Davis Sīmanis. He navigates from one side to the other of this border, which today represents another separation, one that is geographical but also cultural: between Europe and Russia.
Elemental (2015)
40,000 years in the making: Kogonada's video essay created for The Connected Series.
O Cinema é Minha Vida (2021)
In the dressing room of the French cinema, minutes before attending a lecture, François Truffaut recalls his trajectory
Velvet Bayou (2022)
A short film essay on Blue Velvet (1986) and The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). The fact that Blue Velvet was almost shot in black and white is explored in comparison with the original scenes, as the choices of different directors (within a ten-year interval) when choosing Roy Orbison's music for their films.
The Land of the Enlightened (2016)
A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...
And the Dogs Were Silent (1976)
For 'Et les chiens se taisaient' Maldoror adapted a piece of theatre by the poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), about a rebel who becomes profoundly aware of his otherness when condemned to death. His existential dialogue with his mother reverberates around the African sculptures on display at the Musée de l'Homme, a Parisian museum full of colonial plunder whose director was the Surrealist anthropologist Michel Leiris.
Panoramas (2019)
In 1829 the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt attempted a russian-siberian expedition. Humboldt travelled to obtain a clear view of nature, people and life in this immense country. 2019 naturalists and humanists attempted a transdisciplinary expedition on the trails of Humboldt. To capture the events various cameras were taken along. A non-chronological narration.
Magaluf Ghost Town (2021)
At the height of the summer tourist season, the Spanish beach town Magaluf turns into a hellscape of the low-cost travel industry. For eight weeks every year, over one million mostly British vacationers ride an alcohol-soaked tide of public urination, fisticuffs and ambulance sirens for recreation. Instead of assembling a clip-reel of "balconing," when drunk idiots jump into hotel pools from their balconies, filmmaker Miguel Ángel Blanca crafts a far deeper and atmospheric look at a place where visitors and locals alike are driven by pleasure. Long-time resident Maria has little time left, so she takes in a seasonal lodger who listens to her relive her glory days. An enterprising real estate agent peddles an extravagant development, while a young gay man drifts without any plans beyond robbing a tourist for kicks. Part ghost story, part foreboding parable, this is a stylish and vivid impression of people and a place dreaming of escape. Myrocia Watamaniuk (Hot Docs)
Watching the Pain of Others (2019)
In this deeply personal video diary, a young researcher tries to make sense of her fascination for the film "The Pain of Others" by Penny Lane. A deep dive into the discomforting world of YouTube and online conspiracies, that challenges traditional notions of what documentary cinema is, or should be.
Parallel Lives (2021)
Born June 8, 1964, Frank Matter films four "twins", born the same day as him, but in other latitudes. Interweaving their life stories with rich archival material, the filmmaker links these Parallel Lives with elements from his own biography, to compose a fascinating fresco where intimate trajectories are part of the advent of the global village.
The Cooking Show (2021)
The cooking show is as old as television itself. But why do we like watching the making of a meal that most of us will never cook, let alone eat? Dirty Furniture’s jam-packed video essay is a rollercoaster ride through the history of the genre, at once a staple of television viewing and a hotpot of shifting perspectives and sociocultural values.
No Traces of Life (2024)
Building on Forensic Architecture’s previous investigation into herbicidal warfare and its effects on Palestinian farmers along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip, this investigation marks Land Day in Palestine by examining the systematic targeting of orchards and greenhouses by Israeli forces since October 2023. Our analysis reveals that this destruction is a widespread and deliberate act of ecocide that has exacerbated the ongoing catastrophic famine in Gaza and is part of a wider pattern of deliberately depriving Palestinians of critical resources for survival.