On July 6, 2024, The Sun-Ray Cinema at 5 Points in Jacksonville, Florida screened its final film.
The Final Reel (2016)
An affectionate and entertaining look at our nation's obsession with cinema from the early days of silent cinema, through the golden age of the picture palace, to the modern multiplexes and beyond. A celebration of Norfolk-area cinemas past and present that introduces some colourful characters who kept audiences coming back for more, this film also asks: Is this the final reel in the story of cinema or just another chapter in its continuing development?
The Scars (2019)
The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?
Khomkham (2024)
Grandma Kham, an 87 year-old-woman, lives lone and is still strong enough to burn charcoal and weed out grass. But what does she have to go through along the way? And how will she prepare for her own final moment?
Golem's Breath (2023)
This semi-fictional short film follows the protagonist to Prague and explores how the medium of film can access the memories of a city. The film is based on the family history of the director, who fled Czechoslovakia after the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968.
No More Joy: The Rise and Fall of New Orleans Movie Theatres (2005)
From the first movie nickelodeon on Canal Street in New Orleans at the turn of the century to the mega-plex theatres in the suburbs of the city, this film traces their history. With interviews from the people that were working in silent movie theatres to the visionaries that knew that "if you built them they will come", this is fascinating look at a history in a city that is a joy in everyone's memory.
Cinema Morocco (2021)
For two decades, Cine Marrocos, a movie theatre in the heart of São Paulo, was one of the most popular and opulent of the city. After it was closed, in 1972, it was occupied by a homeless workers' movement. The documentary tells the story of the people who lived there, alternating scenes from an acting class with those of the movies exhibited there in the past.
61 Suns (NaN)
A filmmaker’s meditation on loss and grief. A digital eulogy and swan song to his creative partner and best friend. Mixed media woven into the fading daydream of their time together.
Plains (2023)
Set in the sparsely populated lobster fishing villages of southern Nova Scotia, Plains is a cinema vérité approach to documenting the curious lives of Jon and Cat, a young couple who are developing politically left-leaning virtual reality video games. Against the busy backdrop of their art practice, we sit in on their quiet rural life, which, in its proximity to nature and the vast green and oceanic spaces that surround, echoes the romanticism of a simpler time. As the decaying world of physical labour and the mechanical industry faces up to an expanding digital empire, Jon gradually retreats into the alternative realities of his own design.
Tourist;Drifter (2022)
An experimental coming-of-age odyssey through someone's troubled mind, going from country to country, landscape to landscape, growing up in the process. A documentary, travelogue, vlog, dream and self-portrait. A reflection on life, death and history.
A Personal Fidget (NaN)
Based upon a habitual fidget of the filmmaker involving the tags in his clothing, Reilly Mitchell explores the feelings of his past by removing something that has always stayed so close to him and turning it into something new.
A Real Hero (2024)
A Real Hero is an experimental documentary about the life and humanitarian work of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Cinéma Laika (2023)
In the heart of the Finnish forest, the long-closed foundry of the little town of Karkkila has come back to life thanks to director Aki Kaurismäki and his creation of the town's first cinema. The peace and calm of the little town of Karkkila, nestled deep in the Finnish forest, is interrupted by unexpected sounds. In the abandoned foundry, noisy building work is taking place. Inside the building, Aki Kaurismäki is both builder and site manager of what is soon to become the Kino Laika cinema. The creation of the cinema is the talk of the town. In the factory still in activity, in a 1960s Cadillac, in a bikers' club, in the local pub, in the woods or in Aki Kaurismäki's former editing room, people start talking about cinema again.
The Goddess on the Throne (NaN)
The voice of historian Aleks Buda echoes into the present – words, met by darkness, the absence of things. How to confront history when there are no objects to which this history adheres? How to revisit a history marked by gaps?
Black River (2017)
An observational documentary, shot on high-contrast black and white 16mm film, about a largely undeveloped river in southeastern North Carolina that is home to the oldest trees east of the Rocky Mountains.
Pictures of Ghosts (2023)
Downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century are mostly gone. That city area is now an archaeological site of sorts that reveals aspects of life in society which have been lost. And that’s just part of the story.
Narcissus (2023)
A quirky deep dive into the mind of a confused young man struggling to balance personal ambitions and family responsibilities.
81 Meters (2022)
Spring 2021. A cinephile invites you on an intimate trip through the last surviving cinema houses in Latvia. This documentary essay, shot on super 8mm, opens the locked doors to picture houses during a Covid-19 lockdown, perhaps the most difficult time in the history of physical cinema space.