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.
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A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.
Julia (2021)
Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.
Todo Todo Teros (2006)
Basically an artist is also a terrorist, the protagonist thinks in an unguarded moment. And if he is a terrorist after all, then he might just as well be one. Not an instant product, but an experimental feature in which diary material is brought together to form an intriguing puzzle.
Taon Noong Ako'y Anak sa Labas (2008)
Filmmaker John Torres describes his childhood and discusses his father's infidelities.
In the Intense Now (2017)
A personal essay which analyses and compares images of the political upheavals of the 1960s. From the military coup in Brazil to China's Cultural Revolution, from the student uprisings in Paris to the end of the Prague Spring.
You Could Have Seen The Mona Lisa (2021)
The world’s museums are closed. What are you missing? Take a real-time walk through the Louvre towards the “greatest painting ever” and contemplate what it would be like to be there yourself.
Vila do Conde Extended (2015)
A boy from Vila do Conde records a love letter on a cassette. His voice blends with music, archive images and stories from the past, some lived and others heard.
The Future Tense (2022)
Staged as a series of voiceover sessions, written with gloriously off-balanced precision and dipped in the color green, THE FUTURE TENSE unfolds as a poignant tale of tales, exploring the filmmakers’ own experiences in aging, parenting, mental illness, along with the brutal history that lies submerged beneath Ireland’s heavy, moist earth.
The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking (2022)
In the year Queen Elizabeth marks her 70th on the throne, Fortnum & Mason has challenged home bakers to create a tart, cake, or pudding to honor her legacy. Seven judges headed by Dame Mary Berry invite the final five bakers to London where over one extraordinary day they bake their cakes, tarts, and trifles – hoping it will be the winning recipe.
White Noise (2019)
A reflection on the fate of humanity in the Anthropocene epoch, White Noise is a roller-coaster of a film, a whirlwind of sounds and images. The fourth feature-length work by Simon Beaulieu, this film essay plunges viewers into a subjective sensory adventure—a direct physical encounter with the information overload of daily life. White Noise transforms the imminent collapse of our civilization into a visceral aesthetic experience.
Vowellet - An Essay by Sarah Vowell (2005)
This Pixar documentary short follows Sarah Vowell, who plays herself as the title character, on why she is a superhero in her own way. (This short piece is included on the 2-Disc DVD for "The Incredibles", which was released in 2005.
Arcadia (2017)
A provocative and poetic exploration of how the British people have seen their own land through more than a century of cinema. A hallucinated journey of immense beauty and brutality. A kaleidoscopic essay on how magic and madness have linked human beings to nature since the beginning of time.
New Hyperion or Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood (1992)
From the behavior, discourse, and appearance of individual actors, Vachek composes, in the form of a mosaic, a broad and many-layered film-argument about Czechoslovak democracy in the period of its rebirth, all administered with the director’s inimitable point of view.
F for Fake (1973)
Documents the lives of infamous fakers Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. De Hory, who later committed suicide to avoid more prison time, made his name by selling forged works of art by painters like Picasso and Matisse. Irving was infamous for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles moves between documentary and fiction as he examines the fundamental elements of fraud and the people who commit fraud at the expense of others.
(There Is No) Cure (2022)
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25 Years with Lidia: A Culinary Jubilee (2023)
A look at the life of chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Lidia Bastianich both on and off the screen as she celebrates 25 years on public television.
The Road to Magnasanti (2017)
In 2010, an obsessed gamer designed the perfect game of Sim City. Achieved through a repeating pattern of clustered high rises, “Magnasanti” exposes the hellish consequences of top-down civic design. In his new documentary, John Wilson explores how New York City is creeping closer and closer to realizing this fictional metropolis.
Constructing Albert (2017)
Portrait of the Catalan chef Albert Adrià, brother of the world-renowned chef Ferran Adrià, an emerging figure in the world of Spanish haute cuisine, with his own voice, far from the shadow of his brother.
The Making of Michel Petite (NaN)
The film shows the behind-the-scenes process of making a documentary about an author known for their autofiction stories. By including its own behind-the-scenes footage, it mirrors the author's storytelling approach, blending the documentary’s creation with the author's narrative technique. In this way, the relationship between reality and fiction is questioned.