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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Victor Fleming’s 1939 film The Wizard of Oz is one of David Lynch’s most enduring obsessions. This documentary goes over the rainbow to explore this Technicolor through-line in Lynch’s work.
How to Cook Your Life (2007)
A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.
Air Fryers: Are They Worth It? (2023)
Denise Van Outen lifts the lid on Britain's air fryer obsession and asks the questions on everyone's lips... how do they work, what can we cook in them, and can they really save us time and money?
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.
Filmfarsi (2019)
A found-footage essay, Filmfarsi salvages low budget thrillers and melodramas suppressed following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
What Is to Be Done? A Journey from Prague to Ceský Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government (1996)
Quite a few years have passed since November 1989. Czechoslovakia has been divided up and, in the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus’s right-wing government is in power. Karel Vachek follows on from his film New Hyperion, thus continuing his series of comprehensive film documentaries in which he maps out Czech society and its real and imagined elites in his own unique way.
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.
Locations: Looking for Rusty James (2013)
A personal meditation on Rumble Fish, the legendary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where it was shot; and its impact on the life of several people from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay related to film industry.
Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner (2023)
Lies can kill. Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner is an exploration of propaganda, lies, and the overwhelming urge to end it all.
The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (1998)
Every image in The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography comes from gay erotic videos produced in Eastern Europe since the introduction of capitalism. The video provides a glimpse of young men responding to the pressures of an unfamiliar world, one in which money, power and sex are now connected.
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.
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.
Taon Noong Ako'y Anak sa Labas (2008)
Filmmaker John Torres describes his childhood and discusses his father's infidelities.
To Stay Alive: A Method (2016)
Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.
Visions of Europe (2004)
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
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.
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.
Obaida (2019)
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How to Make a Sandwich (2020)
Based on the popular phone service, "How To Make a Sandwich" is a short film directed by Drake Sanderson that depicts the rise of media star, Peter Willard, and his acclaimed sandwich-making skills. From breads to meats to condiments, follow Peter as he teaches you how to make the perfect sandwich!
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.