La bola negra / The Black Ball

 

Los Javis (= Javier Ambrossi et Javier Calvo): La bola negra / The Black Ball (ES/FR 2026). Guitarricadelafuente as Sebastián of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, standing on the statue of Saint Sebastian, the Christian saint and martyr of the 3rd century.

Data from Wikipédia: "La bola negra est un film dramatique franco-espagnol réalisé par Los Javis (Javier Ambrossi et Javier Calvo), sorti en 2026. Il s'agit de l'adaptation du roman inachevé La Boule noire de Federico García Lorca, le poète espagnol assassiné par les nationalistes durant la guerre d'Espagne en 1936. Le film est également inspiré de La piedra oscura, du dramaturge et scénariste du film Alberto Conejero, sur les amours de Lorca et du joueur de football Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, tous deux victimes de la guerre d'Espagne."

Synopsis: "L'intrigue se déroule en Espagne en 1932 (République espagnole), 1937 (Guerre d'Espagne) et 2017 (Espagne contemporaine), et explore les vies étroitement liées de trois hommes homosexuels."

Titre original et français : La bola negra.

    ES/FR 2026. Sociétés de production : Suma Content Films, en coproduction avec El Deseo, Los Esquiadores A.I.E., Movistar Plus+ et Le Pacte. Production : Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo et Jorge Pezzi. Production associée : Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar, Fran Araújo, Guillermo Farré, Alice Labadie, Jean Labadie, Esther García et Manuela Ocón Aburto. Production exécutive : Paula Cipriota.

    Réalisation : Los Javis (= Javier Ambrossi et Javier Calvo). Scénario : Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo et Alberto Conejero, d'après le roman éponyme (années 1930) de Federico García Lorca et la pièce de théâtre La piedra oscura (2013) d'Alberto Conejero.

    Photographie : Gris Jordana - couleur - 1,85:1 - shot on 35 mm, Super 35 - master format: 4K - released formats: DCP, UHD video. Décors : Roger Bellés. Costumes : Ana López Cobos. Musique : Raül Refree. Son : Anna Harrington et Alejandro Lopez. Montage : Alberto Gutiérrez. 

    Distribution :

Guitarricadelafuente : Sebastián

Carlos González : Alberto

Miguel Bernardeau : Rafael Rodríguez Rapún

Lola Dueñas : Teresa

Penélope Cruz : Nené

Glenn Close : Isabelle

Milo Quifes : Carlos

Alberto Cortés : Federico García Lorca

    Dedicated to the memory of Federico García Lorca.

    Loc: Castil de Carrias (mi-chemin entre Belorado et Briviesca), Cantabria (Comillas, Valdáliga), Andalucía (Granada: l'église Sainte-Anne, le parc Carmen de los Mártires, la colline de l'Albaicin), Castilla-La Mancha (Sigüenza, Guadalajara), Madrid. - Athens, Greece.

    Genre : drame

    Langue originale : espagnol

    Durée : 155 minutes

    Sociétés de distribution : Elastica Films (Espagne), Le Pacte (France).

    Dates de sortie :

France : 21 mai 2026 (Festival de Cannes) ; 16 décembre 2026 (en salles)

Telluride Film Festival : 5 Sep 2026

Espagne : 20 septembre 2026 (Festival international du film de Saint-Sébastien) ; 25 septembre 2026 (en salles)

    Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF).

    Opening gala hosted by Pauliina Ståhlberg and Outi Rehn in English only. (No Finnish, no Swedish).

    Viewed with English subtitles (n.c.) at Bio Rex, Helsinki, 17 Sep 2026.

NB. In the advance information, La bola negra by Federico García Lorca was called an unfinished novel. In the movie it is presented as an unfinished play.

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026 Program Guide:

H/Sat 9:15AM - P/Sun 9AM Q&A - C/Mon 1PM

Larry Gross (TFF 2026): "In 2017, Alberto (Carlos González), a struggling playwright, tries to piece together his grandfather’s story. In 1939, Sebastián (Álvaro Lafuente Calvo aka Guitarricadelafuente) unenthusiastically joined the Fascist forces, then fell in love with Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau), a POW fighting for the other side. The writer-directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, legends of episodic TV in Spain, connect the three through an unfinished Federico García Lorca play. They ingeniously weave together the fragments of story across time with astonishing clarity and wit, syncopate the entangled themes of politics, sexuality and theater, and bring forth wonderful performances from González, Calvo and Bernardeau. Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close shine in brief, vivid cameos. The directors, aka “the Javis,” are heroes of episodic TV, and here take full advantage of the expanded canvas, turning a moment of Spain’s bloody history into a joyous celebration of the indestructible flame of romantic passion." –LG (Spain/France, 2026, 155m) In person: Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo, Carlos González

AA: La bola negra directed by the duo Los Javis (= Javier Ambrossi et Javier Calvo) is a flamboyant gay odyssey through Spanish history from the Civil War to the present time. 

It is a non-linear narrative jumping back and forth in three time zones (1932, 1937, 2017).

The original visual style of Los Javis is powerful, lavish and gorgous, at times evoking Derek Jarman (Caravaggio), le Cinéma du Look (Beineix), 1980s Music Television and erotic gay glamour photography. Copious male nudity is on display, as well as cadavers and mutilated bodies patched back to health in hospitals. Los Javis are not squeamish about gore and blood. All is held together by an intense queer gaze.

Gris Jordana brings a hyper-intense shine into his vision, lusciously recorded in photochemical 35 mm, its vivaciousness surviving in the digital transfer. I wish Christopher Nolan had succeeded in capturing more of such Mediterranean heat in The Odyssey.

Raül Refree's score is magnificent, invoking a spirit of liberty and grandeur from the beginning.

Style over substance?

The politics is identity politics. It is about the fight for your right to be yourself. Also relevant in the fight against Fascism, which asks you to deny yourself.

ORIGINAL SONG, proposed for the Academy Awards:

    "La nieve", Guitarricadelafuente (co-written with Raül Refree).

SOUNDTRACK LISTING from what I manage to find and write down from the end credits

    "Soldadito español", de La orgía dorada (1928), banda de música cornetas y tambores de la Academia Auxiliar Militar, perf. Judeline.

    "La leyenda del tiempo" (1979), Camarón de la Isla, Federico García Lorca, rearr. Raül Refree, Pablo Lluch. "Está considerada una de las obras más importantes de la historia del flamenco." (es.Wikipedia).

    Roza Eskenazi: "Ginomai andras"

    Angelillo: "Milonga de Juan Simón" from La hija de Juan Simón (1930).

    Manuel Falla: "Danza española" from La vida breve (1913).

39th Helsinki International Film Festival (Rakkautta & Anarkiaa / Love & Anarchy, 17-27 Sep 2025) lineup

 

39th Helsinki International Film Festival poster (2026). Art: Juliana Hyrri

39th Helsinki International Film Festival trailer: Jäänyt (FI 2026). PC: OSASTO. D: Kimi Issakainen. Full credits see below.

It is impossible to see everything at Love & Anarchy the Helsinki International Film Festival. In the early days I tried, with the consequence that I have forgotten everything. The more I see now the more time I need to process.

But I recommend to read everything - all the program notes, which now only exist online. Everything is online, everything disappears online. No thing digital is durable. 

The Love & Anarchy program is a fantastic survey of the cinema today and the world today. Which is also about to vanish - life on Earth. We have known this all our lives and done practically nothing. We are Wile E. Coyote, running in denial of the abyss underneath. Hoping for a last minute rescue.

Please click on this Love & Anarchy the Helsinki International Film Festival hyperlink.

10S ACROSS THE BORDERS

9 WAD SU SWRRKH / 9 TEMPLES TO HEAVEN

AFFEKSJONSVERDI / SENTIMENTAL VALUE

AGORI ME TA GALAZIA MATIA, TO / THE BOY WITH THE LIGHT-BLUE EYES

ALBARIH ALEAYN MA NAMAT / البارح العين ما نامت / YESTERDAY THE EYE DIDN’T SLEEP

ÁRRU

ÁSTIN SEM EFTIR ER / THE LOVE THAT REMAINS

ATTENBERG

BOG NEĆE POMOĆI / GOD WILL NOT HELP

CAMBODIANSKE ØLDRØMME / CAMBODIAN BEER DREAMS

CAMP

CONGO BOY

CORSET, LE / IRON BOY

DANCE CLUB, THE

DAO

DECORADO

DEMRING / DAWNING

DESHIELO, EL / THE MELTDOWN

DEVILS, THE

DOMINGOS, LOS / SUNDAYS

DOWN THE ARM OF GOD

DRACULA

DUA

EDUCATION OF JANE CUMMING, THE

END OF IT, THE

ERUPCJA

EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS

EVERYBODY TO KENMURE STREET

EVERYTIME

FJORD / VUONO

FULL PHIL

GETRÄUMTE ABENTEUER, DAS / THE DREAMED ADVENTURE

GEYNYEOGA DORAON NAL / THE DAY SHE RETURNS

GLORIOUS SUMMER

GOOD BOY

GRADIVA, LA

GRAZIA, LA

HAN YE DENG ZHU / LIGHT PILLAR

HANGAR ROJO / THE RED HANGAR

HANTU DALAM SEL / GHOST IN THE CELL

HEIMATLOSE, DER / TRIAL OF HEIN

HER PRIVATE HELL

HISTORY OF CONCRETE, THE

HOMEBOUND

HOPE

I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING

IF I GO WILL THEY MISS ME

IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU

INGEN KÆRE MOR / THREE OF A KIND

JIM QUEEN / JIM QUEEN À LA RECHERCHE DE LA CHLOROQUEER

JÓHANNA AF ÖRK / JOAN OF ARC

JOSSAIN ON VALO JOKA EI SAMMU / A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT

JOURNAL D’UNE FEMME DE CHAMBRE, LE / THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID

KABUL JAN / NO GOOD MEN

KEVLARSJÄL / KEVLARSJÄL – ISKUNKESTÄVÄ SIELU / KEVLAR SOUL

KHATERAT IRAN / REHEARSALS FOR A REVOLUTION

KHMELI POTOLI / DRY LEAF

KITKATCLUB – KINKS OF BERLIN

KOKUROJO / THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER

KOTA / KANA / HEN

KOTIMAINEN KILPAILU: AIKAMATKOJA

KOTIMAINEN KILPAILU: HÄMÄRÄN RAJAMAILLA

KOTIMAINEN KILPAILU: INHIMILLINEN TEKIJÄ

KOTIMAINEN KILPAILU: MITÄ JÄLJELLE JÄÄ

KOTIMAINEN KILPAILU: NÄIN MEIDÄN KESKEN

KOTIMAINEN KILPAILU: PALKITUT

KOTIMAINEN KILPAILU: SUKUPOLVIEN VÄLILLÄ

KRATA ME / HOLD ONTO ME

KUANG WANG JING TAN / ARRESTED MEMORY

KURTULUŞ / SALVATION

LIBERDAD DOBLE, LA / DOUBLE FREEDOM

MAAN LAULU / EARTH SONG

MARIE MADELEINE

MECENATEN / THE PATRON

MEIN FREUND DER PORNOSTAR / MY FRIEND THE PORN STAR

MÉMOIRE DE FILLE / A GIRL’S STORY

METSÄSOTA JA RAUHA

MINOTAUR

MOTHER OF FLIES

MOUSE

NAGI DIARY / NAGI NOTES

NARCISO

NEW GROUP

NITRATE KISSES

NO REST FOR THE WICKED

NOX

NUESTRA TIERRA / LANDMARKS

NUISANCE BEAR

OLMO

PALESTINE 36

PAPER TIGER

PIKAD PABERID / ROLLING PAPERS

PILLION

POETA, UN / A POET

PRAYER FOR THE DYING, A

QUEEN AT SEA

R&A SHORTS: AFRICAN EXPRESS

R&A SHORTS: BALTIAN ANIMAATIOHUIPUT

R&A SHORTS: LAUGHING IN SWEDISH

R&A SHORTS: LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX

R&A SHORTS: NÄYTÖN PAIKKA

R&A SHORTS: NIGHT VISIONS ESITTÄÄ

R&A SHORTS: OUTOUDEN LAAKSO

R&A SHORTS: POHJOLAN HUIPUT

R&A SHORTS: REALITY TECH

R&A SHORTS: SATUJA AIKUISILLE

R&A SHORTS: SILMÄKARKKIA

R&A SHORTS: SKÁBMAGOVAT ESITTÄÄ: ČSV – NÄYTÄ SAAMEN HENKEÄ

R&A SHORTS: TOISENLAJISET

R&A X AMOS ANDERSONIN RAHASTO: MIAMI & MASTERCLASS

ROMA ELASTICA

ROQIA / رقية

ROSE OF NEVADA

SECRET READING CLUB OF KABUL, THE

SER QUERIDO, EL / RAKASTETTU / THE BELOVED

SHAME AND MONEY

SI NO ARDEMOS, CÓMO ILUMINAR LA NOCHE / IF WE DON’T BURN, HOW DO WE LIGHT UP THE NIGHT

SILENCE

SILENCIO / SIRENS CALL

SISTER

SOLDIERS OF SONG

SOLOMAMMA

SOUMSOUM, LA NUIT DES ASTRES / SOUMSOUM, THE NIGHT OF THE STARS

SOUND OF HOPE, THE

STAATSSCHUTZ / PROSECUTION

STATION, THE

STILLE FREUNDIN, DIE / SILENT FRIEND

TABI TO HIBI / TWO SEASONS, TWO STRANGERS

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA

THEIR TOWN

TIGREAS, LOS

TINIHARU / ELEPHANTS IN THE FOG

TITANIC OCEAN

TONI ERDMANN / ISÄNI TONI ERDMANN

TRULY NAKED

VÄRN / REDOUBT

VIE D’UNE FEMME, LA / A WOMAN’S LIFE

WAREWARE WA UCHUJIN / WE ARE ALIENS

WO MEN BU SHI MO SHENG REN / WE ARE ALL STRANGERS

WU MING NÜ HAI / A GIRL UNKNOWN

YÖN LAPSI / NIGHTBORN

...

TRAILER: JÄÄNYT: CREDITS

39th Helsinki International Film Festival trailer: Jäänyt.

FI 2026.

Production: OSASTO

Screenwriter & Director: Kimi Issakainen

Producer: Salla Ryynänen

Cinematographer: Alex Savander

Assistant director: Pauliina Talikka

Production managers: Anni Soukkala, Mia Kelho, Jaana Hiltunen

Gaffer: Samuel Valkola

1st camera assistant: Henrik Leppänen

2nd camera assistant: Petri Ollila

Lighting technicians: Jori Asikainen, Marko Pyykkönen

Grip: Joonas Saine / BongoBongo

Precision Driver: Thomas Vikfors / BongoBongo

Production designer: Heini Erving

Costume designer: Anna Vilppunen

Make-up and hair: Kira Muesa

Make-up and hair assistant: Daria Taivas

Still photographer: Oskari Pulkkinen

Sound recordist: Riku Kuikka

Organizer: Joni Mustakallio

Traffic controller: Marko Aaltonen, Timo Hyvönen

Casting: Ansku Sinisalo, Nea Törmänen / Helsinki Casting

Catering: Ruoto Catering

Editor: Jerry Strengell / Combo Media

Music and sound design: Ilari Heinilä / Noki Creative

Color grading: Marko Terävä / Post Control

VXF & 3D: Sakke Soini, Otso Reitala

Teaser editor: Altti Heinilä / Noki Creative

Mixing: Ilmari Apajalahti

Violin recording: Jussi Koski-Laulaja

Theatre mixing: Olli Pärnänen / Meguru

Graphic design: Matilda Diletta

Typographer: Luka Appelberg

Actors:

Helmi: Laura Birn

Arvo: Martti Suosalo

Young Helmi: Aamu Milonoff

Criminal police Kai Varen: Karim Rapatti

Varjo & Armo: Iona & Aidan

Call center: Krista Kosonen

Music: 

Claude Debussy - Clair de Lune

Ilari Heinilä & Jasmine Lefrancois - Ce n’était pas ta faute

Musicians:

Double bass: Helmi Tikkanen

Violin: Anni Lassila

Guitars: Ilari Heinilä & Ville-Veikko Airaniemi

Percussion: Niklas Nordling & Altti Heinilä

Vocals: Jasmine Lefrancois

Pianos: Ilari Heinilä & Jasmine Lefrancois

Synthesizers and other instruments: Ilari Heinilä

Thank you:

SEK, OSASTO, ST1 Pornainen, Cafe Mustijoki, Villa Mustijoki, Pornaisten kunta, Pornainen Rantalan asukkaat, Polestar, Volvo, Sofia Ilmonen, Rolf Ekroth, Antti Tuominen, Katja Vattulainen, Iro Manninen, Jonna Salonen, Ruoto Catering, Noki Creative, Combo Media, Valofirma, Kamerafirma, BongoBongo, Helsinki Casting, Post Control, Mose MGMT, Pasi Kuikka, Punavuoren Folio Oy, Juliana Hyrri, Meguru, Silencio, Helsinki International Film Festival - Rakkautta & Anarkiaa / Love & Anarchy Ry.

The Debut (world premiere)

 

Jesse Eisenberg: The Debut (US 2026) with Julianne Moore as Mona.

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Galaxy, 7 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide: 

P/Sat 3:45PM Q&A - H/Sat 6:45PM - C/Sun 3:45PM - G/Mon 4:15PM 

21 The Debut 

Made possible by a donation from Jason Reitman & Lorraine Nicholson 

Bilge Ebiri: "In Jesse Eisenberg’s immensely charming comedy, an anxious New Jersey homemaker (Julianne Moore) lands a part in a local community theater musical production. She finds herself at the mercy of a domineering, big-fish-small-pond director (Paul Giamatti). It might sound like a cookiecutter script, but Eisenberg’s sharply, slightly insane take brings us a memorable story of self-actualization through creative destruction. Moore runs through wild, wonderful extremes as a woman who, having spent her life as a shrinking violet, is determined to make her mark on the world. Giamatti matches her beat for beat as the small-time impresario who tries to introduce this hapless novice to the liberating potential of the stage—and then both marvels and shudders at what he’s created. As the characters change, so too does the world around them, and Eisenberg’s deft direction balances both the film’s expertly timed comedy and a gorgeous drift into surrealism." –BE (U.S., 2026, 105m)  In person: Jesse Eisenberg, Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Emma Stone, Ali Herting

AA: As Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain was one of the best movies of 2024, The Debut was highly anticipated. Julianne Moore is Mona, a woman who has always stayed in the background. Her mundane presence does not at all betray that she might become a flamboyant musical star. She is nervous, dizzy, loud, tone-deaf, gaudy, explicit. It is as impossible to believe in her as a musical performer as in the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. And yet in both cases the miracle happens.

The Debut is about reinventing yourself. The courage of your conviction in your potential. The courage of being yourself.

It is a backstage musical, a putting-on-a-show musical, a celebration of the musical as an art of excess and exuberance. Sometimes too much is not enough.

Lovely performances by Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Bernadette Peters, Jesse Eisenberg himself, and others.

I am always fond of film directors writing songs for their movies. Like Jesse Eisenberg does here in perfect classic Broadway mode. 

The Story of Documentary Film (complete lineup of the 16 chapters)

 

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (GB 2026). Stencil colour film frame from: Serpentine Dance, Annabelle (US 1897), P: Edison, D: James H. White, starring Annabelle [Annabelle Moore, née Annabelle Whitford, aka Peerless Annabelle [1878-1961].

The Story of Documentary Film 

Film List (in order of appearance)

Documentary until the late 1920s: Travelogues, Power and People

Nanook of the North (1922)

dir Robert J. Flaherty

USA, France

The Battle Of Chile (1975)

dir Patricio Guzmán

Chile, Cuba

Stop Making Sense (1984)

dir Jonathan Demme

USA

Faces Places (2017)

dir Agnès Varda, JR

France

In Spring (1929)

dir Mikhail Kaufman

Ukraine, Soviet Union

Electrocuting an Elephant (1903)

dir Edwin S. Porter

USA

Slon Tango (1993)

dir Chris Marker

France

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)

dir Walter Ruttmann

Germany

In Spring (1929)

dir Mikhail Kaufman

Ukraine, Soviet Union

MORE UNDER THE JUMP BREAK

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Part 4) Chapters 12-16 (five hours) in person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Scotland/GB 2026). Agnès Varda frames the image in Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (FR 2000).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Masons Hall Cinema, 7 Sep 2026

Moderated by Jason Silverman.

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

Part 1 C/Fri 10AM - Part 2 C/Fri 2:15PM - Part 3 MV/Sat 8:30AM - Part 4 M/Mon 9AM Q&A

38 The Story of Documentary Film

Jason Silverman: "Mark Cousins, our most eloquent and prolific cinephile, has directed some 60+ hours of documentaries. His latest Herculean effort, a 16-hour film, exists in a class by itself, an encyclopedic yet poetic summary-analysis-celebration of non-fiction film that travels the globe and spans 130 years, from pre-Lumière experiments to today. He shares exquisite clips of city symphonies, ethnographic treasures, Fascist propaganda and personal essays in an endless, continually fascinating stream (the film would be a thrill to watch even as a silent reel). His narration alternates between astounding factoids, provocative musings, political insights and odd confluences (the film starts with shots of elephants, taken over the course of 100+ years). Cousins has gifted us more than the story of documentary: it’s a story of big ideas, of truth and truthiness, of history unfolding before our very eyes. Watching it, in part or in whole, will rewire you." –JS (Scotland/U.K., 2026, 960m, shown in four parts) In person: Mark Cousins,

John Archer, Joslyn Barnes

Chapter 12: The 2000s Part 1: One Day in September

Chapter 13: The 2000s Part 2: Trouble the Water

Chapter 14: The 2010s Part 1: Avenger Assemble

Chapter 15: The 2010s Part 2: Beyond Borders

Chapter 16: The 2020s: All That Breathes

AA: The last stretch of Mark Cousins's marathon of history and cinema is devoted to the 21st century. In Chapter 12 the focus is on the September 11 attacks in 2001 - al-Qaeda's suicide attacks against the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon. Cousins meditates on the existential fear and the panic that ensued in the White House, leading to "endless wars" in the Middle East which last to this day.

Cousins reflects on the relationship of the incredible reality with monster movies such as King Kong. Discussed are major movies on the aftermath such as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (the Patriot Act), Jehane Noujaim's Control Room (based on Al Jazeera coverage), Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight (the Iraq war) and Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side (US torture practice in Afghanistan).

Rithy Panh is introduced with his stunning S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, about the genocide in Cambodia. Israeli occupation of Palestine is examined in Raanan Alexandrowicz's The Inner Tour, Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir and Avi Mograbi's Avenge But One of My Two Eyes.

The new subgenre of skating movies is represented by Stacy Peralta's Dogtown and Z-Boys. The montage movie expands into the kaleidoscope cinema of Tarnation, in which the director Jonathan Caouette comes to terms with family madness. Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans, about a family's legacy of incest, is included. 

Another expansion of the montage movie is Thom Andersen's essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself, consisting entirely of clips from entertainment films with an emphasis on the documentary reality of their location shooting. In contrast, Terence Davies crafts Of Time and he City, his wonderful collage film of his native Liverpool, from newsreels and non-fiction.

Ecology is a growing theme. The misunderstanding or maltreatment of animals is discussed in Werner Herzog's The Grizzly Man and Louie Psihovos's The Cove (dolphins). The epic scale of pollution is exposed by Xia Jangke in Dong (mercury contamination). The extreme danger in labour conditions and the exposure to poisoning is the subject in six chapters of Workingman's Death by Michael Glawogger.

I am surprised to discover here a Finnish film I was not aware of: Dariusz Kowalski's Luukkaankoski. It is a vision of "abstract nature": footage of a freeway at night transforming into a metaphysical vision.

Cousins kick-starts Chapter 13 with Jackass reality slapstick footage about self-inflicted pain, seguing into Charles Ferguson's Inside Job, the masterpiece about the corruption behind the 2008 financial crisis. We are back to madness (but perhaps we have never left it) with Slavoj Žižek and The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. Self-inflicted pain is pursued also by Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me (a human experiment on himself at McDonald's restaurants). The timeless legacy of recycling is discovered as a philosophical principle by Agnès Varda in her masterpiece Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse. 

Laura Poitras enters the story with Flag Wars, about the culture clash of gay white inhabitants with their black working-class neighbourhood. 

Ecological calamity keeps expanding as a theme. The Hurricane Katrina is discussed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal in Trouble the Water and Spike Lee in his magnificent series When the Levees Broke. From Al Gore's classic PowerPoint lecture, An Inconvenient Truth, grows into one of the blockbusters of the documentary film, with a worldview changing impact.

José Padilha's Bus 174, about a bus hijacking in Rio de Janeiro, belongs to the cinema's notable sociological close observation studies. Likewise Judy Kibinge's Coming of Age, a growing-up story about democracy in Kenya. As well as Eva Mulvad's Vores lykkes fjender / Enemies of Happiness, about the first Afghan woman to enter parliament. Zhao Liang creates in Petition a stunning investigation about the Chinese government's persecution of people who defy it. Adam Curtis in The Power of Nightmares challenges received notions about radical Islamism. In West of the Tracks, Wang Bing records the downfall, "xiagang", of giant, formerly flourishing industrial districts in China. In nine hours, he tries to tell everything.

In 2005, the online video sharing platform YouTube is founded. The concept: broadcast yourself. With more visibility than any documentary so far. Upload to infinity and beyond. In 2007, Netflix enters, a subscription video on-demand streaming service. The reign of linear television is over. Apple's iPhone is launched in 2007, and the sales of smartphones jump around 2010.

Eva Weber's The Intimacy of Strangers is about the end of intimacy in overheard telephone conversations. De fem benspænd / The Five Obstructions by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth is a documentary experiment of five remakes of a 1960s movie by Leth. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Dokfa Nai Meu Man / Mysterious Object at Noon is another experiment, following the "exquisite cadaver" idea of random contributions to a folk story as a documentary. Knut Erik Jensen's Cool & Crazy is a study of male choir  dynamics and self-discovery in Norway.

Just two chapters covered so far in this entry. The God is in the detail, and every detail counts.

In Chapter 14 we enter the global reach of BRICS in Petra Costa's The Edge of Democracy (Petrobras corruption in Brazil) and the epic The Salt of the Earth based on the mind-boggling photographs of Sebastião Salgado, about the exploitation of nature and the working masses, "a film almost mystical"

Citizenfour by Laura Poitras reveals that the reality of surveillance today makes George Orwell's dystopia look tame. Gestapo, KGB and Stasi were amateurs in comparison with the Patriot Act.

Cinema's Black awareness grows to a new high with films such as Raoul Peck's I am Not Your Negro. Zhao Liang's Behemoth (2015) shows the crushing power of industrial transformation in China. In his Petition we see hundreds of ghost cities emerging.

MTV in the 1980s and YouTube in 2005 changed the terms for shortform movies. Camera technology was revolutionized. Lightweight, high definition cameras could enter everywhere in China, Palestine and Iran. In house arrest, the persecuted Iranian master Jafar Panahi could make a film like This Is Not a Film. Found footage films found new audiences in YouTube. Dmitrii Kalashnikov made The Road Movie in Russia. Surveillance cameras mushroomed. In China there are more surveillance cameras than any other country. The end of privacy.

In Chapter 15 we meet Gianfranco Rosi recording the 2015 European migrant crisis at Lampedusa in Fire at Sea. Jack Macinnes and James Bluennel film Syrians leaving Izmir in Exodus: Our Journey to Europe. 

In Chile, maestro Patricio Guzman makes Nostalgia for the Light, tracking down remains of the disappeared in the Atacama desert. Sarah Polley creates an autobiographical documentary in Stories We Tell about her own childhood family, revealing family secrets. Chantal Akerman's No Home Movie is a searing record of the director's own mother. 

Raed Antoni's Ghost Hunting, made in Occupied Palestinian Territory, cuts to the history of torture and violence. Asif Kapadia's Amy is an intimate documentary of the singer Amy Winehouse's struggle with substance abuse. A different kind of close study is Martin Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue, on Bob Dylan. 

Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing took unusual measures to cover the extraordinary violence in the Indonesian massacres of 1965-1966.

Chapter 16, All That Breathes, starts with a ghost story: the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2023. "Reality seemed to lose some of its realness. Reality was stranger than fiction again". Sara Dosa makes a film about volcano lovers, Fire of Love. Shaunak Sen's All That Breathes is about involuntary extreme sports: living in the air pollution of Delhi. 

De humani corporis fabrica / The Fabric of the Human Body tells about the fragility of human flesh. Laura Poitras features Nan Goldin in All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, about the opioid epidemic and the Sackler family. Housing problems continue to be a major subject, generations after Edgar Anstey's classic. 

Authoritarianism is on the rise. Ai Weiwei documents Hong Kong's protest activism against Chinese oppression. Bobi Wine: The People's President covers the popular movements of Uganda. Russia's Feldzug into Ukraine is documented in remarkable movies including 20 Days in Mariupol.

A splendid panoply of topical and historical non-fiction is on display in the final chapter. The pandemic emerges as a standstill and a reset. Tik Tok videos rise as yet another platform for short form non-fiction. 

The digital is fantastic for distribution and access. There is no one truth about the visual quality in digital. In general the digital image is clinical. This whole series is of course in digital, but one can see the difference in the original sources: a digital image from a good film source remains more vivid and vibrant; if the source is digital, it tends to be clear, clean and sharp but not equally lifelike.

I am left reflecting on the magnificence of the legacy of the documentary film. This is a series to be revisited over and over again. A must for film schools and media studies. A work of endless inspiration. Our age is exceptional because now everybody is invited to contribute to the legacy of documentary film. Citizen activism changes the cinema. It changes the world. Woody Guthrie's guitar motto "This machine kills fascists" has been adapted as the film's official t-shirt slogan.

Bill Morrison: Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon (in person: Bill Morrison)

 

Bill Morrison: Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon (US 2026).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Le Pierre, 6 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

L/Sun 3:45PM Q&A

3 Stories of Resilience

TFF: "Three deeply intimate, human stories reveal the realities of authoritative state-control through history, and the enduring, integral resilience of family, neighbors, and community. Director Sarah Gavron’s A DANCE THROUGH TIME (U.K., 2026, 25m) brings her grandmother’s audio recordings—a memoir of her childhood—into a new focus, casting family members to enact, in shadow theater, a slow, painful family separation necessitated by the rise of Nazi Germany. In MAYBE TOMORROW, journalist and activist Wafa Mustafa refuses to let up her search for her father, one of more than 160,000 civilians disappeared during Assad’s regime (Wafa Mustafa and Waad Al-Kateab, U.K., 2026, 40m). With SAWYER AVENUE, SUNDAY AFTERNOON (U.S., 2026, 18m), Bill Morrison provides a startling composite of ICE body-cam footage and civilian cell phone recordings, creating a shocking account of an October 2025 incident in Chicago, in which a young man is detained in the street, prompting a neighborhood protest." –TFF In person: Sarah Gavron, David Katznelson, Waad Al-Kateab, [Wafa Mustafa was unable to come], Bill Morrison

AA: Bill Morrison in Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon documents fascism in action in the United States in 2026, based on legally accessed ICE body-cam footage and cell phone videos by six neighbours of the victims on Sawyer Avenue in Chicago. An electrifying reconstruction, often in four-way split screen, about paramilitary brutality in storm trooper mode, and, even more pointedly, about civil courage in a true American spirit. The one who fights has already won, at least his own dignity. The one who does not fight has already lost.

Screening the three films A Dance Through Time, Maybe Tomorrow and Sawyer Avenue Sunday Afternoon in a single show was an inspired piece of programming. Citizens rising against authoritarianism is an engrossing sight for today. The Q&A moderated by Mark Danner contributed to an understanding of how these films were made. All different, all united by a fighting spirit.

Wafa Mustafa and Waad Al-Kateab: Maybe Tomorrow (in person: Waad Al-Kateab)

 

Wafa Mustafa and Waad Al-Kateab: Maybe Tomorrow (GB 2026).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Le Pierre, 6 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

L/Sun 3:45PM Q&A

3 Stories of Resilience

TFF: "Three deeply intimate, human stories reveal the realities of authoritative state-control through history, and the enduring, integral resilience of family, neighbors, and community. Director Sarah Gavron’s A DANCE THROUGH TIME (U.K., 2026, 25m) brings her grandmother’s audio recordings—a memoir of her childhood—into a new focus, casting family members to enact, in shadow theater, a slow, painful family separation necessitated by the rise of Nazi Germany. In MAYBE TOMORROW, journalist and activist Wafa Mustafa refuses to let up her search for her father, one of more than 160,000 civilians disappeared during Assad’s regime (Wafa Mustafa and Waad Al-Kateab, U.K., 2026, 40m). With SAWYER AVENUE, SUNDAY AFTERNOON (U.S., 2026, 18m), Bill Morrison provides a startling composite of ICE body-cam footage and civilian cell phone recordings, creating a shocking account of an October 2025 incident in Chicago, in which a young man is detained in the street, prompting a neighborhood protest." –TFF In person: Sarah Gavron, David Katznelson, Waad Al-Kateab, [Wafa Mustafa could not attend], Bill Morrison

AA: In Maybe Tomorrow, Wafa Mustafa tells about the search for her father, long lost in the prison system of the regime of Assad in Syria. Her single-minded search is connected to an epic pursuit of thousands of relatives tirelessly trying to track down their beloved ones in the brutal machinery of repression. Eloquent and powerful.

Sarah Gavron: A Dance Through Time (in person: Sarah Gavron, David Katznelson)

Sarah Gavron: A Dance Through Time (GB 2026).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Le Pierre, 6 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

L/Sun 3:45PM Q&A

3 Stories of Resilience

TFF: "Three deeply intimate, human stories reveal the realities of authoritative state-control through history, and the enduring, integral resilience of family, neighbors, and community. Director Sarah Gavron’s A DANCE THROUGH TIME (U.K., 2026, 25m) brings her grandmother’s audio recordings—a memoir of her childhood—into a new focus, casting family members to enact, in shadow theater, a slow, painful family separation necessitated by the rise of Nazi Germany. In MAYBE TOMORROW, journalist and activist Wafa Mustafa refuses to let up her search for her father, one of more than 160,000 civilians disappeared during Assad’s regime (Wafa Mustafa and Waad Al-Kateab, U.K., 2026, 40m). With SAWYER AVENUE, SUNDAY AFTERNOON (U.S., 2026, 18m), Bill Morrison provides a startling composite of ICE body-cam footage and civilian cell phone recordings, creating a shocking account of an October 2025 incident in Chicago, in which a young man is detained in the street, prompting a neighborhood protest." –TFF In person: Sarah Gavron, David Katznelson, Waad Al-Kateab, [Wafa Mustafa could not come], Bill Morrison

AA: Sarah Gavron's A Dance Through Time is an enchantingly imaginative memory project in which from scattered remnants of a Jewish family history a continuum is crafted via dance - often in silhouettes in front of photographs in projection. An audiotape by the grandmother (1919-1997) evokes a Berlin of the 1920s, the rise of the Nazis, the destruction and burning of the family library, the exile to England where the first host finds that "Hitler is a wonderful man". The substance of Gavron's movie is a topical warning for today, and its artistic form - dancing through history - could prove an inspiration for others. 

Khaterat Iran / Rehearsals for a Revolution, in person: Arash Ahtiani ( خاطرات ایران)

 

Pegah Ahangarani: Khaterat Iran / Rehearsals for a Revolution ( خاطرات ایران) (CZ/ES 2026).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Le Pierre, 6 Sep 2026

Larry Gross (TFF): "Pegah Ahangarani’s astonishing documentary, an award winner at Cannes, interweaves one woman’s autobiography with the tragic history of Iran during the past 40 years. Beginning with vibrant home movie images of her parents as romantic cinephiles and enthusiastic supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution, Ahangarani’s portrait shifts as the fallout of the fanatical new regime arrives: an inspiring teacher loses her job for not wearing a hijab; her dad’s best friend is jailed and executed; a beloved uncle who has joined street protests commits suicide. Ahangarani, one of Iran’s leading actresses, is clearly inspired by the film diaries of Jonas Mekas, as she brilliantly juxtaposes the poetic language of memory with the harsh truth: searing cinéma vérite images of political violence. Her film, for all its anguish, achieves the heights of the greatest Iranian films. It is incandescent." –LG (Czech Republic/Spain, 2026, 98m) In person: (Pegah Ahangarani announced, was denied a visa).

M/Sat 4PM - L/Sun 1:15PM Q&A - MV/Mon 9:15AM

1  For My Father

2  For My Dearest Teacher

3  For My Uncle

4  For Amir and the Rebels of the Streets of 2004

5  For Life

AA: Pegah Ahangarani draws us in the turmoil of world history in her movie which is at once a chronicle of the continuing revolutions of Iran and a personal diary, inviting us to share a family history of defiance and bravery. It is a unique growing-up story based on home movie footage, sound recordings, photographs. It is epic in scope and intimate as well. A film which needs to be revisited. About a great story that keeps being written as we watch this movie. Words fail to convey the brutality of the military terror, the nadir of which was the January 2026 massacre, the biggest in contemporary Iran. And the heroism of the people of Iran, not least the liberation fighters of "Woman, Life, Freedom". Pegah Ahangari conveys the guilt of not being there. And the love to her daughter Lily. The love to the future.

The deeply moving Q&A with Arash Ahtiani, the editor of the movie, was conducted by Mark Danner.

Rose (2026) in person: Markus Schleinzer, Sandra Hüller

Markus Schleinzer: Rose (DE 2026) with Sandra Hüller in the title role as a veteran of the Thirty Years' War.

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Chuck Jones' Cinema, Mountain Village, 6 Sep 2026

S/Sat 6:45PM - C/Sun 9AM - L/Sun 8:45PM Q&A

7a Rose

Larry Gross (TFF): "Markus Schleinzer opens his film with an evocative, black-and-white composition of the early 17th-century German countryside, ravaged by the fires of war, as a woman (Sandra Hüller), presenting as a man in soldier’s clothing, arrives in a village, holding documents that establish their homestead. Schleinzer’s script, co-written with Alexander Brom, is filled with brilliant twists and intriguing nuance, and his lucid-dream cinematography (by Gerald Kerkletz) evokes Carl Dreyer’s THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC. But this soldier is no saint: they are intransigent, mysterious, powerful, hard-working ... and determined and ready to seize their own freedom, whatever it takes. Hüller is magnificent (as is the entire supporting cast, with special notice to Caro Braun, as the maiden the soldier takes as his wife). Who is Rose? That question, presented brilliantly in this somber, thought-provoking, tense and provocative fairytale, is sure to be discussed by future generations." –LG (Austria/Germany, 2026, 94m) In person: Markus Schleinzer, Sandra Hüller

AA: "Who are you?" asks Suzanna (Caro Braun) from her husband Rose (Sandra Hüller). A sting from a bee has set in motion a chain of events which reveal that her man is not a man. Tragedy ensues.

At the end of the Thirty Years' War, a former soldier arrives at a remote village and introduces himself as the sole inheritor of an abandoned plot which has fallen into disrepair. Against all advice he settles in, turns it into a successful farm and pays well to his help. In return to the access to the stream he needs to marry the owner's daughter. When offspring is expected, even that can be arranged. Nobody suspects anything until the bees sting.

When truth comes out, everybody turns against Rose except Suzanna who has grown to love her. "With trousers comes freedom". With the revelation comes imprisonment, trial and executions.

Markus Schleinzer directs with an assured pace, a sense of the lived world and authenticity in tools, buildings and clothing. This is a world of a brutal war and hard work. The stranger achieves everybody's respect first by the renovation of the farm and then by his bravery in killing a bear which threatens the sheep. He even teaches everybody to read and write - a true Lutheran calling, essential to the mission of the Thirty Years' War. 

"Leben. Betrug und Lüge." "Life. Betrayal and lie", states the stranger. What he achieves is real enough, even prophetic for the future. 

Central to the récit are the prosthetic devices of a flaccid penis and an erect one. Rose has learned their use in the war. The besieged is supposed to be taught by the victor who the master is. In prison, Rose is subjected to the same treatment to her jailers in a gang rape. Before she is executed, a baby is born.

Magnificent compositions in black and white, a sense of nature, often in the early cinema style of the tableau in long take and long shot. The finale is in the great legacy of Carl Th. Dreyer (The Day of Wrath).

What a film!

Black and white. English subtitles n.c.

...

Rose brings to my mind another reality-based story, Sissinä lainavaatteissa ([A Guerrilla in Borrowed Clothes], 1958) by Usko Kemppi, taking place 50 years later in the Great Northern War in Finland, a woman fighting in male disguise. I read it as a child.

In the cinema, I sense in Sandra Hüller's presence an affinity with Nonna Mordyukova in Aleksander Askoldov's Komissar (SU 1967).

The tale of an unknown soldier returning from the war after ten years and adopting the identity of another is also familiar from Le Retour de Martin Guerre (FR 1982, D: Daniel Vigne, starring Gérard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye) and its American remake Sommersby (US 1993, D: Jon Amiel, starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster). The French original is based on trial documents from 1561, 100 years before the events of Rose.

A novel by Usko Kemppi, Sissinä lainavaatteissa [A Guerrilla in Borrowed Clothes] (1958), introduced me to the subject of a woman fighting a war disguised as a man.

A Tribute to Sandra Hüller (Telluride 2026)

 

Sandra Hüller. Telluride Film Festival.

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Chuck Jones' Cinema, Mountain Village, 6 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

Bilge Ebiri (TFF): "By any imaginable metric, Sandra Hüller is having an incredible year. February, she won Best Actress at Berlin for her remarkable turn in Markus Schleinzer’s ROSE. In March, we saw her scene-stealing supporting turn in the surprise sci-fi hit PROJECT HAIL MARY. May brought us her central performance in Paweł Pawlikowski’s masterful Cannes-winner FATHERLAND. And in October, she will star opposite Tom Cruise in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s much-speculated-about DIGGER. One might be tempted to call Hüller’s flurry of activity and accomplishment a fluke. Still, the truth is that this level of excellence and engagement has become standard in Hüller’s career: Her previous annus mirabilis was just two years ago. In 2023, she starred in two of that year’s most acclaimed pictures, Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL (which won the Palme d’Or and earned her an Oscar nomination) and Jonathan Glazer’s THE ZONE OF INTEREST, which won Cannes’ Grand Prix and Best International Feature at the Academy Awards. Even as her film career rises to new levels, the actress continues her acclaimed work on the German stage, where she has won several major awards. She recently had her directorial debut with Penthesile:a:s at the Neues Theater Halle in 2025."

"Theater acting requires projection to reach the audience in the back rows. Film acting, on the other hand, demands subtlety, as the camera magnifies the most minute gestures. Remarkably, Hüller has mastered both. Her characters, though they may vary wildly, are united in the fact that we love watching them think, perform, and be. In ROSE, Hüller plays a woman who poses as a male soldier during the Thirty Years’ War, shows up in a remote village and claims to be the male heir of a sizable plot of land. We know very little of her past, other than the scar that marks her face and the flattened bullet she chews on. The austerity of Schleinzer’s style and the story’s enigmatic quality ensure that the film’s drama and heartbreak are all contained within the tension on the soldier’s face. And when it finally breaks (as a Hüller performance almost always does, with each of her characters working their way towards catharsis), the results are astounding. “She’s able to evoke both this tremendous empathy and at the same time be incredibly cold,” Triet said to The Hollywood Reporter in 2023. “She can be incredibly tough and then just sort of melt.”"

"Both ROSE and FATHERLAND are tales of characters caught between realities. Pawlikowski’s film follows the author Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Hüller) as they return to post-war Germany, where he will receive honors from both the West and the East. Thomas and Erika are, in effect, people without a country, and their geographic, political, and personal journey embodies their alienation. Which brings us to another facet of many of Hüller’s performances: Even as she portrays specific people with seemingly real inner lives, she also allows something more cosmic to slip through. These characters speak to truths that feel eternal."

–Bilge Ebiri

The program includes a selection of clips, an on-stage interview and ROSE, shown in its entirety.

S/Sat 6:45PM - C/Sun 9AM

Introduced by Jason Silverman.

Interview in English with Scott Foundas 30 min.

CLIP REEL:

REQUIEM

TONI ERDMANN

SIBYL

THE ZONE OF INTEREST

SUSI & I

ANATOMY OF A FALL

I REFUSE TO ROT INSIDE

PROJECT HAIL MARY

AA: In tears, Sandra Hüller received a standing ovation. 2026 is another great year for her with Rose, Fatherland, Project Hail Mary and Digger (forthcoming). She told us that she "does not think much about the camera" and claims that she "doesn't know anything about the technical side such as framing". The mere mention of Toni Erdmann made her laugh. She "loves to sing and does it all the time". In Sibyl she was asked by Justine Triet to play her. In Anatomy of a Fall "we agreed we don't know the solution. It is not what the film is about". The Zone of Interest: "it is difficult for Germans to play Nazis". Rose and Fatherland are love letters to people who have to hide who they are.

A Song for the Snow Lion (in person: Pawo Choyning Dorji, hosted by Pico Iyer)

 

Pawo Choyning Dorji: A Song for the Snow Lion (BT/US 2026) with Yo-Yo Ma.

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Le Pierre, 5 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

L/Sat 6:15PM Q&A - TP/Sun 8:45 

36 A Song for the Snow Lion 

TFF: "Among the most tangible climate disasters on the planet are the melting of Bhutan’s glaciers, which provide fresh water for more than 1.5 billion people—20% of the planet. The glaciers and their surrounding Himalayan peaks also serve as the spiritual center for the Bhutanese people, who look to the Snow Lion, the protector of the mountains, for meaning and inspiration. The folk singer Kelden Lhamo Gurung and famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma send offerings to the spirits of the mountains in this moving, thoughtful and exquisitely photographed short film by Pawo Choyning Dorji, who brought the Oscar-nominated THE MONK AND THE GUN to the Festival in 2023. His film asks us to consider all that we endanger as we forcefully alter the natural order." –TFF (Bhutan/U.S., 2026, 20m)

In person: Pawo Choyning Dorji

AA: Pawo Choyning Dorji promotes a spiritual awakening in A Song for the Snow Lion. We are still reeling from the images of 26 August 2026 of the Nepal flash floods due to the glacier collapse, images surpassing what we have seen in the history of catastrophe movies.

A probably much more extreme catastrophe is in the making in the Bhutan glaciers which provide fresh water for 20% of the population of the Earth. We know this but remain in denial and paralysis and escape to the virtual world of our mobile devices.

Within a single lifetime the glaciers may vanish entirely.

Pawo Choyning Dorji, teaming with maestro Yo-Yo Ma, wants to awaken our spirits with art. The ancient story of the Snow Lion is the anchor. To tell a story is to untie a knot. The Bhutanese wisdom is that we are at one with nature. Happiness is rooted in interdependence. In Bhutan, mountains are not conquered. If we try that, they conquer us. When glaciers melt, the Snow Lion dies, and we with it. 

In Bhutan, everything is very symbolic. We must slow down and return to a human pace. Care for the world.

In a movie like this, the message is everything. It could not be greater.

A Long Winter (in person: Andrew Haigh, Fred Hechinger) (world premiere)

 

Andrew Haigh: A Long Winter (GB 2026). Fred Hechinger as Mike.

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Chuck Jones' Cinema, Mountain Village, 5 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

P/Fri 5:45PM - C/Sat 12:45PM - G/Sun 9:15PM - H/Mon 9AM Q&A

1a A Long Winter

Larry Gross (TFF): "Writer-director Andrew Haigh transposes Colm Tóibín’s acclaimed novella to the rugged landscape of the American Rocky Mountains in the 1950s. Lester (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Louise (Caitríona Balfe) and their two sons Tom (Kit Connor) and Mike (Fred Hechinger) scratch out a precarious living raising chickens and rabbits. When Tom departs for army service in Korea, and Louise abandons the home in an alcoholic fury, Lester and Mike begin a desperate search to find her while attempting to sort out their troubles with neighbors, family members and each other. Haigh’s previous films (ALL OF US STRANGERS, LEAN ON PETE, 45 YEARS) have explored, in visionary ways, the nuances of human connection. Here, aided by the breathtaking mountain cinematography by André Turpin, he suggests the ways in which we are simultaneously truly alone in the world and in desperate need of one another. The performances, as always in Haigh’s films, are superb." –LG (U.K., 2026, 114m) In person: Andrew Haigh, Fred Hechinger, Caitríona Balfe, Colm Tóibín

AA: It is a privileged opportunity to watch Andrew Haigh's new movie A Long Winter in Telluride, since Haigh has transposed the events of Colm Tóibín's novella from Spain to - Telluride. Although the film has been shot in Alberta, Canada, the magnificent landscapes look remarkably similar to what we have just witnessed on the gondola ride to Mountain Village. The difference is that our early autumn mountain air is so crisp and clear that we can see everything in incredibly sharp detail to the greatest distance. Whereas in the late autumn, winter and early spring circumstances of A Long Winter the views are hazier.

The landscapes are what can be called sublime in the classical sense - overwhelming, transcending the limits of understanding. Eagles soaring in the sky add perspective. Vultures appear as an image of death. In these elevated surroundings takes place a family tragedy honestly and lovingly observed by Andrew Haigh with great performances by Caitriona Balfe as Louise, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as her husband Lester and Fred Hechinger and Kit Connor as her two sons Mike and Tom.

Louise leaves the mountain household just as the winter snow starts falling.When the snow arrives, it comes all at once and stays until spring, as Louise must know. When search parties are launched, everybody already suspects the worst. The mystery of Louise's disappearance is gradually unveiled. She is a city woman who has lived in the mountains against her wishes. In consolation, she has turned to the bottle and become an alcoholic. She loves her sons dearly but has a troubled relationship with Lester. Tom is fighting in the Korean War. A Long Winter becomes the story of Mike in search of the mystery of his mother and his own sexual identity.

Andrew Haigh combines powerfully the majestic sense of nature and the aching struggle in Mike's Bildungsroman. He achieves spiritual grandeur on a perfectly human scale. At times there is a shadow of lethargy, the signature ailment of post-Covid cinema.

...

The end credit song: The Carter Family: "Can The Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)" (1935). Ada R. Habershon and Charles H. Gabriel (1907), reworked by A. P. Carter.

...

On my flight back home from Denver to Helsinki via Reykjavik I read Colm Toíbín's original novella, bought from Telluride's legendary Between the Covers • Bruno Coffee, run by Brad and Jennifer Ball, one of the nicest bookstores in the world. Andrew Haigh follows Toíbín's book quite closely, while transferring it from Spain to Colorado. A major addition contributed by Haigh to the narrative substance is the ghost world. All of Us Strangers was an all-out ghost story, although I did not realize it immediately, because the ghosts are indistinguishable from "real people". In A Long Winter the "twilight zone" of the ghosts is not all-encompassing, and the ghost mother appears as a transparent spirit apparition in completely realistic circumstances.

Colm Toíbín: A Long Winter (2007). 2025 stand-alone edition of the novella with the author's afterword about its genesis. Simon & Schuster 2025.

A Tribute to Andrew Haigh (Telluride 2026) hosted by Pico Iyer, in person: Andrew Haigh and Fred Hechinger

Andrew Haigh. Telluride Film Festival.

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Chuck Jones' Cinema, Mountain Village, 5 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

Pico Iyer (TFF): "By now more and more of us have been enthralled—upended—by the quiet, emotionally intricate and ultimately devastating films of Andrew Haigh. They develop slowly, as a rule, and sometimes very little seems to happen—until we realize we’ve just experienced a near-silent detonation. One solitary, wordless scene reveals a love story to have been, all along, a heartbreaking portrait of loneliness. A couple has been married for almost half a century, but a letter arrives, and a woman realizes she may not know her lifelong partner at all. In his latest, A LONG WINTER, a young man watches his mother, with painful slowness, slip out of view."

"At the heart of Haigh’s achingly intimate portraits of vulnerability, no one knows where he stands in relation to anyone else. That’s the allure—the sorrow—of every exchange. Think of how the lonely protagonist in ALL OF US STRANGERS—the perfect title for all Haigh’s work—starts gazing at a man in a store. Some time after, the stranger comes up and says, “Let me take you home,” and we realize that this man the protagonist seemed to be cruising, is his dad."

"In that film, as in WEEKEND, Haigh was showing us how such uncertainties tremble with particular poignancy, traditionally, for gay men; there’s so much they can’t say—to parents, to colleagues, even to lovers. In both works, new loves check on the men they’re beginning to romance, with versions of “Are you queer?” Yet it’s reductive to cast him only as a groundbreaking explorer of the gay experience. In his unforgettable first film from the American West, LEAN ON PETE, you realize how many of us, in Haigh’s world, stand outside of family, looking in, and drift through brightly lit shadows in search of the smallest hope of connection."

"It seems almost inevitable that Haigh would be drawn to the contemporary novelist best known for his uncanny emotional intelligence, his fascination with secrecy and the intensity he builds without ever raising his voice, Colm Tóibín. His novella from twenty years ago, A Long Winter might almost have been an Andrew Haigh film the day it was composed, in part because both male artists inhabit female characters with uncanny, heart-stopping compassion."

"And no detail is accidental in a Haigh film: the shy man at the center of WEEKEND is a lifeguard surrounded by strangers taking long dives. Moments of astonishing beauty arrive, to be replaced by more anonymous tower blocks and convenience stores. In this land of the unspoken, almost everything is conveyed through eyes and the subtlest of movements. Long after the film ends, you’re trying to unriddle the relationships at their heart. Haigh’s movies are whispers you can’t get out of your head."

–Pico Iyer

The program includes a selection of clips, an on-stage interview and A LONG WINTER, shown in its entirety.

P/Fri 5:45PM - C/Sat 12:45PM

Interview with Pico Iyer 30 min.

CLIP REEL:

WEEKEND

45 YEARS

LEAN ON PETE

LOOKING

ALL OF US STRANGERS

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Part 3) Chapters 8-11 (four hours) in person: Mark Cousins, John Archer

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Scotland/GB 2026). Agnès Varda frames the image in Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (FR 2000).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at the Marvin, Mountain Village, Village Market, 5 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

Part 1 C/Fri 10AM - Part 2 C/Fri 2:15PM - Part 3 MV/Sat 8:30AM - Part 4 M/Mon 9AM Q&A

38 The Story of Documentary Film

Jason Silverman: "Mark Cousins, our most eloquent and prolific cinephile, has directed some 60+ hours of documentaries. His latest Herculean effort, a 16-hour film, exists in a class by itself, an encyclopedic yet poetic summary-analysis-celebration of non-fiction film that travels the globe and spans 130 years, from pre-Lumière experiments to today. He shares exquisite clips of city symphonies, ethnographic treasures, Fascist propaganda and personal essays in an endless, continually fascinating stream (the film would be a thrill to watch even as a silent reel). His narration alternates between astounding factoids, provocative musings, political insights and odd confluences (the film starts with shots of elephants, taken over the course of 100+ years). Cousins has gifted us more than the story of documentary: it’s a story of big ideas, of truth and truthiness, of history unfolding before our very eyes. Watching it, in part or in whole, will rewire you." –JS (Scotland/U.K., 2026, 960m, shown in four parts) In person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes

AA: Today's stretch of the Mark Cousins marathon taken place in the farthest reach from the festival center. After the usual gondola ride to the Mountain Village I need yet another ride to the Market Plaza. The Marvin, a new festival cinema, named after Marvin the Martian, another Chuck Jones creation, was inaugurated here yesterday.

In their introduction, Mark Cousins and John Archer show us the oversize grid of their impossible 16-hour film monument, as well the movie's official t-shirt with the motto "documentaries kill fascism".

In Chapters 8 and 9 of The Story of Documentary Film we reach the 1980s. The signature event: The Fall of the Wall. A unifying theme: empathy. This while covering the decade of Margaret Thatcher: "society - there is no such thing". The world according to the Iron Lady is about competition, not cooperation.

The second wave of feminism is represented with movies like For Love or Money: A History of Women and Work in Australia which emerges as a major general survey on the subject. Electrifying samples are on display from La operación by Ana María García, about a clandestine sterilization programme pursued by the United States in Puerto Rico. The women submitted to it were not aware of the irreversible operation performed upon them. Atteyat Al-Abnoudy's Permissible Dreams tells about an undaunted woman farmer. "Human being is willpower". Mira Nair's Indian Cabaret brings empathy to its portrait of a stripper.

Empathy drives also Amos Gitai in Home (1980) about the reconstruction of a house in West Jerusalem, revealing tensions between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The Indian master Tapan Bose spent his life defending human rights in films such as Bhopal: Beyond Genocide (1986). Krzysztof Kieslowski enters the story with Talking Heads (1980) with the simple eloquent power of the human face. What matters most? Penny Woolcock in her debut film When the Dog Bites (1988) registers the situation of the people when a factory is closed. The contrast in conveying working people is marked in her film compared with Lindsay Anderson's condescension in O Dreamland.

The 1980s is also the decade of AIDS awareness. Rob Epstein brings us The Times of Harvey Milk (1984). In the same year, Robert Rosenberg and Greta Schiller draft the history of the gay and lesbian community in Before Stonewall. In Sweden, Jan Troell casts a critical look at the Swedish People's Home in Sagolandet (1988). In Poland, Solidarnosc is on the rise, covered in powerful documentaries. Anger grows in Eastern Europe. Is It Easy to Be Young? (1987) by the Latvian Juris Podnieks becomes a tremendous success. The infamous nuclear disaster in 1986 is covered in Vladimir Shevchenko's documentary Chernobyl (1987) including some of the earliest footage. The film itself suffered from radiation, as well as the director, who died the year after.

Chapter 9 has the subtitle "Detectives". Topics discussed include even MTV the Music Television, music videos and music films, from Santiago Alvarez's Now! to Jonathan Demme's Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense. Less known documentary discoveries include Assia Djebar's La Zerda ou les chants de l'oubli (1983) and Mani Kaul's Siddheshwari (1989). For Mark Cousins, Mani Kaul's film is the most beautiful in this story so far. Included is also Maximilian Schell's Marlene (1984). "Was ist denn eigentlich echt hier?" in Marlene's inimitable voice reverberates through the entire series.

Michael Moore launches with tremendous success a new trend of confrontative documentary in Roger & Me. In television, John Pilger starts a career of anti-colonialist activism in television documentary and becomes a pioneer in revealing the Cambodian genocide. Eduardo Coutinho's Twenty Years Later (1984) is a landmark exposé about the crimes of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Another celebrated documentary film detective, Errol Morris, argues in The Thin Blue Line (1988) that a man was wrongly convicted for murder. As a result, an innocent man is released. Judit Ember with her exposés holds the record of banned movies in Hungary. The image of a railway track carries the chapter. Inevitably we reach Shoah (1985) by Claude Lanzmann, a landmark in many ways, particularly in expressing the inexpressible. Kazuo Hara's The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) reveals shocking secrets about the Japanese army in WWII. Lanzmann could be intrusive in his interviews. Kazuo Hara even uses violence.

In contrast, in gentle and tender interaction, Abbas Kiarostami enters the story with Homework (1989). Robert Kramer's Route One/USA (1989) grows to a length of over four hours, blurring the line of fiction and non-fiction. Completely new dimensions are found by the Buddhist monk Godfrey Reggio in Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and the montage genius Chris Marker in Sans soleil (1983). Their works rise to the level of an original Weltanschauung.

To be continued.

The visual quality of the clips in episodes 1-7 was often mediocre, in episodes 8-9 much better. The clips are poetry, the framing contemporary footage is nondescript prose.

The experience of this series is shattering in many ways. 

It is too much for one man to digest in such a short time frame.

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Part 2) Chapters 5-7 (three hours) in person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes (world premiere of the complete series)

 

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Scotland/GB 2026). Agnès Varda frames the image in Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (FR 2000).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Chuck Jones' Cinema, Mountain Village, 4 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

Part 1 C/Fri 10AM - Part 2 C/Fri 2:15PM - Part 3 MV/Sat 8:30AM - Part 4 M/Mon 9AM Q&A

38 The Story of Documentary Film

Jason Silverman: "Mark Cousins, our most eloquent and prolific cinephile, has directed some 60+ hours of documentaries. His latest Herculean effort, a 16-hour film, exists in a class by itself, an encyclopedic yet poetic summary-analysis-celebration of non-fiction film that travels the globe and spans 130 years, from pre-Lumière experiments to today. He shares exquisite clips of city symphonies, ethnographic treasures, Fascist propaganda and personal essays in an endless, continually fascinating stream (the film would be a thrill to watch even as a silent reel). His narration alternates between astounding factoids, provocative musings, political insights and odd confluences (the film starts with shots of elephants, taken over the course of 100+ years). Cousins has gifted us more than the story of documentary: it’s a story of big ideas, of truth and truthiness, of history unfolding before our very eyes. Watching it, in part or in whole, will rewire you." –JS (Scotland/U.K., 2026, 960m, shown in four parts) In person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes

AA: The second session of Mark Cousins' The Story of Documentary Film takes us to 1960s Eastern Europe, including discoveries from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and East Germany, with a case study of Heynowski and Scheumann and Der lachende Mann, the astounding interview of the mercenary and former Nazi known as "Congo Müller". Müller also evokes the issue of staging actual atrocities for movie exploitation in the mondo movies of Gualtiero Jacopetti. His insinuations were never confirmed, but watching Müller we know he would have been capable of anything. Cousins also highlights Piloten im Pyjama, interviews with US prisoners of war in a Vietnamese prison and reminds us of the possibility of torture in the context.

The global phenomenon of the cinema of liberation is covered with classics such as La hora de los hornos but also discoveries from Egypt and Algeria and the cinema of Africa. Ireland is not forgotten. Cousins discusses Peter Lennon's Rocky Road to Dublin, de facto banned in Ireland for 30 years. Feminist discoveries include Krystyna Gryczełowska's The 24 Hours of Jadwiga L., preceding the insights in Jeanne Dielman. Cuban revolutionary cinema is on the agenda.

Iran enters the picture in classics by Forough Farrkokhzad (The House is Black) and Kamran Shirdel (The Night It Rained), which leads us to the phenomenon of mockumentary and David Holzman's Diary. Further down on the road we reach Andy Warhol's Sleep, for Cousins "the ultimate 1960's film".

Chapter Six brings us to the Seventies. Ecological awareness is growing, and the Japanese Minamata disaster becomes a topic for seminal documentaries both about the disaster and the magnificent protest action movements demanding justice for the victims. Cousins' discussion of the entire Japanese protest movie phenomenon is engrossing. 

Feminist awareness is on the rise, evoked in movies such as Growing Up Female. Chantal Akerman becomes a major documentary film-maker (News from Home). Želimir Žilnik of the Yugoslavian Black Wave makes a classic study about unemployment (Nezaposleni ljudi). In Egypt, documentaries of social realism are on the rise (Ateyyat El Abnoudy: House of Mud). Likewise in Columbia (Marta Rodriguez: Chircales).

The giant Frederic Wiseman continues his work in Welfare. Barbara Kopple's Harlan County, USA, joins a great tradition including Cavalcanti's Coal Face. Ciro Durán's Gamín exposes the condition of street children in Colombia. 

Not forgotten is the subject of football in the movies. The intimacy of diary movies is represented by Ed Pincus Diaries. Music documentaries grow into a major subgenre. The playfulness of the film essay is represented by F for Fake and Hussain Shariffe's The Dislocation of Amber. Poetry can be combined with naturalism, for example in Abdel Rahman Al Abnoudy's The Sad Song  of Touha.

Sarah Maldoror and Patricio Guzman (La batalla de Chile I-III) bring a powerful personal approach to accounts of historical turbulence. Palestinian resistance and liberation fight is covered in films essential also as documentation in circumstances where all testimonies are in danger of being erased. The rights of the First Nations are covered in Australian films of social commitment.

China is almost impregnable. Michelangelo Antonioni in Chung Kuo Cina faces the impossibility but does what he can by focusing on the dignity of the people. "You can show people's faces but not their hearts". Masks hide, masks reveal.

In India, Ritwik Ghatak, known for his powerful fiction, turns out to be also a master of the documentary. Cousins's montage of Indian documentary films of the 1970s is fascinating and forces me to admit yet again how little I know.

Chris Marker in his grand essay movie Le Fond de l'air est rouge is in puzzlement about the legacy of the Sixties. A refrain in the series is Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames. It is always a question of perspective. Sometimes you need to get closer. Sometimes you need to get the biggest perspective.

Bouleversant. Passionnant. To be continued.

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Part 1) Episodes 1-4 (four hours) in person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes (world premiere of the complete series)

Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (Scotland/GB 2026). Agnès Varda frames the image in Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (FR 2000).

Telluride Film Festival (TFF) 2026

Viewed at Chuck Jones' Cinema, Mountain Village, 4 Sep 2026

TFF 2026 Program Guide:

Part 1 C/Fri 10AM - Part 2 C/Fri 2:15PM - Part 3 MV/Sat 8:30AM - Part 4 M/Mon 9AM Q&A

38 The Story of Documentary Film

Jason Silverman: "Mark Cousins, our most eloquent and prolific cinephile, has directed some 60+ hours of documentaries. His latest Herculean effort, a 16-hour film, exists in a class by itself, an encyclopedic yet poetic summary-analysis-celebration of non-fiction film that travels the globe and spans 130 years, from pre-Lumière experiments to today. He shares exquisite clips of city symphonies, ethnographic treasures, Fascist propaganda and personal essays in an endless, continually fascinating stream (the film would be a thrill to watch even as a silent reel). His narration alternates between astounding factoids, provocative musings, political insights and odd confluences (the film starts with shots of elephants, taken over the course of 100+ years). Cousins has gifted us more than the story of documentary: it’s a story of big ideas, of truth and truthiness, of history unfolding before our very eyes. Watching it, in part or in whole, will rewire you." –JS (Scotland/U.K., 2026, 960m, shown in four parts) In person: Mark Cousins, John Archer, Joslyn Barnes

AA: Mark Cousins' 16-hour montage film is what the title announces: a history of the non-fiction film. Equally, it is a history of the world from the last 130 years - the film age. It is idiosyncratic but also a professional survey of the major periods, currents, trends, authors, continents and cultures of non-fiction. Cousins has a sober awareness of the difficulty of defining the "documentary". Ever since the one-minute actualities of the Lumière brothers, reality was staged for the camera. Robert Flaherty consciously recreated the past for his ethnographic classics, people enacting habits of their forefathers. It was never a matter of a simple record.

I enter Chuck Jones' Cinema fortified by a superb turkey club sandwich from the nearby Telluride Coffee Shop, not yet committed to a 16 hour marathon spread over four screenings. But as soon as the first hour-long chapter ends, I have no other choice, although that means sacrificing eight irresistible alternatives from the festival programme. I admire the encyclopedism, generalism and universalism of Cousins. He has changed our view about film history with achievements such as the inspirational 14-hour Women Make Film (in 40 chapters) which had a huge impact in film programming at film culture festivals and film archives. After Cousins's series, discoveries such as the work of the Bulgarian Binka Zhelyazkova even entered theatrical film distribution for the first time in Western Europe.

The Story of Documentary Film promises to be another stunning fount of inspiration. Chapters have already made the rounds at international film festivals. The first complete run takes place in Telluride.