Tuesday, September 08, 2026

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 of 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. 

The Story of Documentary Film (lineup)

 
Mark Cousins: The Story of Documentary Film (GB 2026).

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

Minamata: The Victims and Their World (1971)
dir Tsuchimoto Noriaki
Japan

Eternity (1994)
dir Lawrence Johnston
Australia

Who's More Important, What's More Necessary? (1930)
dir Margarita Barskaya
Soviet Union

Pictures of the Old World (1972)
dir Dusan Hanak
Czechoslovakia

In Spring (1929)
dir Mikhail Kaufman
Ukraine, Soviet Union

The Gleaners & I (2000)
dir Agnès Varda
France

Ten Minutes Older (1978)
dir Herz Frank
Soviet Union

Repas de bébé (1895)
dir Louis Lumière
France

Washing an Indian Baby (1904)

Dancing Woman (1887)
dir Eadweard Muybridge
USA

Workers Leaving the Factory (1895)
dir Louis Lumière
France

Serpentine Dance, Annabelle (1897)
dir James H. White
USA

Pillow Fight (1897)
dir William Heise
USA

Games on Reflection and Speed (1925)
dir Henri Chomette
France

Workers Leaving the Factory (1895)
dir Louis Lumière
France

Bicyclist (1896)
dir Louis Lumière
France

Fishing for Goldfish (1895)
dir Louis Lumière
France

Conway Castle (1898)
dir William K.L. Dickson
UK

A Street in Tokyo (1897)
dir Constant Girel
France

Palestine 1896 (1896)
dir Alexandre Promio
France

Pyramides (1897)
dir Alexandre Promio
France

Lake Garda, Northern Italy (1910)
prod Charles Urban
UK

Barcelona, Main City of Catalonia (1912)
dir Segundo de Chomón
France, Spain

The White Stadium (1928)
dir Arnold Fanck, Othmar Gurtner
Switzerland

Nanook of the North (1922)
dir Robert J. Flaherty
USA, France

The Great White Silence (1922)
dir Herbert G. Ponting
UK

Roald Amendsen - Ellsworth Flight Expedition (1925)
dir Paul Berge, Oskar Omdal
Norway

March of the Penguins (2005)
dir Luc Jacquet 
France

Gallivant (1996)
dir Andrew Kotting
UK

Powers of Ten (1977)
dir Charles Eames, Ray Eames
USA

Panorama Taken From A Tethered Balloon (1897 - 1898)
prod Louis Lumière
France

Workers Leaving the Factory (1895)
dir Louis Lumière
France

The Royals Must Be Photographed (1899)
dir Peter Elfelt
Denmark

The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927)
dir Esfir Shub
Soviet Union

The Sixth Part of the World (1926)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

Finlandia (1922)
dir Erkki Karu, Eero Leväluoma
Finland

Nanook of the North (1922)
dir Robert J. Flaherty
USA, France

Moana (1926)
dir Robert Flaherty
USA

A Noi! (1922)
dir Umberto Paradisi
Italy

Pour la Paix du Monde (1926)
dir Unknown
France

The Digger Carries On (1919)
dir Edward Davis Millen
Australia

The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927)
dir Esfir Shub
Soviet Union

Turksib (1929)
dir Victor A. Turin
Soviet Union

Nanook of the North (1922)
dir Robert J. Flaherty
USA, France

Drifters (1929)
dir John Grierson
UK

Fieldwork Footage (1928)
dir Zora Neale Hurston

The Fuentes Collection - Christmas Day (1928)
dir Antonio Rodríguez Fuentes
USA

The Great White Silence (1922)
dir Herbert G. Ponting
UK

The Oil Gush in Balakhani (1898)
dir Alexandre Michon
Russia

The Birth of a Flower (1910)
dir F. Percy Smith
UK

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925)
dir Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
USA

Smoking (1966)
dir Joe Jonas
USA

Blind Child (1964)
dir Johan van der Keuken
Netherlands

Rien que les heures (1926)
dir Alberto Cavalcanti
France

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
dir Walter Ruttman
Germany

In Spring (1929)
dir Mikhail Kaufman
Ukraine, Soviet Union

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

Games on Reflection and Speed (1925)
dir Henri Chomette
France

Palestine 1896 (1896)
dir Alexandre Promio
France

Pour la Paix du Monde (1926)
dir Unknown
France

A Noi! (1922)
dir Umberto Paradisi
Italy

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925)
dir Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
USA

Rien que les heures (1926)
dir Alberto Cavalcanti
France

Documentary in the 1930s and 1940s: Sound and War

Misery in Borinage (1934)
dir Joris Ivens, Henri Storck
Belgium

Land Without Bread (1933)
dir Luis Buñuel
Spain

The Plow That Broke The Plains (1936)
dir Pare Lorentz
USA

In the Street (1948)
dir James Agee, Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb
USA

Who's More Important, What's More Necessary? (1930)
dir Margarita Barskaya
Soviet Union

Salt For Svanetia (1930)
dir Mikhail Kalatozov
Soviet Union

I am Cuba (1964)
dir Mikhail Kalatozov
Cuba, Soviet Union

Labour on the Douro River (1931)
dir Manoel de Oliviera
Portugal

People of the Po Valley (1947)
dir Michelangelo Antonioni
Italy

Housing Problems (1935)
dir Edgar Anstey, Arthur Elton
UK

To-Day We Live: A Film of Life in Britain (1937)
dir Ralph Bond, Ruby Grierson
UK

Rien que les Heures (1926)
dir Alberto Cavalcanti
France

Coal Face (1935)
dir Alberto Cavalcanti
UK

Night Mail (1936)
dir Harry Watt, Basil Wright
UK

Listen to Britain (1942)
dir Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister
UK

Schichlegruber - Doing the Lambeth Walk (1941)
dir Charles Ridley 
UK

Fighting Soldiers (1939)
dir Kamei Fumio
Japan

The 400 Million (1939)
dir Joris Ivens
USA

Election Campaign (1932)
dir Ella Bergmann-Michel
Germany

Triumph of the Will (1935)
dir Leni Riefenstahl
Germany

Stalingrad (1943)
dir Leonid Varlamov
Soviet Union

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

Auschwitz (1945)
dir Elizaveta Svilova
Soviet Union

The Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1946)
dir Itô Sueo
prod Iwasaki Akira and others
Japan, USA

Days of Glory (1945)
dir Giuseppe De Santis, Mario Serandrei
Marcello Pagliero, Luchino Visconti
Italy, Switzerland

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
dir Vincente Minnelli
USA

Let There Be Light (1946)
dir John Huston
USA

Hôtel Terminus (1988)
dir Marcel Ophuls
France, USA, West Germany

The Sea Horse (1934)
dir Jean Painlevé
France

A Divided World (1948)
dir Arne Sucksdorff
Sweden

Sex Hygiene (1948)
dir John Ford, Otto Brower
USA

Men and Dust (1940)
dir Lee and Sheldon Dick
USA

So Much for So Little (1949)
dir Chuck Jones
USA

Blood of the Beasts (1949)
dir Georges Franju
France

Olympia Part One: Festival of Beauty (1938)
dir Leni Riefenstahl
Germany

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty (1938)
dir Leni Riefenstahl
Germany

Taris (1931)
dir Jean Vigo
France

À Propos de Nice (1930)
dir Jean Vigo
France

Documentary in the 1950s: Decolonisation, Fly-on-the-wall and Consumerism

Movietone News (1956)

Kon-Tiki (1950)
dir Thor Heyerdahl
Norway, Sweden

This is Korea (1951)
dir John Ford
USA 

The Mad Masters (1955)
dir Jean Rouch
France

Africa 50 (1950)
dir René Vautier
France

Pour la Paix du Monde (1926)
dir Unknown
France

State Funeral (2019)
dir Sergey Loznitsa
Lithuania, Netherlands

All the World's Memory (1956)
dir Alain Resnais
France

Golden Parable (1955)
dir Vittorio De Seta
Italy

Araya (1959)
dir Margot Benacerraf
Venezuela, France

Salt for Svanetia (1930)
dir Mikhail Kalatozov
Soviet Union

Night and Fog (1956)
dir Alain Resnais
France

City of Gold (1957)
dir Wolf Koenig, Colin Low
Canada

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)
dir Bill Morrison
USA

Côte d'Azur (1958)
dir Agnès Varda
France

Disneyland, U.S.A (1956)
dir Hamilton Luske
USA

Momma Don't Allow (1956)
dir Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson
UK

The Seafarers (1953)
dir Stanley Kubrick
USA

Daybreak Express (1953)
dir D.A. Pennebaker
USA

The Expanding Airport (1958)
dir Charles Eames, Ray Eames
USA

Record of Bloodshed: Sunagawa (1956)
dir Kamei Fumio
Japan

Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)
dir Bert Stern, Aram Avakian
USA

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925)
dir Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
USA

A Dancer's World (1957)
dir Peter Glushanok
USA 

The Mystery of Picasso (1956)
dir Henri-Georges Clouzot
France

The Poet of the Castle (1959)
dir Joaquim Pedro de Andrade
Brazil

Moana (1926)
dir Robert Flaherty
USA

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

Letter from Siberia (1958)
dir Chris Marker
France

Way Out West (1937)
dir James W. Horne
USA

O Dreamland (1953)
dir Lindsay Anderson
UK

Song of the Valley (1957)
dir John Schlesinger
UK

Morning in the Streets (1959)
dir Denis Mitchell, Roy Harris
UK

According to Law (1957)
dir Peter Weiss, Hans Nordenström
Sweden

In the Street (1948)
dir James Agee, Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb
USA

Children in the Classroom (1954)
dir Susumu Hani
Japan

A Two Year Old Goes to Hospital (1952)
dir James Robertson
UK

A Portrait of Ga (1952)
dir Margaret Tait
UK

Glimpse of the Garden (1957)
dir Marie Menken
USA

L'opéra-mouffe (1958)
dir Agnès Varda
France

Jazz Dance (1954)
dir Richard Leacock, Roger Tilton
USA

The Snowshoers (1958)
dir Michel Brault, Gilles Groulx
Canada

The 1960s Part 1: Not Willing to Obey

The Sound of Music (1965)
dir Robert Wise
USA

Primary (1960)
dir Robert Drew
USA

Obedience (1962)
dir Stanley Milgram
USA

Spartacus (1960)
dir Stanley Kubrick
USA

Primary (1960)
dir Robert Drew
USA

Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination (1963)
dir Abraham Zapruder
USA

Report (1967)
dir Bruce Conner
USA

Integration Report I (1960)
dir Madeline Anderson
USA

Berkeley in the Sixties (1990)
dir Mark Kitchell
USA

In the Year of the Pig (1968)
dir Emile de Antonio
USA

Persona (1966)
dir Ingmar Bergman
Sweden

Apocalypse Now (1979)
dir Francis Ford Coppola
USA

Black Panthers (1968)
dir Agnès Varda
France

Cox Enterprises Inc./KTVU (12th of April 1968)

Now (1965)
dir Santiago Álvarez
Cuba

Long Live Liberty (1967)
dir Patricio Guzmán
Chile

Berkeley in the Sixties (1990)
dir Mark Kitchell
USA

The Savage Eye (1959)
dir Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers, Joseph Strick
USA

Primary (1960)
dir Robert Drew
USA

Titicut Follies (1967)
dir Frederick Wiseman
USA

Let There Be Light (1946)
dir John Huston
USA

The House Is Black (1963)
dir Forough Farrokhzad
Iran

Gimme Shelter (1970)
dir Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
USA

Pour la Suite du Monde (1963)
dir Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault
Canada

Young (1965)
dir Henning Carlsen
Denmark

Being Women (1965)
dir Cecilia Mangini
Italy

Growing Up Female (1971)
dir Julia Reichert, Jim Klein
USA

The Mad Masters (1995)
dir Jean Rouch
France

Chronicle of a Summer (1961)
dir Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin
France

Pour la Suite du Monde (1963)
dir Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault
Canada

Obedience (1962)
dir Stanley Milgram
USA

The Sound of Music (1965)
dir Robert Wise
USA

La Suisse s’interroge (1964)
dir Henry Brandt
Switzerland

A Street in Tokyo (1897)
dir Constant Girel
France

Record of Bloodshed: Sunagawa (1956)
dir Kamei Fumio
Japan

On the Road: The Document (1964)
dir Tsuchimoto Noriaki
Japan

In Spring (1929)
dir Mikhail Kaufman
Ukraine, Soviet Union

Man With a Movie Camera (1929)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

The Revolution of Machines (1967)
dir Madkour Thabit

Snow (1963)
dir Geoffrey Jones
UK

The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
dir Peter Jackson
UK

Woodstock (1970)
dir Michael Wadleigh
USA

THE 1960s PART 2 MORE THAN WE KNOW

The Sixth Part of the World (1926)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

Doctor Zhivago (1965)
dir David Lean
Italy, UK, USA

The Unemployed (1968)
dir Zelimir Zilnik
Yugoslavia

Tito's back amongst the Serbs (1994)
dir Zelimir Zilnik
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Measurements (1968)
dir Nevena Tosheva
Bulgaria

The Laughing Man (1966)
dir Walter Heynowski, Gerhard Scheumann
East Germany

Pilots in Pajamas (1968)
dir Walter Heynowski, Gerhard Scheumann
East Germany

A Noi! (1922)
dir Umberto Paradisi
Italy

Night and Fog (1956)
dir Alan Resnais
France

Dawn of the Damned (1965)
dir Ahmed Rachedi
Algeria

Z (1969) 
dir Costa Gravras
France, Algeria

Rocky Road to Dublin (1968)
dir Peter Lennon
Ireland

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
dir Walter Ruttmann
Germany

24 Hours in the Life of a Woman (1967)
dir Krystyna Gryczelowska
Poland

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
dir Chantal Akerman
Belgium, France

P.M. (1961)
dir Alberto Cabrera Infante, Orlando Jiménez Leal
Cuba

Broken Toys (1966)
dir Manuel Summers
Spain

Seven Up (1964)
dir Paul Almond
UK

Time Is (1964)
dir Don Levy
UK

The Sound of Music (1965)
dir Robert Wise
USA

Blind Child (1964)
dir Johan van der Keuken
Netherlands

The Gleaners & I (2000)
dir Agnés Varda
France

Location Hunting in Palestine (1965)
dir Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy

Necrology (1969)
dir Standish Lawder
USA

We (1969)
dir Artavazd Peleshian
Soviet Union, Armenia

The House is Black (1963)
dir Forugh Farrokhzad
Iran

The Night It Rained (1967)
dir Kamran Shirdel
Iran

Rashomon (1950)
dir Akira Kurosawa
Japan

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)
dir Bill Greave
USA

Sleep (1963)
dir Andy Warhol
USA

The 1970s Part 1 
Pathfinder

Grease (1978)
dir Randal Kleiser
USA

The Seasons (1975)
dir Artavazd Peleshian
Armenia, Soviet Union

Minamata: The Victims and Their World (1971)
dir Tsuchimoto Noriaki
Japan

The Shiranui Sea (1975)
dir Tsuchimoto Noriaki
Japan

Summer in Sanrizuka (1968)
dir Ogawa Shinsuke
Japan

Sanrizuka: Heta Village (1973)
dir Ogawa Shinsuke
Japan

Origins of a Meal (1979) 
dir Luc Moullet
France 

Growing Up Female (1971)
dir Julia Reichert, James Klein
USA

News From Home (1976)
dir Chantal Akerman
Belgium, France, West Germany

The Unemployed (1968)
dir Želimir Žilnik
Yugoslavia

Black Film (1971)
dir Želimir Žilnik
Yugoslavia

Horse of Mud (1971)
dir Ateyyat El Abnoudy
Egypt

The Brickmakers (1972)
dir Marta Rodrigues, Jorge Silva
Colombia

Welfare (1975)
dir Fred Wiseman
USA

Harlan County USA (1976)
dir Barbara Kopple
USA

Coal Face (1935)
dir Alberto Cavalcanti
UK

Gamín (1977)
dir Ciro Duran
Colombia 

A Portrait of Ga (1952)
dir Margaret Tait
UK

Football As Never Before (1971)
dir Hellmuth Costard
West Germany 

Zidane - a 21st Century Portrait (2006)
dir Douglas Gordon, Philippe Parreno
France, Iceland

Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
dir Werner Herzog
West Germany

Daguerreotypes (1975)
dir Agnes Varda 
France, West Germany

Diaries (1971-1975) (1981)
dir Ed Pincus
USA

The Mother and the Whore (1973)
dir Jean Eustache
France

Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974)
dir Hara Kazuo
Japan

14441 Frames (1972)
dir Karpo Godina
Yugoslavia

Songs for After a War (1976)
dir Basilio Martin Patino
Spain

The Punk Rock Movie from England (1978)
dir Don Letts 
UK

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

Count Dracula (1970)
dir Jesus Franco
Spain, West Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, UK

Vampir-Cuadecuc (1971)
dir Pere Portabella
Spain

F for Fake (1973)
dir Orson Welles
France, Iran, West Germany

The 1970s Part 2
Everywhere

Grease (1971)
dir Randal Kleiser
USA

Sholay (1975)
dir Ramesh Sippy
India 

The Dislocation of Amber (1975)
dir Hussein Shariffe
Sudan

Horizons (1971)
dir Shadi Abdel Salam
Egypt

The Night of Counting the Years (1969)
dir Shadi Abbdel Salam
Egypt

Horse of Mud (1971)
dir Ateyyat El Abnoudy
Egypt

Sad Song of Touhat (1973)
dir Ateyyat El Abnoudy
Egypt

Letter from My Village (1975)
dir Safi Faye
Senegal

Carnival in the Sahel (1979)
dir Sarah Maldoror
Cape Verde

Fogo, Fire Island (1979)
dir Sarah Maldoror
Cape Verde

The Battle of Chile Part 1 (1975)
dir Patricio Guzmán
Chile, Cuba

The Battle of Chile Part 2 (1976)
dir Patricio Guzmán
Chile, Cuba

Film-Essay on the Euphrates Dam (1970)
dir Omar Amiralay
Syria

Palestine 1896 (1896)
dir Alexandra Promio
France

They Do Not Exist (1974)
dir Mustafa Abu Ali
Lebanon

Beirut, Never Again (1979)
dir Jocelyne Saab
France, Lebanon

For Freedom (1979)
dir Hossein Torabi
Iran

They Do Not Exist (1974)
dir Mustafa Abu Ali
Lebanon

Palestine in the Eye (1979)
dir Mustafa Abu Ali
Lebanon

Ningla A-Na (1972)
dir Alessandro Cavadini
Australia

My Survival as an Aboriginal (1979)
dir Essie Coffey
Australia

Enter the Dragon (1973)
dir Robert Clouse
Hong Kong, USA

Chung Kuo: China (1972)
dir Michelangelo Antonioni
Italy

A Trip to the Moon (1902)
dir Georges Méliès
France 

Perfumed Nightmare (1977)
dir Kidlat Tahimik
Philippines

Trip (1970)
dir Pramod Pati
India

Where the River Padma Flows (1971)
dir Ritwik Ghatak
India

Nine Months to Freedom (1972)
dir S. Sukhdev
India

This Bit of That India (1975)
 dir S.N.S Sastry
 India

An Encounter with Faces (1978)
dir Vidhu Vinod Chopra
India

The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)
dir F.R. Crawley, Bruce Nyznik
Canada, Japan, USA

The Seasons (1975)
dr Artavazd Peleshian
Soviet Union

Pictures of the Old World (1972)
dir Dusan Hanák
Czechoslovakia

The Disenchantment (1976)
dir Jaime Chávarri
Spain

A Grin Without A Cat (1977)
dir Chris Marker
France

Powers of Ten (1977)
dir Charles Eames, Ray Eames
USA

THE 1980s PART 1, SOMETHING THERE IS THAT DOESN'T LOVE A WALL

Dynasty: The Vendetta (1986)
dir Irving J. Moore
USA. UK

For Love or Money (1983)
dir Megan McMurchy, Margot Nash, Margot Oliver, Jeni Thornley 
Australia

The Operation (1982)
dir Ana Maria Garcia
Puerto Rico 

Permissible Dreams (1983) 
dir Ateyyat Al Abnoudy 
Egypt 

Fertile Memory (1981)
dir Michel Khleifi
West Germany, Palestinian Territories, Netherlands,
Belgium

Indian Cabaret (1985)
dir Mira Nair
India, UK, Canada

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
dir Steven Spielberg
USA

Isle of Flowers (1989) 
dir Jorge Furtado
Brazil

House (1980)
dir Amos Gitail
Israel

Bhopal: Beyond Genocide (1986)
dir Tapan Bose
India

Talking Heads (1980) 
dir Krzysztof Kieslowski
Poland

When the Dog Bites (1988)
dir Penny Woolcock
UK
O Dreamland (1953)
dir Lindsay Anderson
UK

Living on the Edge (1987)
dir Michael Grigsby
UK

Home from the Hill (1987)
dir Molly Dineen
UK

The Shimmering Beast (1982)
dir Pierre Perrault
Canada

Letter from a Time of Exile (1988)
dir Borhane Alaouié
Lebanon, France

Voices from Baliabal (1988)
dir Ranjan Pali, Vasudha Joshi
India

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) 
dir Ro Epstein 
USA 

Tounges Untied (1989) 
dir Marlon Riggs 
USA 

The Last Judgment (1987) 
dir Herz Frank 
Latvia, Soviet Union 

American Psycho (2000) 
dir Mary Harron 
USA 

Land of Dreams (1988) 
dir Jan Troell 
Sweden 

Disco and Atomic War (2009)
dir Jaak Kilmi
Estonia, Finland

Everyone Knows Who Is Behind Who (1983)
dir Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz
Poland

Far From Poland (1984)
dir Jill Godmilow
Poland, USA

Is It Easy to Be Young? (1986)
dir Juris Podnieks
Latvia, Soviet Union

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (1990)
dir Jan Svankmajer
UK, Czechoslovakia

Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks (1987)
dir Vladimir Shevchenko
Ukraine, Soviet Union

Marriage Stories (1987)
dir Helena Trestiková
Czechoslovakia

After Winter Comes Spring (1989)
dir Helke Misselwitz
East Germany

Demolition of a Wall (1896)
dir Louis Lumiere
France

The 1980s part 2: Detectives

Bronski Beat: Smalltown Boy (1984)
dir Bernard Rose
UK

Now (1965)
dir Santiago Álvarez
Cuba

Arena: My Way (1978)
dir Nigel Finch
UK

Stop Making Sense (1984)
dir Jonathan Demme
USA

Legend of the White Snake (1980)
dir Fu Chaowu
China

Trances (1981)
dir Ahmed El Maânouni
Morocco, France

The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting (1983)
dir Assia Djebar
Algeria

Dhrupad (1983)
dir Mani Kaul
India

Taxi Driver (1976)
dir Martin Scorsese
USA

Siddeshwari (1989)
dir Mani Kaul
India

Marlene (1984)
dir Maxillian Schell 
West Germany

The White Diamond (2004)
dir Werner Herzog 
Germany, Japan, UK

Before Stonewall (1984)
dir Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg
USA

My Life Without Steve (1986)
dir Gillian Leahy
Australia

Roger and Me (1989)
dir Michael Moore
USA

Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia (1979)
dir David Munro
UK

Twenty Years Later (1984)
dir Eduardo Coutinho
Brazil

Columbo: Murder by the Book (1971)
dir Steven Spielberg
USA

Hôtel Terminus (1988)
dir Marcel Ophuls
USA, France, West Germany

The Thin Blue Line (1988)
dir Errol Morris
USA

Siddheshwari (1989)
dir Mani Kaul
India

Point Blank (1967)
dir John Boorman
USA

Pocspetri (1982)
dir Judit Ember
Hungary

Shoah (1985)
dir Claude Lanzmann
France

Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974)
dir Hara Kazuo
Japan

The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987)
dir Hara Kazuo
Japan

Homework (1989)
dir Abbas Kiarostami
Iran

Route One USA (1989)
dir Robert Kramer
USA

After Winter Comes Spring (1989)
dir Helke Misselwitz
East Germany

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
dir Godfrey Reggio
USA

We (1969)
dir Artavazd Peleshian
Soviet Union

Sans Soleil (1983)
dir Chris Marker
France

Bonski Beat: Smalltown Boy (1984)
dir Bernard Rose
UK

Smalltown Boy (Street Performance) (2013)
Berlin Street musician

THE 1990S PART 1
BODY AND SOUL

Amsterdam Global Village (1996)
dir Johan van der Keuken
Netherlands

À Propos de Nice (1930)
dir Boris Kaufman, Jean Vigo
France

Katatsumori (1994)
dir Naomi Kawase
Japan

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992)
dir Tsukamoto Shin'ya
Japan

Summer in my Veins (1999)
dir Nish Saran
India, USA

Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)
dir Kirby Dick
USA

Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business (1995)
dir Helena Solberg
Brazil, UK

East Side Story (1997)
dir Dana Ranga
France, Germany

KÁDÁR'S KISS (PROVATE HUNGARY 12) (1997)
dir Peter Forgacs 
Hungary

Father, Son and Holy War (1994)
dir Anand Patwardhan
India

Paris is Burning (1990)
dir Jennie Livingston
USA, UK

McLibel: Two Worlds Collide (1998)
dir Franny Armstrong, Ken Loach
UK

Hoop Dreams (1994)
dir Steve James
USA

Football As Never Before (1971)
dir Hellmuth Costard
West Germany

When We Were Kings (1996)
dir Leon Gast
USA

89 mm from Europe (1993)
dir Marcel Lozinski
Poland

From the East (1993)
dir Chantal Akerman
Belgium, France, Portugal

Divorce Iranian Style (1998)
dir Kim Longinotto, Ziba Mir-Hosseini
Iran, UK

The Belovs (1992)
dir Victor Kossakovsky
Russia

Psalms (1994)
dir Artur Aristakisian 
Russia, Moldova

Spiritual Voices (1995)
dir Aleksandr Sokurov
Russia, Japan

Fighting Soldiers (1939)
dir Kamei Fumio
Japan

Mysterion (1991)
dir Pirjo Honkasalo, Eira Mollberg
Finland

Tanjuska and the Seven Devils (1993)
dir Pirjo Honkasalo
Finland, Sweden

Atman (1996)
dir Pirjo Honkasalo
Finlan, Germany

3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004)
dir Pirjo Honkasalo
Finland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden

Eternity (1994)
dir Lawrence Johnston
Australia

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
dir Steven Spielberg
USA

Life Is Beautiful (1997)
dir Roberto Benigni
Italy

Highway 80 (1.3.1991)
Kuwait

Hand of God, Hand of the Devil (1996)
dir Yvan Patry, Sam Grana, Daniele Lacourse
Rwanda, Canada

Tito's back amongst the Serbs (1994)
dir Zelimik Zilnik
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

The Death of Yugoslavia (1995-1996)
dir Angus MacQueen, Paul Mitchell
UK

Hail Sarajevo (1993)
dir Jean-Luc Godard
France

Two Hours from London (1995)
dir Jill Craigie
UK

Unfinished Business: The War In Mostar, Bosnia (1993)
dir Eamonn Matthews 
UK

Srebrenica: A Cry From the Brave (1999)
dir Leslie Woodhead
UK, USA, Netherlands

Shelling of Dubrovnik (6.12.1991)

THE 1990S
PART 2
BREAKTHROUGH

Happy Together (1997)
dir Wong Kar-Wai
Hon-Kong, South korea, Japan

Heshang: River Elegy (1988)
dir Xia Jun
China

Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (1990)
dir Wu Wenguang 
China

Jurassic Park (1993)
dir Steven Spielberg
USA

The Civil War (1990)
dir Ken Burns
USA

Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)
dir James Marsh
UK, USA

Man on Wire (2008)
dir James Marsh
UK, USA

Anna 6 to 18 (1994)
dir Nikita Mikhalkov
Russia, France

Lumumba: Death of a Prophet (1991)
dir Raoul Peck
France, Switzerland, Germany, The Democratic Republic of Congo

The Murmuring (1995)
dir Byun Young-Joo
South Korea

Living on the River Agano (1992)
dir Sato Makoto
Japan

Pictures of the Old World (1972)
dir Dusan Hanak
Czechoslovakia

Paper Heads (1996)
dir Dusan Hanak
Slovakia, Switzerland, France, Germany, Czech Republic

One Day in September (1999)
dir Kevin Macdonald
UK, Germany, Switzerland

Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997)
dir Johan Grimonprez
Belgium, France

Father, Son and Holy War (1994)
dir Anand Patwardhan
India

In The Name of God (1992)
dir Anand Patwardhan
India

Gallivant (1996)
dir Andrew Kotting
UK

Drinking for England (1996)
dir Brian Hill
UK

The Leader, His Driver, and the Driver's Wife (1991)
dir Nick Broomfield 
UK

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)
dir Hara Kazuo
Japan

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)
dir Errol Morris
USA

The Encounter (1996)
dir Alain Cavalier
France

The Matrix (1999)
dir Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachsowski
USA, Australia

The Society of the Spectacle (1974)
dir Guy Debold
France

The Quince Tree Sun (1992)
dir Victor Erice
Spain

The Gleaners & I (2000)
dir Agnes Varda
France

Close Up (1990)
dir Abbas Kiarostami
Iran

The Tough Alliance: A New Chance (2007)
dir Marcus Soderlund
Sweden

Close Up (1990)
dir Abbas Kiarostami
Iran

In Bed with Madonna (1991)
dir Alek Keshishian
USA

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)
dir Fax Bahr, Eleaner Coppola, George Hickenlooper
USA

Crumb (1994)
dir Terry Zwigoff
USA

Apocalypse Now (1979)
dir Francis Ford Coppola 
USA

Crumb (1994)
dir Terry Zwigoff
USA

Microcosmos (1996)
dir Claude Nuridsany, Marie Perennou
France, Switzerland, Italy, UK

The Sea Horse (1934)
dir Jean Painleve
France

Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
dir Win Wenders
Germany, USA, UK, France, Cuba

Anything Can Happen (1995)
dir Marcel Lopinski
Poland

Every Little Thing (1997)
dir Nicolas Philibert
France

The 2000s Part 1
One Day in September

Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth (2001)
dir Naomi Kawase
Japan, France

Campaign (2007)
dir Sôda Kazuhiro
Japan, USA

Primary (1960)
dir Robert Drew
USA

Godzilla (1998)
dir Rolan Emmerich
USA, Japan

Man On Wire (2008)
dir James Marsh
UK, USA

World Trade Center (2006)
dir Oliver Stone
USA, Germany

9/11: The Falling Man (2006)
dir Henry Singer
UK

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
dir Michael Moore
USA

Control Room (2004)
dir Jehane Noujaim
Qatar, USA

Iraq in Fragments (2006)
dir James Longley
USA

No End In Sight (2007)
dir Charles Ferguson
USA

Taxi To The Dark Side (2007)
dir Alex Gibney
USA

They Turned Our Desert Into Fire (2007)
dir Mark Brecke
USA

The Inner Tour (2001)
dir Ra'anan Alexandrowicz
Israel, Occupied Palestine Territory

Waltz with Bashir (2008)
dir Ari Folman
Israel, France, Germany, USA, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia

Spellbound (1945)
dir Alfred Hitchcock
USA

Avenge but one of my two Eyes (2005)
dir Avi Mograbi
Israel, France

Avenge but one of my two Eyes (2005)
dir Avi Mograbi
Israel, France

Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie (2004)
dir Thomas Riedelsheimer
Germany, UK

To Be and to Have (2002)
dir Nicolas Philibert
France

Homework (1989)
dir Abbas Kiarostami
Iran

Children's Games (2018)
dir Francis Alÿs

Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
dir Stacy Peralta
USA

Tarnation (2003)
dir Joanthan Caouette
USA

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
dir Thom Andersen
USA

Rien que les heures (1926)
dir Alberto Cavalcanti
France

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
dir Thom Andersen
USA

Night (2007)
dir Lawrence Johnston
Australia

Sleep Furiously (2007)
dir Gideon Koppel
UK

Mourning Rock (2000)
dir Filppos Koutsaftis
Greece

Drifter (2007)
dir Cao Guimarães 
Brazil 

Grizzly Man (2005)
dir Werner Herzog
USA

The Cove (2009)
dir Louie Psihoyos
Japan, USA, Germany, Chile, Canada, UK

Dong (2006)
dir Xia Jiangke
Hong Kong, China

Workingman's Death (2005)
dir Michael Glawogger
Austria, Germany, Indonesia, France

Luukkaankangas - Updated, Revisited (2005)
dir Dariusz Kowalski
Austria, Finland

THE 2000s PART 2 TROUBLE THE WATER

Jackass Number Two (2006)
dir Jeff Tremaine
USA

Love, Loot and Crash (1915)
dir Frank Griffin
USA

Inside Job (2010) 
dir Charles Ferguson 
USA 

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006)
dir Sophie Fiennes
UK, Austria, Netherlands

Capturing the Friedmans (2003) 
dir Andrew Jarecki 
USA 

Fairytale of Kathmandu (2007)
dir Neasa Ní Chianáin
Ireland, UK

S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003)
dir Rithy Panh
Cambodia, France, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Finland

Waltz with Bashir (2008)
dir Ari Folman
Israel, France, Germany, USA, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia

Of Time and the City (2008)
dir Terence Davies
UK

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006)
dir Sophie Fiennes
UK, Austria, Netherlands

The Mosquito Problem (2007)
dir Andrey Paounov

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
dir Seth Gordon
USA

Super Size Me (2004)
dir Morgan Spurloc
USA, Bulgaria

The Gleaners & I (2000)
dir Agnès Varda
France

Flag Wars (2003)
dir Linda Goode Bryant, Laura Poitras
USA

Dark Days (2000)
dir Marc Singer
USA

Trouble the Water (2008) 
dir Carl Deal, Tia Lessin
USA

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2007)
dir Spike Lee
USA

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
dir Davis Guggenheim
USA

Bus 174 (2002)
dir José Padilha, Felipe Lacerda
Brazil

Coming of Age (2007)
dir Judy Kibinge
Kenya

Enemies of Happiness (2006)
dir Eva Mulvad
Afghanistan, Denmark, Norway, Finland

Petition (2009)
dir Zhao Liang
China, Switzerland, UK, France, Belgium, Finland

The Trial (1962)
dir Orson Welles
France, Italy, West Germany

Bowling for Columbine (2002)
dir Michael Moore
USA, Canada, Germany

The Power of Nightmares (2004)
dir Adam Curtis
UK

West of the Tracks (2002)
dir Wang Bing
China, Netherlands

Sátántangó (1994)
dir Béla Tarr
Hungary, Germany, Switzerland

West of the Tracks (2002)
dir Wang Bing
China, Netherlands 

The Intimacy of Strangers (2005)
dir Eva Weber
UK

The Five Obstructions (2003) 
dir Lars von Trier, Jorgen Leth 
Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, France

Mysterious Object at Noon (2000)
dir Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Thailand, Netherlands

Cool and Crazy (2001)
dir Knut Erik Jensen
Norway, Sweden 

The 2010s Part 1
Avenger Assemble

Avenger Assemble (2012)
dir Joss Whedon
USA

The Edge of Democracy (2019)
dir Petra Costa
Brazil, UK

The Salt of the Earth (2014)
dir Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders
Brazil, France, Italy

Atalaku (2013)
dir Dieudo Hamadi

Democrats (2014)
dir Camilla Nielsson
Zimbabwe, Denmark

The Square (2013)
dir Jehane Noujaim
Egypt, USA, UK

The Law in These Parts (2011)
dir Ra'anan Alexandrowicz
Israel

Dance to the End of Love (2011)
dir Akram Zaatari
Egypt, United Arb Emirates, Saudi Arabia,
Palestine, Yemen, Libya

Ishmael (2015)
dir Nira Pereg
West Bank

Would You Have Sex with an Arab? (2011)
dir Yolande Zauberman
France

Becoming Animal (2018)
dir Emma Davie, Peter Mettler
Switzerland, UK, Canada

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
dir Banksy
UK, France

Park Lanes (2015)
dir Kevin Jerome Everson
USA

The Overnighters (2014)
dir Jesse Moss
USA

Black Film (1971)
dir Zelimir Zilnik
Yugoslavia

The Overnighters (2014)
dir Jesse Moss
USA

Citizenfour (2014)
dir Laura Poitras
UK, Germany, USA

Black Panther (2018)
dir Ryan Coogler
USA

I am Not Your Negro (2016)
dir Raoul Peck
France, USA, Belgium, Switzerland

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)
dir Göran Hugo Olsson
Sweden, USA

Concerning Violence (2014)
dir Göran Hugo Olsson
Sweden, Finland, Denmark, USA

Behemoth (2015)
dir Zhao Liang
China, France

Petition (2009)
dir Zhao Liang
China, Switzerland, UK, France, Belgium, Finland

Yumen (2013)
dir Huang Xiang, Xu Routao, J.P. Sniadecki
China, USA

Expressionism (2018)
dir Xu Routao
China

Mirror of Emptiness (2011)
dir Ma Li
China

Nanook of the North (1922)
dir Robert J. Flaherty
USA, France

The Choice (2019)
dir Gu Xue 
China

5 Broken Cameras (2011)
dir Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi
Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territory, France, Netherlands

This Is Not a Film (2011)
dir Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Iran

Red Shoes (1948)
dir Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
UK

Cameraperson (2016)
dir Kirsten Johnson
USA

Dead Nation (2017)
dir Radu Jude
Romania

[Censored] (2018)
dir Sari Braithwaite
Australia

The Last Mango Before the Monsoon (2015)
dir Payal Kapadia
India

Leviathan (2012)
dir Luvien Castaing-Raylor, Verena Paravel
USA, UK

The Road Movie (2016)
dir Dmitrii Kalashnikov
Belarus

Leviathan (2012)
dir Luvien Castaing-Raylor, Verena Paravel
USA, UK

Dragonfly Eyes (2017)
dir Xu Bingg
China

Voices from the Waves: Kesennuma (2013)
dir Hamaguchi Ryusuku, Sakai Ko
Japan

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
dir Jonathan Demme
USA

The Road Movie (2016)
dir Dmitrii Kalashnikov
Belarus

The 2010s Part 2
Beyond Borders

Sindhustan (2019)
dir Sapna Bhavnani
India

Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (2017)
dir Behrouz Boochani
Netherlands, Australia

Island of Hungry Ghosts (2018)
dir Gabrielle Brady
Germany, UK, Australia

Fire at Sea (2016)
dir Gianfranco Rosi
Italy, France

Exodus: Our Journey to Europe (2016)
dir Jack Macinnes, James Bluennel
UK

Another Country (2015)
dir Molly Reynolds
Australia

The Digger Carries On (1919)
dir Edward Davis Millen
Australia

Ningla A-Na (1972)
dir Alessandro Cavadini
Australia

We Don't Need a Map (2017)
dir Warwick Thornton
Australia

Nostalgia for the Light (2010)
dir Patricio Guzmán
Chile, France, Germany, Spain

Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)
dir RaMell Ross
USA

No Gold For Kalsaka (2019)
dir Michael K. Zongo
Burkina Faso, Germany

Stories We Tell (2012)
dir Sarah Polley
Canada

The Thin Blue Line (1988)
dir Errol Morris
USA

Stories We Tell (2012)
dir Sarah Polley
Canada

Man Falling (2015)
dir Anne Wivel
Denmark

Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle (2017)
dir Gustavo Salmerón
Spain

Living in a Coded Land (2014)
dir Pat Collins
Ireland

Honeyland (2019)
dir Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov
North Macedonia, USA, Switzerland

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925)
dir Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
USA

Black Mother (2018)
dir Khalik Allah
Jamaica, USA

Orphée (1950)
dir Jean Cocteau
France

The Other Side of Everything (2017)
dir Mila Turajlic
Serbia, France, Qatar, Germany, Hungary

No Home Movie (2015)
dir Chantal Akerman
Belgium, France

Three Identical Strangers (2018)
dir Tim Wardle 
USA, UK

The Arbor (2010)
dir Clio Barnard 
UK

Living and Knowing You're Alive (2019)
dir Alain Cavalier
France

A Moment of Innocence (1996)
dir Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Iran, France

Ghost Hunting (2017)
dir Raed Andoni
Occupied Palestinian Territory
France, Switzerland, Qatar, Italy

Crulic - The Path to Beyond (2011)
dir Anca Damian
Romania, Poland

Amy (2015)
dir Asif Kapadia
UK

Casting JonBenet (2017)
dir Kitty Green
USA, Australia, China

Rolling Thunder Revue (2019)
dir Martin Scorsese
USA

Last Year in Marienbad (1961)
dir Alan Resnais
France, Italy

The Autobiogrpahy of Nicolae Ceausescu (2010)
dir Andrei Ujica
Romania, Germany

The Ambadassor (2011)
dir Mads Brugger
Denmark, Sweden, Finland

The Five Obstructions (2003)
dir Lars von Trier, Jorgen Leth
Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, France

The Act of Killing (2012)
dir Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn
Indonesia, UK, Denmark, Norway

The Searchers (1956)
dir John Ford
USA

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
dir Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, France

The Zone of Interest (2023)
dir Jonathan Glazer
UK, Poland, USA

Fire at Sea (2016)
dir Gianfranco Rosi
Italy, France

The Other Side of Everything (2017)
dir Mila Turajlic
Serbia, France, Qatar, Germany, Hungary

The 2020s - ALL THAT BREATHES

Workers Leaving the Factory (1895)
dir Louis Lumiere
France

Serpentine Dance, Annabelle (1897)
dir james H. White
USA

Games on Reflection and Speed (1925)
dir Henri Chomette
France

A Street in Tokyo (1897)
dir Constant Girel 
France

Palestine 1986 (1986)
dir Alexandra Promio
France

Pyramides (1897)
dir Alexandre Promio
France
Tiger King (2020 - 2021)
dir Rebecca Chaiklin, Eric Goode
USA

Fire of Love (2022)
dir Sara Dosa
Canada, USA

All That Breathes (2022)
dir Shaunak Sen
UK, India, USA

Leviathan (2012)
dir Luvien Castaing-Raylor, Verena Paravel
USA, UK

The Fabric of the Human Body (2022)
dir Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel
France, Switzerland, USA

Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)
dir Akram Avakian, Bert Stern
USA

David Byrne's American Utopia (2020)
dir Spike Lee
USA

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)
dir Laura Poitras
USA

Record of Blood: Sunagawa (1957)
dir Kamei Fumio
Japan

Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination (1963)
dir Abraham Zapruder
USA

Housing Problems (1935)
dir Edgar Anstey, Arthur Elton
UK

Inside the Red Brick Wall (2020)
dir Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers
Hong Kong

Cockroach (2020)
dir Ai Weiwei
Hong Kong, Germany

Bobi Wine: The People's President (2022)
dir Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp
UK, Uganda, USA

Far Eastern Golgotha (2021)
dir Julia Sergina
Russia

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
dir Dziga Vertov
Soviet Union

20 Days in Mariupol (2023)
dir Mstyslav Chernov
Ukraine, USA

The Hurt Locker (2008)
dir Kathryn Bigelow
USA, Luxembourg, Canada

Writing with Fire (2021)
dir Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas
India

A Want in Her (2024)
dir Myrid Carten
Ireland, UK, Netherlands

Faya Dayi (2021)
dir Jessica Beshir
Ethiopia, USA, Qatar

The Echo (2023)
dir Tatiana Huezo
Mexico, Germany

Crip Camp (2020)
dir James Lebrecth, Nicole Newnham
USA

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing (2024)
dir Theo Panagopoulos
UK

We (2021)
dir Alice Diop
France

One Hundred Four (2024)
dir Jonathan Schörnig
Germany

Flee (2021)
dir Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Finland, Spain, Estonia, Slovenia, Belgium

The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918)
dir Winsor McCay
USA

Misha and the Wolves (2021)
dir Sam Hobkinson
Belgium, UK

F for Fake (1973)
dir Orson Welles
France, Iran, West Germany

A Man Vanishes (1967)
dir Shohei Imamura
Japan

Chronicle of a Summer (1961) 
dir Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch
France

Luukkaankangas - Revisited (2005)
dir Dariusz Kowalski
Austria

Repas de Bebe (1895)
dir Louis Lumiere
France

Lonely Oaks (2023)
dir Fabiana Fragale, Kilian Kuhlendahl, Jens Mühlhoff
Germany

Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) 
dir Sam Crane, Pinny Grylls
UK, USA

Stop Making Sense (1984)
dir Jonathan Demme
USA

The House is Black (1963)
dir Forugh Farrokhzad
Iran

Hôtel Terminus (1988)
dir Marcel Ophüls
United States, France, West Germany

Portrait of Jason (1967)
dir Shirley Clarke
USA

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)
dir Hara Kazuo
Japan

Paper Heads (1996)
dir Dusan Hanak
Slovakia, Switzerland, France, Germany, Czechia

The Arbor (2010) 
dir Clio Barnard
UK

Stories We Tell (2012)
dir Sarah Polley
Canada

Fire of Love (2022)
dir Sara Dosa
Canada, USA

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
dir Godfrey Reggio
USA

A Portrait of Ga (1952)
dir Margaret Tait
UK

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925) 
dir Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
USA

Songs from the Bottom (1975)
dir Ogawa Shinsuke
Japan

Grey Gardens (1975)
dir Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles David Maysles, Muffie Meyer
USA

Shoah (1985)
dir Claude Lanzmann
France

Hoop Dreams (1994)
dir Steve James
USA

The Punk Rock Movie from England (1978)
dir Don Letts
UK

The Last Bolshevik (1993)
dir Chris Marker
France, Finland 

Three Identical Strangers (2018)
dir Tim Wardle
USA, UK

Detail (2004)
dir Avi Mograbi
France, Israel

The Gleaners & I (2000)
dir Agnès Varda
France

Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth (2001)
dir Naomi Kawase
Japan, France

It All Started at the End (2015)
dir Luis Ospina
Columbia

Monday, September 07, 2026

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, grew one of the blockbusters of the documentary film, with a worldview changing impact.

José Padilha's Brazilian 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 district 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, 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 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 photographs of Sebastião Salgado, "a film almost mystical"

Citizenfour by Laura Poitras reveals that the reality of surveillance today makes the dystopias of George Orwell look like kindergarten stuff. Gestapo, KGB and Stasi were amateurs in comparison with what the Patriot Act achieved.

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. The persecuted Iranian master Jafar Panahi could make in house arrest films 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 subjects, 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 year 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 source: 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 as 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.

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. 

Sunday, September 06, 2026

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

 
Pegah Ahangarani: 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.