In Layaly Badr’s documentary short, Road to Palestine, seven-year-old Layla – who has been badly injured in an air raid – lives in a refugee camp outside Palestine. Layla and her friends describe how they imagine Palestine, despite never having seen it.
Category: Documentary
Four filmmakers secretly entered El Salvador to follow a guerrilla movement going in combat against military forces run by the government during El Salvador’s civil war. This socialist insurgent movement is formed by peasants, women and children, poor people who are fighting for better life conditions and against the tyrannic repression of the government.
During the filming of Ragtime, the 81-year old Cagney talks about his career. Cagney tells us about becoming a dancer and meeting his wife, his route from Broadway to Hollywood, the emergence of his tough-guy persona, and his post-war creations of insane characters. Donald O’Connor, Pat O’Brien, Milos Forman and others also try to distill what it is Cagney brings to the screen. Clips from several of his films illustrate their points.
Fred Hampton was the leader of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. This film depicts his brutal murder by the Chicago police and its subsequent investigation, but also documents his activities in organizing the Chapter, his public speeches, and the programs he founded for children during the last eighteen months of his life.
A record of the crucial Civil War period made up mostly of Mathew Brady’s original wet-plate photographs. Relates the story of the war, describing its causes, its battles, leaders, and its effect on the nation.
Ivory’s first, slightly intoxicated film (part of his MA thesis for the University of Southern California) is a documentary on the history of Venice as revealed through the work of some of the artists who have painted its architecture and citizens (from Gentile Bellini to Saul Steinberg).
The film deals with the infamous “Kommando 52”, which was active in the 1960s civil war in the Congo and was recruited mainly from West German men. Among them is the former Wehrmacht officer Siegfried Müller. Based on personal accounts and original material – backed by tape recordings of interviewed mercenaries and photos of murdered Africans – it creates a hard hitting historical document.
Documentary of the life and music of Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke, considered to be the greatest jazz cornet player. Dead at 28 and still a legend. He and Louis Armstrong pioneered the playing of jazz solos. When it was made in 1981 there was no known video of Bix playing. But the documentary surmounted that limitation with the skillful use of music recordings, period stills and movies, Hopper paintings, and extensive interviews with musicians that played with him (e.g., Louis Armstrong, Artie Shaw, Hoagy Carmichael, and many others).