Two film directors and a writer are in Portugal for an expedition through various images, moments from the history of Western allegorical representation. The writer is Jean-Louis Schefer, and this tale encapsulates his life’s mission.
Julie Andrews starred in Hollywood productions that have become iconic movies, winning an Oscar for her performance as Mary Poppins, a symbol of the magic of musicals from the 1960s. And yet, behind the squeaky-clean image hides a much more tortuous career, with its moments of glory and tough times, all of which explain the longevity of a story that is still being written.
Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are dictatorial regimes that constantly violate the most basic rights of their citizens. However, thanks to a successful combination of soft power and corruption, they have been able to clean up their reputation and become trading partners of many Western countries, whose governments choose to ignore the long list of their notorious crimes.
In Israel, a joint French-Israeli scientific mission is set to unearth the secrets of the hill of Kiryath-Jearim (or Kiryat Ya’arim), converted to the site of a Catholic convent, where, according to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was kept for at least twenty years before being brought to Jerusalem by King David, father of King Solomon, who would eventually build the Holy of Holies inside the First Temple to house it.
In 1978, the Amoco Cadiz, a supertanker loaded with 220,000 tons of petrol, ran aground in Brittany, France. The accident caused the biggest oil spill France has ever known and is still today known as one of the 20th century’s biggest ecological catastrophes. Forty years later, Loïck Peyron tries to understand how nature recovered from the disaster and what lessons were learned from it.
In November 15, 2017, the painting Salvator Mundi, attributed to Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), was sold for an unprecedented $450 million. An examination of the dirty secrets of the art world and the surprising story of how a work of art is capable of upsetting both personal and geopolitical interests.
The Indian Act, passed in Canada in 1876, made members of Aboriginal peoples second-class citizens, separated from the white population: nomadic for centuries, they were moved to reservations to control their behavior and resources; and thousands of their youngest members were separated from their families to be Christianized: a cultural genocide that still resonates in Canadian society today.
For the animal and plant world that lives there, the Kalahari is a region as grandiose as it is unforgiving. For a long time it was thought that only the law of the strongest could survive here. But a completely different strategy is needed: cooperation.
In an Argentina divided between a deep conservatism and an unprecedented momentum in feminism, the film delves into the political journey and intimate lives of Claudia and Violeta. Trans women who identify as transvestites, the fight they lead with their comrades against the patriarchal violence is visceral and embodied. Convinced of their roles at the center of an ongoing revolution that intersects with so many struggles, in defiance of the old world they redouble their energy to invent a new present, to love and stay alive.
All over the world, millions of children have one thing in common with their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents: they have all watched "Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs", "Bambi" or "Peter Pan", and discovered Walt Disney's view on nature, family, friendship, courage, wickedness or death. But who was this man who affirmed that in order to achieve something extraordinary, one must begin by dreaming it? Portrait of this creator and entrepreneur, who often put himself on stage, in the course of a journey through the meanders of history and the unconscious.
"Boy from the Blaze" is the survivor of a tragic accident that destroyed his life and that of his family. About to turn 18, without a job or an education, he spends his days in the darkness of his room. Consumed by pain and anger, his only hope is writing songs for an imaginary crowd. Inspired by a friend and encouraged by his mother, he will find the strength to go on stage and overcome his fears.
Act of Violence Upon a Young Journalist is a film shot in 1988 and released on VHS in 1989; a mysterious cult work of Uruguayan cinema surrounded by strange theories about Manuel Lamas, its unknown creator. Until now.
Eugenia 'China' Suarez embarks on an intimate conversation that will explore deep corners of their history, as they share in first person: what they think, what they feel, news, information never before revealed and how they see today's fast-paced world.
In his time of greatest splendor, the singer Miguel 'Bambino' Vargas Jiménez (1940-99) was the last frontier of flamenco, an immense musical genre that he developed and brought closer to large audiences: an artist of artists, the idol of the roadside bars, whose inimitable style, scenic magnetism and heartbreaking personality made of his figure a myth, a king without a kingdom, a giant of the popular music of the 20th century.
Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.
Argentina, 1968. In the midst of the Cold War, the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía (1966-70) organizes the 9th Mar del Plata Film Festival in order to show the world its friendly face, while exercising censorship and repressing dissidence.
Who is in charge of preserving the legacy of video games? Arcadeology follows the passing of experts who, at the expense of the Valencian Arcade Vintage association, are trying to recover our digital heritage and are responsible for the creation of the most filled museum of video games in Spain, Ibi (Alicante).
The Spanish journalist Manuel Chaves Nogales (1897-1944) was always there where the news broke out: in the fratricidal Spain of 1936, in Bolshevik Russia, in Fascist Italy, in Nazi Germany, in occupied Paris or in the bombed London of World War II; because his job was to walk, see and tell stories, and thus fight against tyrants, at a time when it was necessary to take sides in order not to be left alone; but he, a man of integrity to the bitter end, never did so.
The story of iconic Spanish artist Susana Estrada's struggle against censorship and sexual repression during the turbulent years following the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
The individual journeys of the four members of the band, as they move through the music scene of the 1960s, playing small clubs throughout Britain and performing some of the biggest hits of the era, until their meeting in the summer of 1968 for a rehearsal that changes their lives forever.