In Order Not to Be Here

‘Podwórka’ captures six groups of neighbourhood youth as they play in seemingly deserted yards, offering an intimate portrait of daily life in Łódź, Poland. Shot with a fixed camera, this single-channel video projection highlights American artist Sharon Lockhart’s concern for the interrelationship between the still and the moving image.

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

This film features two Russian communist politicians. Being committed Leninists; both of them have served several terms as city council members. Their horizons are broad, but what concerns them the most is the future of global communism. At one point, by decree of fate, their booming activities begin to expand far beyond the boundaries of their native St. Petersburg and the Russian Federation. However, the future of global communism remains unclear. What remains clear is the fact that in the modern world the tail still wags the dog. A documentary comedy.

Of all the great ballerinas, Tanaquil Le Clercq may have been the most transcendent. With a body unlike any before hers, she mesmerized viewers and choreographers alike. With her elongated, race-horse physique, she became the new prototype for the great George Balanchine. Because of her extraordinary movement and unique personality on stage, she became a muse to two of the greatest choreographers in dance, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She eventually married Balanchine, and Robbins created his famous version of Afternoon of a Faun for her. She had love, fame, adoration, and was the foremost dancer of her day until it suddenly all stopped. At the age of 27, she was struck down by polio and paralyzed. She never danced again. The ballet world has been haunted by her story ever since.

Documentery from 1991 where The 2 Live Crew, Chuck D (Public Enemy), Too Short, Ice-T, Geto Boys, H.W.A. drop real talk on different topics.

A photographer and a filmmaker challenge each other to shoot—one to photograph the other to film—two young actresses, one from Tokyo, the other from the countryside. The photographer seeks naturalism in his compositions, and Kawase observes and comments on his work. The competition between the photographer, the filmmaker, and the actresses creates a charged atmosphere.

When adults are ineffectual, children have to grow up quickly. Ola is 14 and she takes care of her dysfunctional father, autistic brother and a mother who lives apart from them and is mainly heard the phone. Most of all she wants to reunite a family that simply doesn’t work — like a defective TV set. She lives in the hope of bringing her mother back home. Her 13 year old brother Nikodem’s Holy Communion is a pretext for the family to meet up. Ola is entirely responsible for preparing the perfect family celebration. “Communion” reveals the beauty of the rejected, the strength of the weak and the need for change when change seems impossible. This crash course in growing up teaches us that failure is not final. Especially when love is in question.

Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City at that time.

Tan Pin Pin employs a strictly external perspective for this portrait of her hometown, the tropical economic powerhouse of Singapore, interviewing political exiles in London, Thailand and Malaysia, who are to this day unable to return home.

The compelling story of an extraordinary woman's journey from her birth in a paper thin shack in the cotton fields of Georgia to her recognition as a key writer of the twentieth Century.Walker made history as the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking novel, The Color Purple.

A document of the Riot Grrrl and Queercore scene in the 1990s.

Forty years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. In 1971, eight activists plotted an intricate break-in to the local FBI offices to leak stolen documents and expose the illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans in an era of anti-war activism. In this riveting heist story, the perpetrators reveal themselves for the first time, reflecting on their actions and raising broader questions surrounding security leaks in activism today.

This documentary tells two stories simultaneously: it's a profile of Bernard Tapie, a wealthy man who rises and falls spectacularly in French society and may be on the rise again; and, it's a look at Marina Zenovich's fascination with Tapie, behaving oddly in spite of her awareness that she's being irrational. Politicians, athletes, friends, companions, and journalists comment on Bernard's charm, his rise to prominence in sports and politics, and his subsequent trouble with the law. Zenovich becomes fixated on her need to interview Tapie, becoming virtually a stalker in her quest.

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.