Discovering Hamlet

Mel Gibson teaches Hamlet to a group of high school drama students.

This documentary celebrates one of Britain’s greatest actors, Dame Judi Dench, and looks back over her remarkable 60-year career.

Sir Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine talking about making the film.

As their bodies give way to Parkinson's disease, two New York actors put their hearts into one final Off-Broadway production of Beckett's "Endgame," the play that posits, "there's nothing funnier than unhappiness."

On 18th of December 2017, the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino, directed by Timothy Brock, presented "The Gold Rush" by Charles Chaplin, with live performance of the soundtrack. But let's go back a few days: this short film takes us in the backstage of the concert!

Five young Ukrainians discuss life following the Maidan Revolution of 2014. Not all fought in the Russian-Ukrainian war, but it, regardless, shattered their life plans. Representing 'Generation Maidan', they face the question of how to cope with experiences of violence, how to go on. A local theatre director produces Hamlet, wherein they can use Shakespeare’s tragic character as a mirror and face their traumas onstage. For them, 'to be or not to be' is not simply text but an existential dilemma with no clear answer.

It’s the hit musical that changed Broadway forever and brought the genius of Lin Manuel Miranda to the attention of legions of fans across the world. A story of how a group of mavericks made an unlikely marriage of hip-hop and history to create the biggest show in America…and are getting ready to conquer the world. Featuring interviews with Miranda, as well as the cast and crew of Hamilton.

A mockumentary examination of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy using "breaking news" style interviews and commentary.

Rafe Esquith, 1992 American Teacher of the Year and National Medal of Arts recipient, teaches 5th-grade children whose parents don't speak English at a school in a dangerous, poor, drug-infested 100% Latino/Asian neighborhood in Los Angeles.

An acting ensemble rehearses for an upcoming theater festival. They rig up stage scenery and practice dialogue and set pieces in the middle of a residential area. But this is no ordinary theater setting, as evidenced by the armed guards at the entrance. Festival 4 Chemins is taking place in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Gangs are active in the city; you can hear machine-gun fire in the distance.

The Living Theatre is an experimental company founded in New York in 1947 by Julian Beck (New York 1925-1985), painter and poet, and the actress and stage director Judith Malina (Kiel 1926), a student of Erwin Piscator. From the very beginning the group’s activities bore the stamp of social and political commitment, imbued with a strong libertarian matrix. A video montage of films and videos from The Living Theatre Archives.

Lars Eidinger is one of Germany’s most talented and versatile actors with his love of improvisation and physical acting style. This documentary seeks to dispel some of the mystique surrounding this exceptional actor’s unique art and also provide an exciting insight into the world of theatre and filmmaking.

The English language is spoken by 450 million people around the globe, with a further one billion using it as a second language. It is arguably Britain’s most famous export. The man often given credit for the global triumph of English, and the invention of many of our modern words, is William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays first hit the stage four centuries ago, as the explorers of Elizabethan England were laying the foundations for the British empire. It was this empire that would carry English around the world. Language historian and BBC New Generation Thinker Dr John Gallagher asks whether the real story of how English became a global linguistic superpower is more complex.

Two unemployed friends have a fresh idea: they want to stage Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' in Grand Theft Auto. But even in a virtual world, reality intrudes in a wild and trippy film shot entirely inside the ultra-violent video game.