1. America
A cinematic omnibus rooted in New Orleans, challenging the idea of black cinema as a "wave" or "movement in time," proposing instead a continuous thread of achievement.
It has an average vote of 5.2 on TMDB.
2. The Decisive Moment
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment is an 18-minute film produced in 1973 by Scholastic Magazines, Inc. and the International Center of Photography. It features a selection of Cartier-Bresson’s iconic photographs, along with rare commentary by the photographer himself.
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
3. You Are Not a Woman (Usted no es mujer)
In the coffee-growing village of Santuario, Colombia, lives an indigenous transgender community. That is where Juliana and Berómica were banished due to the prejudices of their own strongly Catholic community.
4. The Sacred Art of Tibet
An accurate depiction of the basic tenets of northern Mahayana Buddhism, cast into living or "experiential" form, consistent with powerful mantras heard on the soundtrack of the film. Tarthang Tulku, a Tibetan Lama, was the advisor.
5. Daumë
Culled from four rolls of Super-8 film shot while the maker was a development worker in a small South American village, Daumë is at its center a film about ritual, power, and play. Daumë is both ethnography and critique; it is an interrogation into how to represent a place that can't be represented.
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
6. Terra Incognita
Terra Incognita is a lensless film whose cloudy pinhole images create a memory of history. Ancient and modern explorer texts of Easter Island are garbled together by a computer narrator, resulting in a forever repeating narrative of discovery, colonialism, loss and departure.
It has an average vote of 5.8 on TMDB.
7. The Red and the Blue Gods
An ethnographic field report in which the Anthropologist describes the mythic creation of an unnamed ‘sun-scraping structure’ through the ritualized actions of the Red and the Blue Gods.
It has an average vote of 4 on TMDB.
8. Bob's Funeral
Searching for the root of generational trauma, the director takes a camera into his estranged grandfather’s funeral.
9. La deuxième femme (La deuxième femme)
Over the course of more than fifteen years, Clémenti films a series of intimate diaries, starting from daily encounters. In La deuxième femme, we see Bulle Ogier and Viva, Nico and Tina Aumont, Philippe Garrel and Udo Kier, a performance by Béjart, a piece by Marc’O, concerts by Bob Marley and Patti Smith ... It’s like a maelstrom of psychedelic images that are passed through a particle accelerator.
10. Kylvan, The Deaf Pup (Kylvan, le pup sourd)
Kelvan describes his daily life as a deaf person in Montreal, with one small detail: he's part of the puppy community. Puppy-Play is a kind of role-playing game in which you adopt the personality and mentality of an animal, and is present in the LGBTQueer+ community.
11. The Creepypasta Episodes: Remastered
A documentary covering the remastering process of first season of the horror anthology series that adapts internet horror stories into short, interconnected films.
12. Studio 2
Film student Patrick Atallah has a problem on his hands: his graduation documentary was cancelled at the last moment, so he has just one day in a studio to make an entire, fully realised film. What’s the film going to be about now? He doesn’t know, but he’s hoping to find it along the way. To do this, he invites five of his closest friends to the studio to help him come up with some interesting ideas.
13. Reconnaissance Pilot
Documentary/training film depicting the duties of a pilot in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War as he flies reconnaissance missions over enemy-held islands.
14. Wigstock: The Movie
The original documentary on the Wigstock festival, back in the day when it was a much smaller affair in Thompkins Square Park. A full day of peace, love, and wigs…
It has an average vote of 5.8 on TMDB.
15. Loose Fish (Loose Fish)
A boy growing up in a port town in Morocco dreams of escaping into a different life than the one in store for him.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
16. Man with a Movie Camera (Человек с киноаппаратом)
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
It has an average vote of 7.845 on TMDB.
17. The Water Walker
A documentary following young Anishinaabe water activist Autumn Peltier as she travels to the UN to preserve the future of Indigenous communities.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
18. Impressions from the Upper Atmosphere (Impresiones en la alta atmósfera)
Sistiaga painted directly on 70mm film a circular form, around which dance shifting colours in a psychedelic acceleration matched by the soundtrack’s deep-space roar and howl. - Cinema Scope
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
19. BL: Broken Fantasy (BL: Broken Fantasy)
A documentary about the behind the scenes of BL or commonly known as "Yaoi series." Where does BL series come from? Why Yaoi fangirls are physically and financially dedicating themselves to BL?
It has an average vote of 6.8 on TMDB.
20. Clouds
Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky, shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve close-up images. Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds, the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building, and these only as fleeting glimpses. The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film. The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave, consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax. The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition. The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself: the grain, the light, the shadow and inconsistencies in the print.
