Werner Herzog - The White Diamond (2004)

Werner Herzog once again turns his eye on the beautiful and dangerous wilds of the Amazon in this documentary. Dr. Graham Dorrington is a scientist who specializes in designing experimental aircraft, and in 1992 he invented a unique man-powered airship intended to travel into the Amazon canopy of Guyana, with the goal studying the medicinal herbs said to grow there. However, Dorrington's aircraft proved to be flawed, and an accident on its first voyage into the Amazon claimed the life of Dieter Plage, a filmmaker and close friend of Dorrington who had tagged along to document the journey. Ten years later, Herzog joined Dorrington as he returned to the Amazon canopy and explored the beautiful but forbidding rivers and forests, visited the people who live there, and recalled the accident that claimed his friend's life. The White Diamond was the opening night attraction at the 2004 Taiwan Documentary Film Festival.

Thomas Heise - Eisenzeit (1992)

Synopsis
Documentary film on the memories of four children from Eisenhüttenstadt who were all born at the same time the Berlin wall was built.

Quote:
1991 stellte der DEFA-Autor Thomas Heise seinen Dokumentarfilm ‘Eisenzeit’ vor, der vier Jugendliche aus Eisenhüttenstadt porträtiert. Der Film zeigt quälend und schmerzlich, wie sie an den Schwierigkeiten mit Staat, Gesellschaft und Familie zerbrachen. Schon 1981 wurde die Idee zum Film geboren, konnte aber aus politischen Gründen nicht umgesetzt werden. Erst zehn Jahre später zeigte der Film die selbstzerstörerische Flucht dieser selbstdenkenden Jugendlichen in Drogen und Selbstmord.

Angus Macqueen - Cocaine (2005)

  Three dramatic and intimate films about cocaine, taking viewers on a chilling journey from the coca fields and cocaine producers of the Peruvian Andes, via drugs gangs in the favelas of Rio, to the man who stands behind over half of Colombia’s drug trade.

Orson Welles - F for Fake (1974)

Orson Welles' free-form documentary about fakery focusses on the notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and Elmyr's biographer, Clifford Irving, who also wrote the celebrated fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography, then touches on the reclusive Hughes and Welles' own career (which started with a faked resume and a phony Martian invasion). On the way, Welles plays a few tricks of his own on the audience.

Byambasuren Davaa - Die Höhle des gelben Hundes AKA The Cave of the Yellow Dog [+Extras] (2005)

Equal parts documentary, children's story, and narrative drama, Cave of the Yellow Dog is a beautifully filmed adventure that the entire family will enjoy. It's unique on many levels, the most notable being that the charismatic family portrayed in the film are an actual family, and none of them are professional actors. The eldest daughter (played by adorable Nansal Batchuluun) appears to be about 6 or 7 years old. Her life is nothing like that of an American first grader. She goes away to school, returning home during the summers.

Jean-Luc Godard - Ici et ailleurs AKA Here and Elsewhere (1976)

Jean-Luc Godard's short feature about the PLO was initially shot with Jean-Pierre Gorin in the Middle East in 1970, but when he edited the footage with Anne-Marie Mieville several years later, many of the soldiers that had been filmed were dead. Reflecting on this fact, as well as on the problems of recording history and of making political statements on film, Godard and Mieville produced a thoughtful and provocative essay on the subject.

Michael Winterbottom - The Road to Guantánamo (2006)

The Road to Guantánamo, co-directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, is a ferocious, partisan, and moving account of how three young men from Tipton, in the Midlands, ended up in the world's most notorious prison. The film-makers' rage at what happened to their protagonists is palpable, while they are also alert to the absurdity and gallows humour of it all. Nothing in Winterbottom's recent Tristram Shandy movie, A Cock and Bull Story, is as far-fetched as what we see on screen here.

Marcel Ophüls - Le Chagrin et la pitié AKA The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)

The Sorrow and the Pity (French: Le Chagrin et la pitié) is a two-part documentary film by Marcel Ophüls that concerns the French Resistance and collaboration with the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II. This 1969 film used interviews of a German officer, collaborators, and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature and reasons for collaboration. The reasons include anti-Semitism, anglophobia, fear of Bolsheviks and Soviet invasion, the desire for power, and simple caution.

Anand Patwardhan - Raam Ke Naam (1992)

Another highly provocative and extremely well made documentary from the director on religion fundamentalism, intolerance, communalism and cultural amnesia. A must see, given that the judicial decision on the Ayodhya issue was given just a few hours ago, following 61staggering  years of dispute, violence and loss of innocent lives.

Leni Riefenstahl - Triumph des Willens aka Triumph of the Will (1935)

A legendary propaganda/documentary of the Third Reich's 1934 Nuremberg Party Rally. Featuring a cast of thousands as well as, of course, Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Hess, Goering and other top party officials.
 
Designed by Nazis, for Nazis, and about Nazis. Triumph of the Will was filmed by the German Propaganda Ministry in 1934 and covers the events of the Sixth Nuremburg Party Congress. The original intention was to document the early days of the NSDAP, so as future generations could look back and see how the Third Reich began. In reality, Triump des Willens shows historians how the Nazi state drew in the masses through propaganda and also how Adolf Hitler had a unique and terrifying ability to entice crowds to his beliefs by the very power of his words.

Yuri Raizman & Yelizaveta Svilova - Fall of Berlin, 1945 (1945)

This original Soviet documentary was included in the Red Army victory parade DVD as a "special feature"...and it just so happens it's three times as long as the main one. A treat indeed!

"Over 40 Byelorussian and 1st Ukrainian Army cameramen contributed footage of this remarkable documentary of the fall of Berlin, including captured German footage."

Clio Barnard - The Arbor (2010)

 Andrea Dunbar was a British playwright whose work reflected the gritty realities of life in working-class Bradford, West Yorkshire. Dunbar knew of what she wrote -- she grew up in a Bradford housing project, had children by three different men, was a victim of domestic violence, and struggled with alcoholism before she died in 1990 when she was only 29. Andrea's daughter Lorraine Dunbar inherited her gift with language, but also her weaknesses; she also dealt with unhappy relationships with men, worked as a prostitute, became addicted to hard drugs, and served time for manslaughter when her two-year-old son died after drinking her methadone.

Hartmut Bitomsky - Staub AKA Dust (2007)

Dust is everywhere and ever-present. A conglomeration of the smallest particles, dust nestles in carpets and in attics. It invades laboratories and settles on artworks. It is blown into the air from factory smokestacks and resides in every raindrop. It is fought and cleared away, but in this Sisyphean task, dust is set in motion and returns even as it is being removed.

DUST examines the myriad forms and pathways of dust. It pursues dust to the places where it settles and meets the people who contend with it. Armies of cleaning men and women, manufacturers of vacuum cleaners and air cleansing products, housewives, toxic waste disposal workers, and museum custodians.In examining the many types of dust, including microscopic particulates invisible to the naked eye, DUST hears from a variety of scientists—botanists, biologists, meteorologists, and astronomers — who investigate the environmental and health consequences of dust, from Sahara sandstorms and the Oklahoma dust bowl of the Thirties to the toxic dust generated by the 9/11 demolition of the WTC towers.

Vadim Chubasov - Sergei Eisenstein: Lessons in Editing ()

I found this fascinating movie a while ago at soviet movies weblog. It's a 60-minutes documentary about different types, techniques and notions of montage used by Eisenstein. The movie is very imaginative, features a lot of interesting video-techniques to visualize different concepts of montage. Although I don't speak Russian nor understand to read kyrillic characters I enjoyed watching it very much.

Janus Metz Pedersen - Armadillo (2010)

In February 2009 a group of Danish soldiers accompanied by documentary filmmaker Janus Metz arrived at Armadillo, an army base in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometer away from Taliban positions. The outcome of their work is a gripping and highly authentic war drama that was justly awarded the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique at this year's Cannes film festival. But it also provoked furious debate in Denmark concerning the controversial behavior of certain Danish soldiers during a shootout with Taliban fighters.

Jérôme de Missolz - Le corps sublimé "Sans Titre" (2007)

This is only the "Sans Titre" part of the 4 piece Le corps sublimé.

director: Jérôme de Missolz
cast: Florence Denou, Lou Castel, Caroline Baer.
release: France 2006
synopsis: fiction-documentary about the short life of the photographer Francesca Woodman (1958-81) who used to photograph herself, mostly naked in strange places, until she committs sucide.

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Phil Collins - Marxism today (prologue) (2010)

About the film:
Phil Collins' works in film, video and photography deftly dissect the political and aesthetic implications of popular visual formats, and often provide a platform for the disregarded and the overlooked. Shining a light on what is generally perceived as the losing side in the political and social upheavals of the past two decades, marxism today is an ongoing project that began by following the fortunes of former teachers of Marxism-Leninism in Communist East Germany. Collins' short film marxism today (prologue) (2010), first shown at the 6th Berlin Biennale, mixes contemporary interviews alongside archive material in which snapshots of life in the old GDR are offset with the teachers' own recollections of the time, and their contrasting experiences after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Paul Cox - Vincent [+Extras] (1987)

Though art is not my specialty, I do love to wander around a museum. It's not something I do often, but I get that itch to surround myself with works that have stood the test of time. Gazing at such beautiful art stirs pangs of jealousy that I'm not able to do such things myself. But I know my limitations, and I will simply allow myself an occasional stroll through the controlled environment of my local museums. Shamefully, while I lived just outside of Washington D.C., I spent just one afternoon in its superb Smithsonian Museum of Art; and, on a recent trip to New York City, I nearly ran through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Ohio, where I have spent most of my life, the museums in Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati don't have the works we'd all like to see. I am actually quite selective in what I like, and that tends toward realism, impressionism, and a touch of surrealism. Contemporary art, cubism, and other abstract forms irritate me and implore me to return to the rooms that showcase works created before the twentieth century.

Arnold Glassman - Visions of Light (1992)

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the director of photography, illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

Adolf Zika - Jan Saudek - V pekle svych vasni raj v nedohlednu aka Jan Saudek - Trapped By His Passions No Hope For Rescue [+Extras] (2007)

Jan Saudek, Czechoslovakia’s most famous living photographer, is the subject of this often-shocking kaleidoscopic biopic by friend and colleague Adolf Zika. With an unblinking eye, Zika chronicles the drama-filled life and work of a controversial artist who, though little-known in the United States, has enjoyed international acclaim throughout his fifty-year career.

Saudek’s hand-painted, sepia-toned portraits have a nineteenth-century veneer but a decidedly postmodern sensibility. Shooting his models both clothed and unclothed, he captures now moments of exhilarating grace, now bizarrely explicit—critics might say prurient—tableaux: A woman in a filmy white gown leads two naked girls into a grim industrial landscape.