Celluloide

Celebrating the splendor and grandeur of the great cinemas of the United States, built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts. A tribute to America’s great art form and the great monuments created for audiences to enjoy them in.

Clara Mingueza, an actress from Barcelona, sets out to move the mortal remains of Elena Jordi (1882-1945), vaudeville star, actress and the first woman director of Spanish cinema, to her hometown, while trying to find a copy of Thaïs, the only film she directed.

Embarrassed about his identity and culture, a meek Indian high-schooler decides to attend an American university to pursue his passion for film. But in doing so, he causes a rift in his fundamentalist family.

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

The early days of the future genius of Spanish cinema Luis García Berlanga, from his birth in Valencia in 1921 to his departure to Madrid in 1947 to become a filmmaker.

The life and professional career of the Spanish filmmaker Florián Rey (1894-1962), a brilliant artist who began his career in silent films and had great commercial success during the Second Republic (1931-1936): a journey to the early days of Spanish cinema.

In one of those wonderful coincidences of history, lumière, the French word for “light,” was also the last name of brothers Auguste and Louis, whose brilliant invention, the cinematograph, helped to inaugurate the most beloved art form of the last 130 years. Institute Lumière director Thierry Frémaux uses Lumière, Le Cinema! to guide the viewer through over a hundred shorts—some famous, some forgotten, some never before seen—directed by Lumière and company. In the process, Frémaux illuminates how the brothers employed the camera as a creative instrument as they (and their operators) mastered framing, staging, and subject selection for quotidian and exotic microdocumentaries as well as the first ever fictional motion pictures. The result is not only a glorious re(telling) of the genesis of cinema but a profound meditation on the beautiful world captured—and the mysterious world imagined—by the Lumières.

Ken, a WWII GI, returns home after he's paralyzed in battle. Residing in the paraplegic ward of a veteran's hospital and embittered by his condition, he refuses to see his fiancée and sinks into a solitary world of hatred and hostility. Head physician, Dr. Brock cajoles the withdrawn Ken into the life of the ward, where fellow patients Norm, Leo and Angel begin to pull him out of his spiritual dilemma.

A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".

In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) to let himself be filmed simply hanging out with friends, telling anecdotes from his life and recording jazz standards.

Born in 1932, Keiko Kishi has been one of the first Japanese actresses known worldwide. Her decision to move to France and to marry director Yves Ciampi in 1957 – after he filmed her in Typhoon Over Nagasaki starring Jean Marais and Danielle Darrieux – caused a huge scandal in Japan. Despite this transgression, Keiko Kishi continued acting in her home country with Kon Ichikawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Masaki Kobayashi… building unique bridges between Japanese and European cultures. Free and rebellious, she emancipated herself from the many obstacles she encountered in the film industry, and created her own production company in her early twenties. Let’s look back at the story of a pioneer, an inspiration for many generations.

The residents of Ho Chi Minh City face modernization amid widespread poverty. A retired American Marine arrives on a search for his daughter, whom he abandoned at the end of the Vietnam War. Elsewhere, a cyclo driver falls for a troubled prostitute and schemes to raise money so he can spend time with her. Additionally, a young women begins harvesting lotuses for a writer suffering from leprosy, and a child trinket seller loses his traveling case.

Japan, 1954. A legend emerges from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastated by atomic bombs in 1945. The creature's name is Godzilla. The film that tells its story is the first of kaiju eiga, the giant monster movies.

A naive actor auditions for a film which could launch his career. The things he's asked to do make him more and more uncomfortable, until a choice remark from the director makes him see red.

Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick and released in 1982, is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its depiction of Los Angeles in the year 2019 is oppressively prophetic: climate catastrophe, increasing public surveillance, powerful monopolistic corporations, highly evolved artificial intelligence; a fantastic vision of the future world that has become a frightening reality.

Spain, early 20th century. As a child, Leocadia Cantalapiedra was dazzled by a new art: cinema; but she lives in a society where directing films is something only men can do.

France, 1974. The erotic film Emmanuelle, directed by Just Jaeckin, breaks all records for cinema attendance: the story of the creation of a sensual epic that marked a turning point in the struggle for sexual emancipation.

For over 100 years, Hollywood cinema has crafted the ultimate "villain"- the Indian, as they were labeled in early Westerns. Confined almost exclusively to this genre, the Western became a vehicle for American racism, obscuring the genocide upon which the United States was built. In this documentary, only Native Americans are given a voice to share their story, one that has been overshadowed by Hollywood's portrayal. Their narrative, part of the larger American story, highlights how cinema has long been used as a powerful propaganda tool, distorting history and perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.

In a nocturnal Cuba, lit only by the tiny lights of the cocuyos, the island’s DJs and electronic music producers become a living metaphor: like those glowing insects, they come alive at night, illuminating the city with their energy and restlessness. Cuba – Coocuyo Remix is a neorealist comedy that observes their everyday life without filters, moving between clichés and moments of truth, and transforming daily existence into a collective portrait. The film follows both the pioneers and the new generation of Cuba’s electronic music scene, showing how their dedication continues to shape the island’s nightlife culture, in a story where music gives way to the full force of reality.