This Is Not a Film

What is a Micro-Budget film? How are they made? Where can you find them? Do they actually make any money? Six micro-budget filmmakers take us through the arduous process of making movies with little-to-no money. They shed light on the physical, financial and moral complexities of this unusual side of Hollywood.

French documentarist Sonia Kronlund follows actor and director Salim Shaheen, an Afghan movie star who produced more than 110 low-budget movies in a country devastated by war.

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

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American Movie documents the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.

Luis Bunuel, the father of cinematic Surrealism, made his film debut with 'Un Chien Andalou' in 1929 working closely with Salvador Dali. Considered one of the finest and controversial filmmakers with, 'L’Age d’Or' (1930), attacking the church and the middle classes. He won many awards including Best Director at Cannes for 'Los Olvidados' (1950), and the coveted Palme d’Or for 'Viridiana' (1961), which had been banned in his native Spain. His career moved to France with 'The Diary of a Chambermaid' with major stars such as Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve.

The film traces the life and times of Esther Eng, a San Francisco native known as Hong Kong’s first “directress.” She directed 10 Cantonese talkies.

Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.

Kirby Dick's provocative documentary investigates the secretive and inconsistent process by which the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rates films, revealing the organization's underhanded efforts to control culture. Dick questions whether certain studios get preferential treatment and exposes the discrepancies in how the MPAA views sex and violence.

This movie is about an Iranian filmmaker called Davood Roostayi, whose all movies ( more than 100 movies ) have been banned both before and after the Islamic revolution of Iran and none of his movies have been screened.

A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.

Get to know the siblings whose films have captured the skittering pulse of New York’s city streets. An original documentary featuring footage from the making of their new thriller, Good Time, along with several of the brothers’ early features and shorts. Produced by the Criterion Channel for their "Meet the Filmmakers" series.

An unpredictable and grand road trip over the steppes undertaken by two filmmakers.

Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Overnight chronicles one man's misadventures of making a Hollywood movie. It starts out as a rags to riches story as Troy Duffy, a Boston-bred bartender, sells his first screenplay for The Boondock Saints.

Filmmakers discuss the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock and the book “Hitchcock/Truffaut” (“Le cinéma selon Hitchcock”), written by François Truffaut and published in 1966.

Paulo Rocha catches up with his “beloved subject” in Porto, where he made Douro, Faina Fluvial in 1929, and where today Oliveira reminisces about the figure of his father, his first experience of cinema as an actor, his past as a racing driver, his first technical experiences…

Documentary on director Kim Ki-Duk looking back at his film career.

In the spirit of "American Movie" and "Be Kind Rewind," Double Digits introduces us to inspiring, fifty-year-old YouTuber Richard Miller as he directs himself and his cast of dolls and action figures in the weirdest zero-budget feature films you've never seen. His threshold for success? More than nine views.

With humor, prolific director Víctor Matellano tells the story of one of the most iconic and problematic cult films of Spain's "fantaterror": Los resucitados by Arturo de Bobadilla. A story of ambition, frustration and the everlasting will of the most passionate cinephiles.

This absolutely top-notch documentary by Robert Fischer is a fascinating look back at not just the film in question, but Fassbinder's meteoric career which ended all too soon with his untimely death. Archival footage of Fassbinder is utilized (including several fascinating snippets culled from interviews he did at the disastrous Cannes premiere of Despair), as well as many others involved in the film and its release. Even if you're not a particular fan of Despair, or even in fact of Fassbinder, this is stellar documentary film making and is an intriguing look at one of the most enigmatic masters of the New German Cinema.