Focus: 16 Worlds on 16 | IDFA Festival

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Focus: 16 Worlds on 16

Focus: 16 Worlds on 16

Reflecting on 100 years of 16mm since Kodak introduced this film format, this focus program explores how the history of documentary film has been influenced as a result. The selection includes classics from cinema verité such as Daguerréotypes by Agnès Varda and Salesman by the Maysels, as well as examples of films that wrap their criticism of authorities in metaphors due to censorship, as in "First Case, Second Case" where Abbas Kiarostami examines revolutionary thought

A

Africa, I Will Fleece You

Africa, I Will Fleece You

Jean Marie Teno

A creative, critical and sometimes humorous film on the history of Cameroon. Using music and archive footage, this mix of fiction and documentary affirms a personal and indigenous perspective that breaks away from colonial visions of Africa.

D

Daguerréotypes

Daguerréotypes

They bake bread, sell accordions, style hair or teach people to drive: the business people of the Rue Daguerre in Paris talk about their lives, loves and dreams, documented by the camera of their neighbor, filmmaker Agnès Varda.

F

Fireworks

Fireworks

“This flick is all I have to say about being 17, the United States Navy, American Christmas and the 4th of July,” said gay underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger about his debut short film from 1947, full of bizarre, disturbing dream images.

First Case, Second Case

First Case, Second Case

Abbas Kiarostami

Iran, spring 1979: With revolution in the air, religious leaders, administrators and intellectuals gather to comment on a case study concerning discipline and resistance in the classroom. It’s a psychological test disguised as an instructional film.

The First Year

The First Year

Patricio Guzmán

In 1970—President Salvador Allende’s first year in office—miners, fishermen, workers and indigenous people speak in unique recordings about their hopes for this political breakthrough in Chili, in Patricio Guzmán’s first feature-length documentary.

Fogo, l’île de feu

Fogo, l’île de feu

Revolutionary fire has given the island of Fogo a new future. Hard work and expressions of triumph prevail in this portrait of a free people, filmed shortly after the independence of Cape Verde.

From the East

From the East

Chantal Akerman

Slow cinema at its best, this is a visual account of travels through Eastern Europe shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union—a world about to undergo radical changes.

G

Goodbye CP

Goodbye CP

A radical, unvarnished portrait of people with cerebral palsy (CP). They speak candidly about their experiences as outsiders and their desire to live freely, documented unrelentingly by the 16mm camera of Kazuo Hara.

M

Meshes of the Afternoon

Meshes of the Afternoon

Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid

Maya Deren’s groundbreaking experimental short film follows a woman (played by the director) through a menacing, circular dream world in which she repeatedly enters the same house.

A Moment in Love

A Moment in Love

An elegant pas de deux performed by two young lovers dancing in an ever-changing landscape—from natural idyll to deserted city—which causes the first ripples in their romantic affair. A lyrical and emotionally moving dance film.

O

On the Other Island

On the Other Island

The filmmaker took her 16mm camera to Isla de Pinos, currently known as Isla la Juventud (“Island of Youth”) in Cuba and spoke to the workers on the collective farms, who candidly and proudly tell their unique stories.

P

Pull My Daisy

Pull My Daisy

Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie

A pleasant dinner with a bishop takes a bizarre turn when Allen Ginsberg and friends drop by unannounced. Robert Frank’s debut film was loosely based on a play by Jack Kerouac, who also provides an ironic voice-over and some freewheeling beat poetry.

R

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

An experimental and personal account of filmmaker Jonas Mekas’s visit to his native village in Lithuania, twenty years after he had last visited the country. Snapshots from his everyday life constitute this moving diary of a voracious filmmaker.

S

Salesman

Salesman

Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin

A lively portrait of four door-to-door Bible salesmen, and of 1960s America—of a sense of self esteem blending Christianity and consumerism, interwoven with a sales pitch that’s steadily losing its appeal.

Step by Step

Step by Step

Ossama Mohammed

Childhood innocence gives way to repression in this confronting short film. In hindsight, this experimental documentary from 1978 on hardening attitudes within Syrian society seems disturbingly prescient.

T

Twenty Years Later

Twenty Years Later

Eduardo Coutinho

In 1964, Eduardo Coutinho started work on a film about a peasant leader who was murdered by the landowners he was protesting against. Production was halted. Twenty years later, the director returns to Brazil with the original footage.