Naive Cinema

Toronto is regarded as the third largest jazz centre in North America. This film features a cross-section of jazz bands of that city: the Lenny Breau Trio, the Don Thompson Quintet and the Alf Jones Quartet. Their styles show creative self-expression, hard work, and improvisation.

Too hot! The spawning fish do not come at the right time and the pepper plants end up dying in this heat. "This is a very different weather that not even the spirits can understand." From their gardens, homes, and backyards, the indigenous women of the Amazon involve us in their vast universe of knowledge while they observe the impacts of climate change in their ways of life.

A trip on the Swedish lake Mälaren by a 115-year-old steamboat. The journey between Stockholm and Mariefred takes 3,5 hours. The steamboat Mariefred was manufactured over a hundred years ago and is one of the last steam-powered vessels on the lake. The steam whistle sounds when Maja, as she is called in Mariefred, steers into the bay towards the small town. A fanfare for the summer!

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

A story from childhood and an indelible image continue to haunt Jamie many years later.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars as a fraternal and social organization, with emphasis on their projects that benefit community life and cohesion.

Canadian author, humorist and storyteller W.O. Mitchell talks about his career as a writer and performer. Known for his witty radio and television appearances, Mitchell shows a more serious side as he reveals his personal views on writing and on the meaning of life and death.

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

"Not a documentary but the the ruins of an attempted documentary." - Grashina Gabelmann Nico’s solo concert in West Berlin 1986. She’s high, giggly, not entirely there but her voice is still haunting and raspy and her presence still the one of a star. We see short clips of an interview held the same year in a hotel – an interview Gaul found somewhere, where he can not remember. We see footage borrowed from Andy Warhol’s estate. Footage of factory parties and screen tests.

A documentary that captures some moments on set of filming of Luc Besson's "Nikita".

As daylight breaks between the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, undocumented migrants and their relatives, divided by a wall, prepare to participate in an activist event. For three minutes, they’ll embrace in no man’s land for the briefest and sweetest of reunions.

In a retirement home in a small town surrounded by mountains, the daily lives of the people who live there alternate. Them inside, the world outside. An imbalance that manifests itself in "Pucundrìa", an indefinable feeling of melancholy, boredom and perennial dissatisfaction, which leads to an unconscious resignation for what has not been, is not and can never be.

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…

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?

Edith and Eddie, ages 96 and 95, are America's oldest interracial newlyweds. Their unusual and idyllic love story is threatened by a family feud that triggers a devastating abuse of the legal guardianship system.

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