Keyboard Fantasies

The space of the junkyard allows various ‘crash’ narratives to unfold, with the stories of actual crashes and the remnants and afterlife of these machines becoming metaphors for economic decline. This is an investigation of planes as they are parked during the economic downturn, stored and recycled, revealing unexpected connections between economy, violence and spectacle, finding perfect example in the form of the Boeing 4X-JYI, an aircraft first acquired by film director Howard Hughes for TWA, which was subsequently flown by the Israeli Airforce before finding its way to the Californian desert to be blown up for the Hollywood blockbuster Speed. Through intertwined narratives of people, planes and places Steyerl reveals cycles of capitalism incorporating and adapting to the changing status of the commodity, but also points at a horizon beyond this endless repetition.

This movie takes us in the daily battle of 12 cartoonists around the world : France, Mexico, Israël, China, Russia, Ivory Coast...

A film about teenagers with growing pains, who discover their own voice and talent through riding and grooming toy horses.

In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth. According to Carl Sagan, “[t]he spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” While working on the golden record, Sagan met and fell madly in love with his future wife Annie Druyan. The record became their love letter to humankind and to each other. In the summer of 2010, I began my own hopeful voyage into the unknown. This film is a love letter to my fellow traveler. - Penny Lane

Following folk musician Joan Baez on her extensive 2008-2009 tour, this film commemorates her career, which has spanned five decades. It includes concert and archival footage as well as interviews with such disparate colleagues, friends and admirers as Bob Dylan, Jesse Jackson and David Crosby. In addition to the music, it also touchs upon Baez's long history of global social activism.

The Tortoise composed a song and the Lion cub learnt it by heart and they sang it together.

The story of a LGBTQIA+ child told through old images from VHS tapes. The videos were recorded by Vicente's father between 1987 and 1993.

A musical documentary and tribute to Hugh Le Caine. The story of early electronic instruments, and the nearly forgotten Canadian music pioneer who created the first synthesizers. As told through interviews with three modern-day modular synth musicians.

Feature-length documentary about the greatest diver of all time. Four-time Olympic champion Greg Louganis has faced more than his share of challenges. In 2011, he is far from the public eye and struggling to pay his mortgage. Now, the openly gay, HIV+ world-class athlete returns to diving to mentor the USA Olympic hopefuls. This may be his best chance to regain the notoriety -- and financial stability -- he enjoyed at the height of his career.

Rain Dance is a four-minute animation produced by Hill while an undergraduate student at Harvard University from 1988-1992; the exact date of the production is currently unidentified. Although little known, the film is representative of both Hill’s do-it yourself approach – employing character cutouts, strong, yet playful colors, and a narrative and technical simplicity rich with charm – and her jovial demeanor and inquisitive approach to life. The film is dedicated to Elijah Aron, Hill’s boyfriend throughout college. Aron remained close friends with Helen and her husband Paul Gailiunas, and was the godfather of their son Francis.

Inspired by a poem.

A man visits the world's smallest fair, where he learns a valuable lesson about life and poison cotton candy.

Helen Hill remembers her grandfather just before his death (in part) by a metaphor involving him as a rapidly diminishing mouse.

Madame Winger wants you to make a film about something you love. She shows you her favorite low budget filmmaking techniques, from cameraless animation to processing your own film in a bathtub. Filmed in 16 mm.

Singapore GaGa is a 55-minute paean to the quirkiness of the Singaporean aural landscape. It reveals Singapore's past and present with a delight and humour that makes it a necessary film for all Singaporeans. We hear buskers, street vendors, school cheerleaders sing hymns to themselves and to their communities. From these vocabularies (including Arabic, Latin, Hainanese), a sense of what it might mean to be a modern Singaporean emerges. This is Singapore's first documentary to have a cinema release. With English and Chinese subtitles.

Following a series of intimate conversations between a former couple who lived through two years of domestic abuse, A Better Man infuses new energy and possibility into the movement to end violence against women.

Pilgyu Shin has a dream: As a gay activist, he wants to enforce the anti-discrimination law in South Korea. In Seoul, he encounters a parallel society in which many queers hide and pretend to be heterosexual. The reason: Christian churches are gathering thousands of members around them in order to threaten the LGBTQ+ community. With their money and influence, they can steer politics. “Burning Blue“ portrays twelve people who stand up against these authorities. It is a battle against time, as they lose more and more members of their community to suicide. Yet dividing barriers keep growing bigger and bigger within their own circle. In a country that stigmatizes minorities and their mental health, the struggle for visibility pushes queer resistance to its limits. The film shines a spotlight on the abuse of power in the church and the growing transphobia in the LGBTQ+ community in South Korea. And it poses the question: Can there ever be a real safe space?

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.

A child who just loved to skate from the age of eight, Poppy Starr Olsen became the number one female bowl skater in Australia at 14 and went on to take out bronze at the XGames at 17 - the ultimate competition in the world of skateboarding. The same year, skateboarding was announced as an official additional sport category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Now faced with the opportunity to represent Australia on the world stage Poppy grapples with the transition from skater to athlete and the pressure of competition mounts in a way it has never done before.

Armenia's most beloved weightlifter becomes the country's biggest shame when he comes out as transgender. It cost Mel his fame, his fortune, his family, and even his homeland. Today, under asylum in the Netherlands, his dream of gender transition is finally within reach - but how much must he sacrifice for it?