Fragments
Movies from the great names of documentary cinema, from its origins to more recent productions. An exploration of the variety of writings, styles and approaches, through the masterpieces of renowned filmmakers… or more obscure ones.
134 products
The Horse Palace
Duration: 2h16
Subscription access
Amid the abandoned factories and crumbling buildings of Griffintown lies Montreal’s oldest stable, the last remnant of a bygone era. In this intriguing, anachronistic enclave, brushing up against modernity, time seems to have stood still. But ever since its aging owner decided to sell the property, the days of the Horse Palace are numbered…
Exarcheia: The Chanting of Birds
Exarcheia: The Chanting of Birds
New product!Duration: 2h28
Subscription access
_Exarcheia: The Chanting of Birds_ takes you on a dreamy nocturnal stroll through one of Greece’s most politically active neighbourhoods, situated in the heart of Athens, just below the Acropolis. In this lively and mythical space, you meet a coterie of characters whose ideals and aspirations are in constant flux. Set against the backdrop of the economic crisis, _Exarcheia_ is a poetical and po...
Metro
Duration: 17 minutes
Subscription access
By taking a fresh look at the spaces that make it up and the life that inhabits it, _Metro_ observes the gestures, mechanics and underside of this monumental underground network that weaves the city together and irrigates it on a daily basis. From the roar of the ventilation system to the vast ceilings above, the film reveals a place of rare magnitude, with singular acoustics and a human presen...
Vies retrouvées
Subscription access
In an old abandoned farmhouse in Ardèche, a young man finds around fifty letters along with a forgotten notebook. Back in Paris, he discovers they are a love correspondence between a young peasant woman and a captain during the First World War. The film recreates this love story.
Ciné Bijou
Subscription access
Over images of an abandoned movie theater slated for demolition, the voice of Guy Gilles evokes the soul of these neighborhood cinemas—magical places that gave him a certain idea of freedom, escape, and dreams. An intimate and poetic tribute to the seventh art and to its temples, now threatened or gone.
Beirut, My City
Subscription access
In 1982, Jocelyne Saab's 150-year-old family home burns down. In tandem with the Lebanese playwright Roger Assaf, she decided to travel through her city, which was under siege by the Israelis, and to report on the situation in Beirut, the departure of the Palestinians and the incomprehension of the civilians who were suffering from the war.
For a Few Lives
Subscription access
Portrait of Raymond Eddé, a candidate in the Lebanese presidential elections and a staunch opponent of the sectarian war. During the 1975–1976 conflicts, he and his team actively searched for those who had gone missing in the war, whether Christian, Druze, or Muslim.
Palestinian Women
Subscription access
Filmmaker Jocelyne Saab gives a voice to Palestinian women, often overlooked victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Patron Saints
Laced with black humor, _The Patron Saints_ is an unorthodox documentary about a home for the aged and disabled. By turns lyrical and unsettling, the directors eschew more traditional approaches to the subject, opting for a mesmerizing atmospheric treatment and turning narration over to the home's youngest patient and his candid confessions.
God Provides
Shot in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and bound by elements of fiction, this unexpected documentary short is a glimpse into faith-based sentiment and inexplicable loss. While a man searches for his kitchen appliances in the bushes, elsewhere a grinning preacher takes souvenir snapshots for his congregation, and a woman with a disability journeys to a quieter place.
Interchange
Straddling the line between photography and cinema, _Interchange_ is a near-wordless observational depiction of life alongside a stark and imposing Montreal highway. _Interchange_ weaves portraits, landscapes, architecture and objects in its reflection on the city’s inhabitants, its traffic jams, the shipping of commercial goods and the nature of time itself.
A Man Imagined
Subscription access
67-year-old Lloyd gives filmmakers Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky a glimpse into his life on the margins of society. Blurring the boundaries of non-fiction cinema, the film reveals his gentle spirit and soulful solitude shaped by his troubled past.
Me Broni Ba (My White Baby)
_Me Broni Ba_ is a lyrical portrait of hair salons in Kumasi, Ghana. The tangled legacy of European colonialism in Africa is evoked through images of women practicing hair braiding on discarded white baby dolls from the West. The film unfolds through a series of vignettes, set against a child's story of migrating from Ghana to the United States. The film uncovers the meaning behind the Akan ter...
Drexciya
_Drexciya_ portrays an abandoned swimming pool on Riviera Beach in Accra, Ghana. During the postcolonial era, at the beginning of Kwame Nkrumah's reign, the Riviera Beach Club was a luxurious hotel that thrived until the mid-1970s. The once-Olympic pool, now in a state of advanced disrepair, is now used for other purposes by the local community.
Kwaku Ananse
Drawing upon the rich mythology of Ghana, this magical short film combines semi-autobiographical elements from Owusu's life with local folklore to tell the story of a young American woman who returns to West Africa for her father's funeral.
No Story Here
_No Story Here_, the first film by Jeannine Gagné, co-directed with Michel Lamothe, offers a striking portrait of working-class Montréal in the 1970s. Created without a script and using just 600 feet of film, this student short freely blends images and sounds, the latter serving as echoes of the popular psyche, already foreshadowing _City Dawn_.
The Rebelious One
Half-fiction and half-documentary, _The Rebelious One_ is both a personal interpretation and a poetical rendition of Marie-Claire Blais' work that follows the Quebec writer's literary journey through eleven of her novels. Like a continuous thread leading us through the discovery of her writings, the voice, the vision and the keen consciousness of Blais recall the social events and the human dra...
For You, Lord, For You
Around an austere brick altar lost in the middle of the desert like a drifting raft, the Panchwa festival (Rajasthan, India) is a gateway to the beyond, a celebration during which Kalbeliya gypsies converse with their dead. While they come to celebrate the King of Panchwa, their hero buried here, the festival is also a privileged moment for the Kalbeliya imagination to unfold. Goddesses and war...
We Don't Care About Music Anyway...
We Don't Care About Music Anyway...
Duration: 2h40While featuring key figures from Tokyo’s avant-garde music scene of the mid-2000s, _We Don’t Care About Music Anyway..._ offers a kaleidoscopic vision of the megacity, juxtaposing music with noise, sound with imagery, representation with reality, and fiction with documentary. Beyond the music and performances, the film explores the future and modes of existence of an entire city and society.
Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens
Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens
Duration: 1h52Since Antiquity, the Sonepur fair in the Indian state of Bihar has been the largest animal market in Asia. Mobilizing all the showmen of this state renowned for its indomitability, it is the place of expression par excellence for Bihari popular culture. The characters in _Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens_ are the custodians of this culture. Like the different figures in a tarot deck, they ar...
The Horse Palace
Duration: 2h16
Subscription access
Amid the abandoned factories and crumbling buildings of Griffintown lies Montreal’s oldest stable, the last remnant of a bygone era. In this intriguing, anachronistic enclave, brushing up against modernity, time seems to have stood still. But ever since its aging owner decided to sell the property, the days of the Horse Palace are numbered…
Exarcheia: The Chanting of Birds
Exarcheia: The Chanting of Birds
New product!Duration: 2h28
Subscription access
_Exarcheia: The Chanting of Birds_ takes you on a dreamy nocturnal stroll through one of Greece’s most politically active neighbourhoods, situated in the heart of Athens, just below the Acropolis. In this lively and mythical space, you meet a coterie of characters whose ideals and aspirations are in constant flux. Set against the backdrop of the economic crisis, _Exarcheia_ is a poetical and po...
Metro
Duration: 17 minutes
Subscription access
By taking a fresh look at the spaces that make it up and the life that inhabits it, _Metro_ observes the gestures, mechanics and underside of this monumental underground network that weaves the city together and irrigates it on a daily basis. From the roar of the ventilation system to the vast ceilings above, the film reveals a place of rare magnitude, with singular acoustics and a human presen...
Vies retrouvées
Subscription access
In an old abandoned farmhouse in Ardèche, a young man finds around fifty letters along with a forgotten notebook. Back in Paris, he discovers they are a love correspondence between a young peasant woman and a captain during the First World War. The film recreates this love story.
Ciné Bijou
Subscription access
Over images of an abandoned movie theater slated for demolition, the voice of Guy Gilles evokes the soul of these neighborhood cinemas—magical places that gave him a certain idea of freedom, escape, and dreams. An intimate and poetic tribute to the seventh art and to its temples, now threatened or gone.
Beirut, My City
Subscription access
In 1982, Jocelyne Saab's 150-year-old family home burns down. In tandem with the Lebanese playwright Roger Assaf, she decided to travel through her city, which was under siege by the Israelis, and to report on the situation in Beirut, the departure of the Palestinians and the incomprehension of the civilians who were suffering from the war.
For a Few Lives
Subscription access
Portrait of Raymond Eddé, a candidate in the Lebanese presidential elections and a staunch opponent of the sectarian war. During the 1975–1976 conflicts, he and his team actively searched for those who had gone missing in the war, whether Christian, Druze, or Muslim.
Palestinian Women
Subscription access
Filmmaker Jocelyne Saab gives a voice to Palestinian women, often overlooked victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Patron Saints
Laced with black humor, _The Patron Saints_ is an unorthodox documentary about a home for the aged and disabled. By turns lyrical and unsettling, the directors eschew more traditional approaches to the subject, opting for a mesmerizing atmospheric treatment and turning narration over to the home's youngest patient and his candid confessions.
God Provides
Shot in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and bound by elements of fiction, this unexpected documentary short is a glimpse into faith-based sentiment and inexplicable loss. While a man searches for his kitchen appliances in the bushes, elsewhere a grinning preacher takes souvenir snapshots for his congregation, and a woman with a disability journeys to a quieter place.
Interchange
Straddling the line between photography and cinema, _Interchange_ is a near-wordless observational depiction of life alongside a stark and imposing Montreal highway. _Interchange_ weaves portraits, landscapes, architecture and objects in its reflection on the city’s inhabitants, its traffic jams, the shipping of commercial goods and the nature of time itself.
A Man Imagined
Subscription access
67-year-old Lloyd gives filmmakers Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky a glimpse into his life on the margins of society. Blurring the boundaries of non-fiction cinema, the film reveals his gentle spirit and soulful solitude shaped by his troubled past.
Me Broni Ba (My White Baby)
_Me Broni Ba_ is a lyrical portrait of hair salons in Kumasi, Ghana. The tangled legacy of European colonialism in Africa is evoked through images of women practicing hair braiding on discarded white baby dolls from the West. The film unfolds through a series of vignettes, set against a child's story of migrating from Ghana to the United States. The film uncovers the meaning behind the Akan ter...
Drexciya
_Drexciya_ portrays an abandoned swimming pool on Riviera Beach in Accra, Ghana. During the postcolonial era, at the beginning of Kwame Nkrumah's reign, the Riviera Beach Club was a luxurious hotel that thrived until the mid-1970s. The once-Olympic pool, now in a state of advanced disrepair, is now used for other purposes by the local community.
Kwaku Ananse
Drawing upon the rich mythology of Ghana, this magical short film combines semi-autobiographical elements from Owusu's life with local folklore to tell the story of a young American woman who returns to West Africa for her father's funeral.
No Story Here
_No Story Here_, the first film by Jeannine Gagné, co-directed with Michel Lamothe, offers a striking portrait of working-class Montréal in the 1970s. Created without a script and using just 600 feet of film, this student short freely blends images and sounds, the latter serving as echoes of the popular psyche, already foreshadowing _City Dawn_.
The Rebelious One
Half-fiction and half-documentary, _The Rebelious One_ is both a personal interpretation and a poetical rendition of Marie-Claire Blais' work that follows the Quebec writer's literary journey through eleven of her novels. Like a continuous thread leading us through the discovery of her writings, the voice, the vision and the keen consciousness of Blais recall the social events and the human dra...
For You, Lord, For You
Around an austere brick altar lost in the middle of the desert like a drifting raft, the Panchwa festival (Rajasthan, India) is a gateway to the beyond, a celebration during which Kalbeliya gypsies converse with their dead. While they come to celebrate the King of Panchwa, their hero buried here, the festival is also a privileged moment for the Kalbeliya imagination to unfold. Goddesses and war...
We Don't Care About Music Anyway...
We Don't Care About Music Anyway...
Duration: 2h40While featuring key figures from Tokyo’s avant-garde music scene of the mid-2000s, _We Don’t Care About Music Anyway..._ offers a kaleidoscopic vision of the megacity, juxtaposing music with noise, sound with imagery, representation with reality, and fiction with documentary. Beyond the music and performances, the film explores the future and modes of existence of an entire city and society.
Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens
Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens
Duration: 1h52Since Antiquity, the Sonepur fair in the Indian state of Bihar has been the largest animal market in Asia. Mobilizing all the showmen of this state renowned for its indomitability, it is the place of expression par excellence for Bihari popular culture. The characters in _Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens_ are the custodians of this culture. Like the different figures in a tarot deck, they ar...
