Filmmaker Richard Dindo's unique documentary uses historical reenactments and speculative "interviews" of historical figures to paint a fascinating portrait of one of the most influential writers of modern literature, renowned author Franz Kafka. Best known for his novel The Metamorphosis, Kafka was famously secretive and eccentric, and the details of his private life have become just as captivating to his fans as his work.
A documentary about the French writer Jean Genet and his relations with the Palestinian revolution. One day after the September 1982 massacre at the refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut, Genet visits the camp. Suffering from throat cancer and having written nothing in years, Genet begins to write on the threshold of his death about this disturbing new experience. It leads to his last book, entitled “Un captif amoureux” in which Genet reflects on the Palestinian revolution, its defeat, and the loss of one’s homeland. In this film a young French woman of Algerian origin who is reading the book returns to the landscapes of the Palestinian resistance and the refugee camps full of exiles, in search of Genet.
A man turning 50 (Walter Faber) narrates his liaisons with three women: Hanna, who was pregnant and left him many years ago in Zurich; Ivy, who broke up with him recently in New York; Sabeth who is 20 and whom he just met on a boat to Europe. Sabeth and the narrator travel to France, Italy and Greece. But who is Sabeth? What does she feel towards the narrator? What does he feel towards her? The entire movie is shot in subjective view (we only see what the narrator sees); there are no dialogues, just his post-synchronised voice.
The Grüninger case from Switzerland. This is a documentary about a police officer who showed civil courage back in the forties when he led many refugees fleeing German Nazi terror immigrate to Switzerland, although he was advised not to do so. Grüninger later was sued by the state of Switzerland, lost his job and died in the early seventies. The film constructs a just lawsuit with eye-witnesses and thus fully legitimates what Grüninger did.
A fictionalised documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644–1694), the spiritual father of haiku poetry. A monk, portraying the poet, journeys through Japan, following Bashô's journal and writing many of his haikus. A ruminant, poetic, Zen Buddhist observation of nature – a return to the lost paradise of unspoilt nature.
During the summer of 1968, students from all over Mexico gathered in the capital to demand democracy. The Olympic Games were about to be held and the government, chaired by Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, offered a brutal response in the form of repression, causing hundreds of deaths.
