Film Forum 2017

A determined single mother, with nothing but guts and vision, breaks through notorious art world barriers to become one of the preeminent painters of our time.

Directed by celebrated British filmmaker Tony Palmer, "Bird on a Wire" follows Cohen on his 1972 European tour. Long lost 16mm prints were restored for this release, not seen since 1972.

Mr. Gaga tells the story of Ohad Naharin, renowned choreographer and artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, an artistic genius who redefined the language of modern dance.

Writer James Baldwin tells the story of race in modern America with his unfinished novel, Remember This House.

An intimate look at life inside the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious Frenchman who visits the fiancé's grave to lay flowers.

A filmmaker journey through the former East Germany looking into her father's 1999 suicide.

A reclusive Bulgarian railway trackman finds millions of cash spilled on the tracks and turns them in to the police. When the transport ministry's head of PR Julia Staikova decides to use him as a diversion from a corruption scandal, his simple life falls victim to the grinder of bureaucracy.

Writers and editors from the New York Times discuss their unique approach to writing the obituaries of public figures.

Cate Blanchett performs manifestos as a series of striking monologues.

Documentary about the American dancer Wendy Whelan

Through a gray blanket of cloud the contours of a mountain can be barely discerned. This is Mount Fuji, a volcano with many faces and of immeasurable cultural and symbolic significance. We are lead through the film by the voices of two fictitious characters - Mary, an English woman and her deceased Japanese partner, Hiroshi. Mary receives a parcel containing letters and a collection of photographs from Hiroshi. His letters, in which he describes climbing Mount Fuji, trigger in her mind a train of thoughts and reflections. The photographs we discover together with Mary. 4,500 exceptional and diverse photographs from the past 150 years form the basis for this film. Many images are of undeniably breathtaking beauty - ranging from early examples of nineteenth century Japanese studio photography to military propaganda photos from the thirties, from victorious American press images to amateur snapshots across several decades. This work has for me to do with visibility and invisibility, with distance and proximity. These thousands of images enshroud the mountain like a cloud, revealing and hiding it at the same time. This art film project is in essence a film made entirely with stills; a cinematic experiment balancing delicately between documentary and fiction. As the narrative unfolds unexpected and surprising paths are explored. Together with the two protagonists the viewer climbs Mount Fuji across geographical, temporal and cultural divides. The woodblock prints of Hokusai are considered, but also paintings by Van Gogh, philosophical views stemming from Asian philosophy, mankind's connection to landscape, Mount Fuji's religious significance, recent Japanese history. But central throughout is the filmmaker's own questioning about the nature of photography and how it is possible to create cinema using only found images and without movement.

Diane Kramer is led by one obsession: to find the driver of the mocha (Moka) color Mercedes which hit her son and devastated her life. With a few belongings, some money and a gun, she goes to Evian, where she's learned the driver lives.

On a chance encounter, a disenchanted architect bumps into his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok. Excited, he takes his elephant on a journey across Thailand, in search of the farm where they grew up together.

From director Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times, The First Monday in May) comes an electrifying portrait of writer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili and her acclaimed one-woman show, Bronx Gothic. Rooted in memories of her childhood, Okwui - who's worked with conceptual artists like Ralph Lemon and Julie Taymor - fuses dance, song, drama and comedy to create a mesmerizing space in which audiences can engage with a story about two 12-year-old black girls coming of age in the 1980s. With intimate vérité access to Okwui and her audiences off the stage, Bronx Gothic allows for unparalleled insight into her creative process as well as the complex social issues embodied in it.

A documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history.

A portrait of daily life of the workers in an Indian textile factory, revealing its beauty as well as its shameful working conditions.

Xolani, a lonely factory worker, travels to the rural mountains with the men of his community to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood.

The arrival of Maria Drazdechova, associated with the Communist party, to a school in Bratislava in 1983 worries parents, students, and colleagues.

A look within the walls of the New York Public Library.

In an effort to determine their sustainability as a food source, two chefs travel throughout the world tasting insects.

A dark musical enacted in a market place, situated next to a freeway. The employees of the various commercial venues deal with boredom and existential anxiety by performing cheerful musical turns. The apocalypse is a tempting liberator.

The life of pioneering singer Chavela Vargas, from her birth in Costa Rica in 1919 to her death in Mexico in 2012.

ALL ART IS PROPAGANDA. George Orwell ...AND ALL PROPAGANDA IS ART. Laibach

12 August 1945, 11 AM. Two mysterious strangers dressed in black appear at the railway station of a Hungarian village. Within a few hours, everything changes.