Movies: Direct cinema

In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Pri...

A detailed chronicle of the famous 1969 tour of the United States by the British rock band The Rolling Stones, which culminated with the disastrous and tragic concert held on December 6 at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, an event of historical s...

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconve...

This documentary from Albert and David Maysles follows the bitter rivalry of four door-to-door salesmen working for the Mid-American Bible Company: Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker and Raymond "The Bu...

A behind-the-scenes documentary about the Clinton for President campaign, focusing on the adventures of spin doctors James Carville and George Stephanopoulos....

A stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists....

Candid interviews of ordinary people on the meaning of happiness, an often amorphous and inarticulable notion that evokes more basic and fundamentally egalitarian ideals of self-betterment, prosperity, tolerance, economic opportunity, and freedom....

Featuring performances by popular artists of the 1960s, this concert film highlights the music of the 1967 California festival. Although not all musicians who performed at the Monterey Pop Festival are on film, some of the notable acts include the Ma...

Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the convers...

During a two-day period before and after the University of Alabama integration crisis, the film uses five camera crews to follow President John F. Kennedy, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, Alabama governor George Wallace, deputy attorney general N...

Four intimate friends who dream to make a film. Plot The film traces the journey of four friends as they strive to give life to their dream cinema. And how their lives are upturned as the cinema becomes their life....

Living among the percebeiros of the Coast of Death (Galicia), this documentary shows a unique relationship between man and his surroundings, man and the sea. At the end of Europe, years after the Prestige oil spill disaster, these fishermen face an u...

A group of artists set out on a quest of organising their own biennale in Istanbul....

Simon is a street retailer, his shop a corner on the lower east side in New York, his stock bootleg cassette tapes, the ambience provided via boombox. He scrounges food from restaurants, exists on vodka and peanut butter, sleeps on the floor, and car...

The film chronicles everyday struggle of a Russian woman for “ordinary” happiness of her family....

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside Northeast High School as a fly on the wall to observe the teachers and how they interact with the students....

A family-oriented man is caught off-guard when his number is misused by a bunch of gangsters. He then tries to find a way out this trouble, highlighting how people, especially the youth, should use technology wisely and be wary of being too exposed t...

After their hunger strike in Berlin's government district, 5 climate activists reunite. While Lina has joined the "Last Generation," her comrades prepare for the eviction of Lützerath, a village facing demolition for mine expansion. How far will they...

After consolidating itself as a tourist destination in the mid-1960s, this small coastal village has become the dormitory town for the workers of a Nuclear Power Plant. With the liberal promise of prosperity and socioeconomic wellfare, many workers l...

A documentary about direct-cinema from its very beginnings (Nanook of the North) to the fake-direct-cinema of the Blair Witch Project. All the important direct-cinema filmmakers are portrayed and/or interviewed: Leacock, Wiseman, Maysles, Pennebaker,...