A behind-the-scenes look at the 11-year process it took to make The Painted Bird, which has left its mark on European and world festivals. The narratives of director Václav Marhoul and actor Petr Kotlár weave their way through the various periods of the film's creation, offering their subjective views from the beginning to the last flap of a year and a half long shoot.
Hasse and Tage were best friends for over 30 years. Their films, shows, songs and books influenced an entire nation and were the glue that held people's home together. As a comedic duo, they united right-wing ghosts and anarchists in laughter. When Tage dies prematurely, his children lose a father, Hasse a father figure and all of Sweden a country father. And when Palme dies just months after Tage, the Swedish stable society begins to crumble. For the first time, the Alfredson and Danielsson families open up the archives and give us exclusive access to their stories, photographs and recordings.
Carl Johan De Geer remembers his old friend Lena Svedberg. He talks about how they used to make their magazine together, how beautiful but strange she drew and how bad she seemed to feel.
When Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson set upon Iceland to film Beowulf & Grendel starring Gerard Butler and Stellan Skarsgard in 2004, they expected the usual complication involved in making a movie, but what they encountered made them wonder if the Norse gods were actually working against them.
Swedish writer Stig Dagerman (1923-1954) was a literary sensation who after a few productive years, suddenly fell silent. Struggling with writer's block, Dagerman wrote the essay "Our Need for Consolation" about his inner demons and his quest for freedom. For the first time in English, featuring Stellan Skarsgard as an on-camera narrator, this film brings Dagerman's powerful words to life in the form of a visual poem.
The Hotel is the last part of a trilogy about travelling. The first two were The Atlantic (Atlanten, 1995) and The Lighthouse (Fyren, 2000). The hotel is a different kind of home. It can be a refuge, cul-de-sac, castle, nightmare, creative space...The first hotel was created as protection against the elements. Weary travellers could find shelter and rest. But it was also a place for legends and anecdotes.
Ramsey...found himself in charge of the elite 26th Calvary Regiment in the Philippines, where he was leading a 'Gunga Din'-type existence playing polo with other officers until Japanese troops marched through Manila. He subsequently led his storied offensive in the Philippine jungle, and in 1942 he joined the Filipino resistance, ultimately commanding more than 40,000 guerrilla fighters and enduring severe malnutrition and a slew of tropical diseases.
Director Sam George chronicles the remarkable life and times of the late Eddie Aikau, the legendary Hawaiian big wave surfer, pioneering lifeguard and ultimately doomed crew member of the Polynesian voyaging canoe Hokulea.