Films with: Ivens, Joris

Avant-garde experimental cinema of the 1920s and '30s.

Twenty-five short films selected from the avant garde movement of the 1920's and 1930's.

DVD 3807

Loin du Vietnam Far from Vietnam /

"Initiated and edited by Chris Marker, Far from Vietnam is an epic 1967 collaboration between cinema greats Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch and Alain Resnais in protest of American military involvement in Vietnam--made, per Marker's narration, 'to affirm, by the exercise of their craft, their solidarity with the Vietnamese people in struggle against aggression.' A truly collaborative effort, the film brings together an array of stylistically disparate contributions, none individually credited, under a unified editorial vision. The elements span documentary footage shot in North and South Vietnam and at anti-war demonstrations in the United States; a fictional vignette and a monologue that dramatize the self-interrogation of European intellectuals; interviews with Fidel Castro and Anne Morrison, widow of Norman Morrison, the Quaker pacifist who burned himself alive on the steps of the White House in 1965; an historical overview of the conflict; reflections from French journalist Michèle Ray; and a range of repurposed media material."--www.icarusfilms.com

DVD 10126

Our daily bread and other films of the Great Depression /

Our daily bread: A depression-era drama in which a young couple leads a group of unemployed people in making a communal farm succeed. Includes a prologue to the movie by David Shepard. California election: Two fake newsreels used as conservative propaganda to paint the End Poverty in California's supporters as sluggardly, indecisive radicals as opposed to the respectable intelligent idealists of Republican incumbent Frank Merriam's camp. Secretly produced by MGM and Irving Thalberg. The plow that broke the plains. A visualization of the settlement and landscape changes to the Great Plains. The river: A record of the Mississippi River. Power and the land: Designed to convince American farmers of the necessity for rural electrification through farm cooperatives. Shows a dramatization of a family on an Ohio farm revealing the hardships of life on a non-electrical farm contrasted with the benefits brought by electricity. The new frontier: Shows how pioneers create a new community.

DVD 1707

Spanish earth The 400 million.

The Spanish Earth is a docudrama on the Civil War in Spain that dramatizes the effects of the fascist uprising and invasion on the ordinary citizen, using actual scenes of the fighting. Shows how the city of Fuentedueña works on an irrigation project while dealing with the war. The 400 Million. The Japanese aggression against China in 1937 forced the Chinese communists to join Chiang Kai-shek's Kwomintang to take up the battle against their common enemy. Filmed in 1938 and focusing on the battle of T'aiertshwang, this film shows all aspects of a war: the battle, the preparations, refugees, casualties and victims, the fear and distress, the human misery and the courage, and the land under fire.

DVD 2686