Documentaires, a list by FouLou

8.7

/11435/

81

/278/

82

/214/

4.5

/16063/

100

/37/

97

/117/

99

/4/

4.0

age 15+

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

86

8.0

/5258/

82

/145/

77

/134/

4.3

/29389/

96

/72/

88

/96/

86

/19/

4.0

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

86

7.9

/12054/

79

/404/

75

/247/

4.1

/11320/

97

/33/

91

/237/

87

/26/

4.0

age 6+

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

85

7.8

/14347/

77

/446/

76

/404/

4.2

/46592/

99

/144/

89

/56/

94

/23/

3.5

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

84

7.7

/9966/

76

/297/

76

/212/

4.2

/54565/

93

/45/

87

/131/

86

/20/

4.0

Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism.

82

7.8

/3337/

80

/153/

79

/131/

4.1

/12527/

100

/46/

86

/10/

78

/10/

3.0

High up on the Tibetan plateau. Amongst unexplored and inaccessible valleys lies one of the last sanctuaries of the wild world, where rare and undiscovered fauna lives. Vincent Munier, one of the world’s most renowned wildlife photographers takes the adventurer and novelist Sylvain Tesson (In the Forest of Siberia) with him on his latest mission. For several weeks, they’ll explore these valleys searching for unique animals and try to spot the snow leopard, one of the rarest and most difficult big cats to approach.

82

8.0

/29166/

79

/1568/

78

/725/

4.0

/60691/

97

/117/

89

/338/

79

/31/

3.0

In 1974, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky embarked on the quixotic project of adapting Frank Herbert's influential novel Dune (1969) for the big screen. After investing two years, and millions of dollars, the gigantic project ended in failure; but the artists Jodorowsky brought together to carry it out continued to work together, and ended up laying the foundations for modern science fiction cinema.

81

7.7

/19518/

76

/560/

73

/352/

4.2

/56433/

88

/52/

88

/511/

87

/18/

3.0

Documents the lives of infamous fakers Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. De Hory, who later committed suicide to avoid more prison time, made his name by selling forged works of art by painters like Picasso and Matisse. Irving was infamous for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles moves between documentary and fiction as he examines the fundamental elements of fraud and the people who commit fraud at the expense of others.

80

7.4

/1137/

76

/69/

68

/18/

3.8

/5219/

97

/31/

73

/2/

82

/10/

4.0

Think of early electronic music and you’ll likely see men pushing buttons, knobs, and boundaries. While electronic music is often perceived as a boys' club, the truth is that from the very beginning women have been integral in inventing the devices, techniques and tropes that would define the shape of sound for years to come.

80

7.9

/12641/

75

/266/

75

/192/

3.9

/5038/

95

/130/

88

/335/

82

/34/

3.0

age 7+

This documentary follows various migratory bird species on their long journeys from their summer homes to the equator and back, covering thousands of miles and navigating by the stars. These arduous treks are crucial for survival, seeking hospitable climates and food sources. Birds face numerous challenges, including crossing oceans and evading predators, illness, and injury. Although migrations are undertaken as a community, birds disperse into family units once they reach their destinations, and every continent is affected by these migrations, hosting migratory bird species at least part of the year.

79

7.7

/1050/

80

/21/

75

/10/

3.9

/1503/

100

/42/

62

/1/

87

/17/

3.0

Famous French director Tavernier tells us about his fantastic voyage through the cinema of his country.

79

7.5

/61922/

74

/1995/

70

/1185/

3.6

/45208/

94

/181/

81

/4306/

79

/39/

3.5

age 6+

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

78

7.1

/2904/

67

/90/

68

/40/

3.9

/11168/

96

/49/

80

/4/

82

/7/

3.5

Women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences inside an Estonian smoke sauna. Cleansing their bodies and baring their souls, they embrace the healing power of sisterhood.

78

7.3

/3696/

74

/115/

71

/94/

3.8

/5311/

99

/88/

77

/51/

87

/23/

3.0

Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.

80

78

7.7

/12945/

76

/296/

74

/259/

4.2

/42490/

88

/16/

86

/245/

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

77

6.7

/3193/

67

/121/

66

/62/

3.7

/34434/

97

/97/

85

/23/

3.5

Thousands of royal artifacts of Dahomey, a West African kingdom, were taken by French colonists in the 19th century for collection and display in Paris. Centuries later, a fraction returned to their home in modern-day Benin. This dramatized documentary follows the journey of 26 of the treasures as told by cultural art historians, embattled university students, and one of the repatriated statues himself.

76

6.8

/1149/

70

/37/

71

/42/

3.5

/5041/

97

/30/

70

77

/12/

3.5

The Adamant is a unique day-care centre. A floating structure located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering the kind of care that grounds them in time and space and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it tries to resist the deterioration and dehumanisation of psychiatry as best as they can.

83

76

7.8

/8707/

75

/131/

73

/144/

4.0

/8920/

97

/59/

91

/336/

87

/26/

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

82

76

7.9

/7093/

76

/161/

74

/97/

4.2

/10030/

96

/49/

88

/159/

78

/15/

Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.

76

7.7

/10342/

76

/492/

74

/323/

3.8

/6177/

81

/79/

75

/937/

75

/21/

age 8+

An ecological drama/documentary, filmed throughout the globe. Part thriller, part meditation on the vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world.

75

7.2

/1846/

73

/101/

70

/68/

3.6

/1334/

97

/29/

71

/7/

3.0

age 7+

Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud travel throughout Europe to film brown bears, wild horses, wolves and other animals in their natural habitat.

75

7.2

/4187/

75

/103/

73

/110/

3.7

/6342/

85

/73/

77

/45/

70

/25/

3.0

Behind-the-scenes documentary revealing what goes on inside the colourful, privileged, and sometimes stressful Christian Dior fashion house.

85

74

8.6

/9151/

80

/344/

85

/301/

4.2

/8554/

90

/18/

A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.

73

7.0

/1004/

63

/21/

60

/31/

3.8

/2973/

94

/17/

54

/6/

87

/8/

3.5

Laura, a French programmer, inherits the task of creating a game about the World War II Battle of Okinawa. Her research and interviews with Japanese experts and witnesses prompt her to reflect on life, humanity, and the lasting influence of history and memories.

72

7.3

/2107/

69

/51/

70

/34/

3.7

/2567/

80

/20/

79

/73/

2.5

Filmmaker Barbet Schroeder shows the Ugandan dictator meeting his Cabinet, reviewing his troops, explaining his ideology.

70

8.5

/23447/

79

/850/

78

/532/

3.8

/5145/

17

/6/

87

/135/

In 200,000 years of existence, man has upset the balance on which the Earth had lived for 4 billion years. Global warming, resource depletion, species extinction: man has endangered his own home. But it is too late to be pessimistic: humanity has barely ten years left to reverse the trend, become aware of its excessive exploitation of the Earth's riches, and change its consumption pattern.

69

6.7

/1384/

63

/49/

64

/38/

3.5

/1960/

83

/24/

68

/3/

65

/10/

3.0

In an invisible territory at the margins of society, at the border between anarchy and illegality, lives a wounded community that is trying to respond to a threat: of being forgotten by political institutions and having their rights as citizens trampled. Disarmed veterans, taciturn adolescents, drug addicts trying to escape addiction through love, ex-special forces soldiers still at war with the world, floundering young women and future mothers, and old people who have not lost their desire to live. Through this hidden pocket of humanity, the door opens to the abyss of today's America.

79

69

7.9

/4738/

77

/126/

74

/58/

3.9

/2228/

90

/81/

2001 French documentary about the murder trial of a 15 year old black teen accused of murder in Jacksonville, Florida. Winner of 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

68

6.2

/3212/

60

/80/

63

/80/

3.4

/11195/

90

/89/

51

/9/

76

/22/

3.0

In Le Livre d’Image, Jean-Luc Godard recycles existing images (films, documentaries, paintings, television archives, etc.), quotes excerpts from books, uses fragments of music. The driving force is poetic rhyme, the association or opposition of ideas, the aesthetic spark through editing, the keystone. The author performs the work of a sculptor. The hand, for this, is essential. He praises it at the start. “There are the five fingers. The five senses. The five parts of the world (…). The true condition of man is to think with his hands. Jean-Luc Godard composes a dazzling syncopation of sequences, the surge of which evokes the violence of the flows of our contemporary screens, taken to a level of incandescence rarely achieved. Crowned at Cannes, the last Godard is a shock film, with twilight beauty.

68

7.0

/7596/

71

/305/

69

/142/

3.4

/4920/

67

/116/

62

/843/

63

/33/

3.0

age 7+

A non-narrated documentary following the lovesome lives of four infants from birth to their first birthday. The babies featured are two from rural areas: Ponijao from Opuwo, Namibia, and Bayar from Bayanchandmani, Mongolia, as well as two from urban areas: Mari from Tokyo, Japan, and Hattie from San Francisco, USA.

80

66

7.9

/3710/

78

/240/

77

/276/

3.7

/4073/

93

/14/

89

/10/

71

/7/

age 10+

Climate is changing. Instead of showing all the worst that can happen, this documentary focuses on the people suggesting solutions and their actions.

74

65

6.8

/4590/

70

/330/

69

/146/

3.5

/3827/

93

/14/

77

/15/

North Korea. The last communist country in the world. Unknown, hermetic and fascinating. Formerly known as “The Hermit Kingdom” for its attempts to remain isolated, North Korea is one of the largest sources of instability as regards world peace. It also has the most militarized border in the world, and the flow of impartial information, both going in and out, is practically non-existent. As the recent Sony-leaks has shown, it is the perfect setting for a propaganda war.

80

64

7.6

/2748/

76

/151/

78

/26/

4.2

/22030/

88

/8/

Filmmaker Werner Herzog combs through the film archives of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft to create a film that celebrates their legacy.

80

64

7.4

/2084/

78

/54/

72

/89/

3.8

/4271/

100

/29/

82

/47/

In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.

84

64

8.1

/2252/

85

/28/

77

/43/

4.1

/1759/

86

/7/

94

/78/

Latcho Drom is a vista of the music, culture, and journey of the Romani people—from their homeland of India, to Europe and Southwest Asia.

64

6.6

/1119/

67

/51/

69

/30/

3.3

/1292/

79

/76/

53

/11/

65

/23/

2.0

Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.

73

62

7.4

/3964/

72

/107/

71

/112/

3.9

/13440/

72

/653/

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Morin wander through the crowded streets asking passersby how they cope with life's misfortunes.

67

61

6.5

/3949/

64

/166/

65

/100/

3.7

/11494/

54

/58/

81

/17/

An experimental portrait of the North American commercial fishing industry through the lens of GoPro cameras placed on a fishing vessel off the coast of New England.

79

61

7.3

/1164/

77

/140/

73

/141/

3.8

/3343/