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Classics Collection

Curated by: Jan Rofekamp

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this film collection includes:

The ‘documentary business’ as we know it today is primarily about new and current docs and Film Platform offers you the best of these new documentaries. But there has always been also interest in docs that have become over the years the ‘classic docs’. Some of them were made many years ago sometimes on 16mm and in black & white and are today considered classics: these are films made by the documentary pioneers like Drew, The Maysles and Leacock. But there are also films that are not that old..from the 80’s, 90’s and even from the 2000’s..films that because of very wide exposure and appreciation over these many years have become ‘classics’. I mention a few: The Times of Harvey Milk, Christian Frei’s War Photographer and the groundbreaking Crumb by Terry Zwigoff.

Classics Collection Collection

  • Weapon of War (FT)
    Weapon of War (FT) | Director: Ilse van Velzen   Femke van Velzen  
    Year of production: 2009| Country of production: Netherlands | Language: French, Swahili (with full English subtitles available)

    In WEAPON OF WAR military perpetrators unveil the hidden motives and strategies of rape as a war crime. An ex-rebel explains how he raped. Like for many, starting a normal life again is a struggle filled with trauma. In an attempt to reconcile with his past, he meets one of his victims.
    Captain Basima is working as a priest in Congo’s army and confronts perpetrators of rape. He urges them to change. Just like he did.

  • The Cola Conquest
    The Cola Conquest | Director: Irene Angelico  
    Year of production: 1998| Country of production: Canada | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    The Cola Conquest tells the story of Coca-Cola – the “sublimated essence” of all that American stands for – and the century-long competition with its rival, Pepsi-Cola. Challenging, fast-paced, irreverent, serious and funny by turns, The Cola Conquest explores the delicious paradox at the heart of Coke: How did an innocuous soft drink, more than 99% sweetened water, come to wield such enormous power and assume such significance in so many people’s lives? What does it tell us about who we are and what we are becoming?

  • A Lion in the House
    A Lion in the House | Director: Steven Bognar   Julia Reichert  
    Year of production: 2006| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    A LION IN THE HOUSE follows the stories of five exceptional children and their families as they battle paediatric cancer. From the trauma of diagnosis to the physical toll of treatment, this series documents the stresses that can tear a family apart as well as the courage of children facing the possibility of death with honesty, dignity and humor.
    As the film compresses six years into one narrative, it puts viewers in the shoes of parents, physicians, nurses, siblings, grandparents and social workers who struggle https://video.panda-os.com/p/2758/sp/275800/playManifest/entryId/0_zz65gohh/flavorParamId/7/format/url/protocol/http/video.mp4?iframe=trueto defeat an indiscriminate and predatory disease.

  • The Celluloid Closet
    The Celluloid Closet | Director: Rob Epstein   Jeffrey Friedman  
    Year of production: 1995| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    The Celluloid Closet is a riveting and entertaining look at Hollywood and how it has both reflected and defined the way we think about homosexuality. From comic sissies to lesbian vampires, from pathetic queens to sadistic predators, from the good to the bad, gay characters have been around since the beginning.
    Taking full advantage of over a hundred film clips of Hollywood classics (obtaining them for this film was no easy feat) it weaves an entertaining history lesson, expertly juxtaposing ideas and images.

  • Comic Book Confidential
    Comic Book Confidential | Director: Ron Mann  
    Year of production: 1988| Country of production: Canada | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    The film includes profiles of twenty-two notable and influential talents in the comics field, such as Charles Burns, Art Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly, Frank Miller, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar and William M. Gaines. In interviews, the creators discuss their contributions and history, and read passages from their works over filmograph animations. Montages of comics through the decades, archival scenes of politically important moments, and a live-action Zippy the Pinhead are featured.

  • Common Threads
    Common Threads | Director: Rob Epstein   Jeffrey Friedman  
    Year of production: 1989| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    In the late 1970’s, a mysterious new disease began infecting – and killing – gay men. Common Threads tells the powerful story of the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, as told through the lives of five very diverse individuals who shared a common fate.
    Using the monumental NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt as its central metaphor, the film weaves together personal memories and television news stories to expose the U.S. government’s failure to respond to the growing epidemic, and the vibrant protest movement that was born as a result.

  • The Times of Harvey Milk
    The Times of Harvey Milk | Director: Rob Epstein   Jeffrey Friedman  
    Year of production: 1984| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    Vividly recalling the tumultuous political and social climate of San Francisco in the 70s, The Times of Harvey Milk builds a brilliant, gripping portrait of what was really lost when San Francisco City Counsillor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were brutally murdered by fellow Counsillor Dan White in November 1978. Spellbinding and intensely moving from start to finish, The Times of Harvey Milk is as relevant today as when it won the Academy Award in 1984.

  • Crumb
    Crumb | Director: Terry Zwigoff  
    Year of production: 1994| Country of production: USA | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    Presented by David Lynch, Terry Zwigoff’s film Crumb is a sometimes hilariously funny but often disturbing journey into the mysterious and creepy world of underground artist Robert Crumb and his brilliant, talented but deeply dysfunctional family; his recluse mother and his two brothers (both artists), Charles and Maxon. Crumb’s twisted, violent and at times even outright pornographic cartoons are witnesses of his utter disgust of the American society and culture and made him world-famous in the 60’s when he created Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, the Keep On Truckin’ cartoons and record sleeves for musicians like Janis Joplin.

  • Grass
    Grass | Director: Ron Mann  
    Year of production: 1998| Country of production: Canada | Language: English (with full English subtitles available)

    The world of marijuana, now variously reported to be a $10 Billion to $30 billion industry in North America with more than 200,000 growers, comes vibrantly alive in this fact-filled, fascinating story of our love-hate relationship with that resilient weed variously known as grass, pot, or dope. GRASS is an informative and entertaining kaleidoscope of the longest-running and most disobeyed prohibition in the history of the USA, an epic tale of how Government bureaucrats created a climate which turned literally millions of users, at least technically, into criminals.

  • Eye of the Day
    Eye of the Day | Director: Leonard Retel Helmrich.  
    Year of production: 2001| Country of production: Indonesia, Netherlands | Language: Dutch, Indonesian (with full English subtitles available)

    Indonesia, 1988. A deep political and economic crisis forces President Suharto to resign after thirty-two years in power. Thus begins the tumultuous era known as REFORMASI. Since then, Indonesians have seen ongoing political change, protests and poverty.
    EYE OF THE DAY tells of a handful of them, including the sixty-year-old-woman Rumidjah, her sons Bakti and Dwi, and her friend Ibu Sum. The film depicts their world, from harvests in the countryside to mass protests in the cities, from mysterious natural forces of the volcanoes and mountains to religious seances and pilgrimages.

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