Three Letters: La Mamma Morta

'La Mamma Morta’ is an aria from the opera Andrea Chenier that is also well-known for its use in a memorable sequence in the Oscar award-winning Philadelphia. Thirty years on, this new short film from WNO includes a brand-new recording of the aria featured alongside recreated scenes that better encapsulate the perspectives of people living with HIV today. To mark World AIDS Day 2023, the Welsh National Orchestra released a special new version of La mamma morta, featuring WNO Orchestra, soprano Camilla Roberts and Nathaniel Hall from Channel 4’s It’s a Sin. Released as part of the last rendition in the Three Letters project, this film aims to tackle societal stigma around HIV.

80 years of Air Army

Les paillotes refusent de boire la tasse

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, l’homme qui avançait à contre-courant

Passeurs de vies

Un racisme à peine voilé

October 2003, Alma and Lila Levy are excluded from the Lycée Henri Wallon in Aubervilliers solely because they were wearing a headscarf. What follows is a deafening political and media debate, justifying in most cases the exclusion of girls wearing head-scarves to school. February 2004, a law was eventually passed by the National Assembly. "A thinly veiled racism" is about this controversy since the affair of Creil in 1989 (where two schoolgirls were excluded for the same reasons) and attempts to "reveal" that maybe what hides behind is the desire to exclude these girls. This film gives them a voice as well as others - teachers, community activists, feminists, researchers - gathered around the group "A School for You-All" fighting for the repeal of this law they consider sexist and racist ... This movie was censured in Septembre 2004 in France.

Timber Front

This black-and-white archival film outlines the importance of Canada's forests in the national war effort during the Second World War.

Impressions De France

An 18-minute panoramic film showcasing the grandeur, charm and romance of one of Europe’s most enchanting countries.

WICCA

I was scrounging around the neighborhood for inspiration. Within a block from my apartment, I found a wild mushroom in the grass, and an advertisement for a psychic named Sara.

Les yeux dans les Bleus

This documentary follows the French soccer team on their way to victory in the 1998 World Cup in France. Stéphane Meunier spent the whole time filming the players, the coach and some other important characters of this victory, giving us a very intimate and nice view of them, as if we were with them.

Wild Feast

A wounded moose escapes its hunters, later dying deep in the forest and becoming... a communal feast. As the seasons go by, mammals, birds and insects invite themselves to the banquet - multiplying ensuing games, rituals and conflicts. In exploring and occasionally foiling nature's wildlife codes, our story becomes a simple yet poignant reflection on death, on its natural place in this world and, by extension, on its deeper meaning and purpose - important lessons to explore at this time when the glorious paradises offered by religions tend to feel less and less credible.

Madame Soleil, la femme qui était supposée savoir

Élysez-moi !

Né un 14 Juillet

A Global Warning?

Global warming in context. What the climate of the past tells us about the climate of the future.

Before Summer Ends

After five years studying in Paris, Arash has not adjusted to life there and has decided to return to Iran to live. Hoping to change his mind, his two friends Hossein and Ashkan convince him to take a last trip through France.

Le Beurre : Du bonheur en motte ?

Lots's wife

A woman's walk through time and search for true freedom. The inner look breaks with the punishment of immobility, and the woman's destiny becomes a symbol of poetry and freedom.

In Between Mountains and Oceans

Finding their place between the forest and the sea, the Japanese have always felt awe and gratitude toward Nature. Since ancient times, they have negotiated their own unique relationship with their natural surroundings. Acclaimed photographer Masa-aki Miyazawa discovered the essence of that ancient way of living in Ise Jingu, Japan’s holiest Shinto shrine. Inspired by the idea of sending a message to the future in the same way this ancient shrine keeps alive the traditions of the past, Miyazawa used an ultra-high resolution 4K camera to create a breathtaking visual journey linking the Ise forest with other forests throughout Japan.

Boire

Sans Soleil

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.

Just Don't Think I'll Scream

January 2016. The love story that brought me to this village in Alsace where I live ended six months ago. At 45, I am now alone, without a car, a job or any real prospects, surrounded by luxuriant nature, the proximity of which is not enough to calm the deep distress into which I am plunged. I am lost and I watch four to five films a day. I decide to record this stagnation, not by picking up a camera but by editing shots from the stream of films I watch.

Naqoyqatsi

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Junkopia

Filmed along the Emeryville Mudflats near San Francisco, Junkopia captures a landscape of sculptural installations made from driftwood and discarded materials. Chris Marker, John Chapman, and Frank Simeone transform these ephemeral artworks—set against highways and the distant city—into a quiet meditation on art, decay, and the modern environment.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.

Powaqqatsi

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

Black Panthers

A film shot during the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California around the meetings organised by the Black Panthers Party to free Huey Newton, one of their leaders, and to turn his trial into a political debate. They tried and succeeded in catching America’s attention.

The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story

A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.

Heart of a Dog

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

Babies

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.

News from Home

Impersonal and beautiful images of Akerman's life in New York are combined with letters from her loving but manipulative mother, read by Akerman herself.

We Live in Public

In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.

Uncle Yanco

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never heard of before, Jean Varda, nicknamed "Yanco". This hitherto unknown uncle lives on a boat in Sausalito, is a painter, has adopted a hippie lifestyle and loves life. The meeting is a very happy one.

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster

A documentary on legendary movie-poster artist Drew Struzan.

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country

Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country.

Very Nice, Very Nice

Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Seasons

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

Daguerréotypes

An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.

Fyre Fraud

A true-crime comedy exploring a failed music festival turned internet meme at the nexus of social media influence, late-stage capitalism, and morality in the post-truth era.

In the Realms of the Unreal

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.