Directed by Francois Caillat • Documentary • With Michel Foucault • 2014 • 52 minutes
'Don't ask me who I am, and don't tell me to remain the same.' -- Michel Foucault From the history of madness, to sexuality and pleasure in classical antiquity, to the law and penal institutions, the breadth of Michel Foucault's thought was astonishing. One of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, Foucault bridged the roles of intellectual and activist, attaining the highest honours of the French academy while using his position to attack the very institutional power that gave him a platform. Divided into four chapters, FOUCAULT AGAINST HIMSELF focuses on Foucault's critique of psychiatry, his work on the history of sexuality, the growth of his radicalism arising from his research into the French penal system, the nature of knowledge and underlying structures of human behavior, and his immersion in American counter-cultural movements - in particular the resistance to current social structures that he found among sexual minority communities in San Francisco. The film brings together leading philosophers, sociologists and historians - among them Leo Bersani, who first invited Foucault to speak at UC Berkeley - as well as footage of Foucault himself and French and American archival material depicting events that profoundly influenced him. Foucault was profoundly opposed to the notion of small fiefdoms of knowledge. His approach was eclectic (a philosopher writing extensively about history and surveying prisoners on their living conditions, to give two examples) and wide-ranging. Philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman calls him an intellectual 'nomad... crossing the territorial boundaries of knowledge. There are certain threads that run through his work - in particular the critique of institutional power and the celebration of resistance - but it was also...
Directed by Aaron Brookner • Documentary • With Aaron Brookner, John Diorno, Tom DiCillo, Elaine Brookner, Sara Driver, William S. Burroughs Jim Jarmusch, Madonna, Robert Wilson • 2016 • 96 minutes
Uncle Howard is an intertwining tale of past and present. New York filmmaker Howard Brookner die...
Directed by Raoul Peck • Drama • With Eriq Ebouaney • 2001 • 115 minutes
Made in the tradition of such true-life political thrillers as Malcolm X and JFK, Raoul Peck's award-winning Lumumba is a gripping epic that dramatizes for the first time the rise and fall of legendary African leader Patric...
Directed by Cordelia Dvorák • Documentary • 2016 • 55 minutes
Art, politics and motorcycles: on the occasion of his 90th birthday, JOHN BERGER OR THE ART OF LOOKING is an intimate portrait of the writer and art-critic whose groundbreaking insights on seeing have shaped us for already five decade...