Directed by Denis Côté • Documentary • 2012 • 72 minutes
Fascinating and beguiling, BESTIAIRE is Denis Côté's mesmerizing meditation on the relationship between man and beast. This strikingly beautiful film about looking-starts with a group of art students attempting to sketch an animal-that blurs the line between observer and observed. There may be no traditional narrative, yet there is breathtaking dramatic tension in every exquisitely framed shot: the sight of a lion attacking the doors of its cage or the scurrying striped legs of zebras in a holding pen. Contemplative and enthralling, BESTIAIRE is cinema at its purest.
"Using the film form to challenge the very notion of representation, Bestiaire is an elegant, bewitching meditation on the nature of sentience and the boundaries between nature and civilization." -Sundance Film Festival
"Haunting mix of curiosity and compassion." -Variety
Up Next in Essay Films
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Nostalgia for the Light
Directed by Patricio Guzmán • Documentary • 2010 • 90 minutes
Master director Patricio Guzmán travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where atop the mountains astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent ...
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Bluespace
Directed by Ian Cheney • Documentary • 2016 • 73 minutes
Could humans live on Mars? Would we want to? Emmy-nominated filmmaker Ian Cheney provides insight into our currently unsustainable relationship with our home planet by examining the sci-fi speculation of 'terraforming,' or making another p...
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A Grin Without a Cat (Chris Marker)
Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 1977 • 178 minutes
Newly restored! A GRIN WITHOUT A CAT is Chris Marker's epic film-essay on the worldwide political wars of the 60's and 70's: Vietnam, Bolivia, May '68, Prague, Chile, and the fate of the New Left.
Released in France in 1978, restored a...
