Moments in Time

Moments in Time

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." —Robert Capa

The photographers featured in these films have all mastered the art of what makes for a good picture. From a portrait of Robert Frank, who produced the important book, The Americans, to Gerda Taro, whose wartime work with Robert Capa has only recently been discovered, these photographers have created images that will resonate for generations.

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Moments in Time
  • Softie

    Directed by Sam Soko • Documentary • 2020 • 96 minutes

    Boniface “Softie” Mwangi has long fought injustices in his country as a political activist. Now he’s taking the next step by running for office in a regional Kenyan election. From the moment Boniface decides to run, telling his wife, Njeri, ...

  • Contact, Ep. 1 - Muhammad Ali by Thomas Hoepker

    Directed by Mario Paloschi, Gianluigi Attorre • Documentary • 2014 • 26 minutes

    German photographer Thomas Hoepker, reveals the story behind one of the most iconic pictures in the history of sports: the portrait of boxing legend Muhammad Alì.

  • Martha: A Picture Story

    Directed by Selina Miles • Documentary • With Martha Cooper, Os Gemeos, Shepard Fairey • 2019 • 81 minutes

    In 1970s New York, photographer Martha Cooper captured some of the first images of graffiti at a time when the city had declared war on it. Decades later, Cooper has become influential to t...

  • Jay Myself

    Directed by Stephen Wilkes • Documentary • With Jay Maisel • 2019 • 79 minutes

    JAY MYSELF documents the monumental move of renowned photographer and artist, Jay Maisel, who, in February 2015 after forty-eight years, begrudgingly sold his home—the 36,000 square-foot, 100-year-old landmark buildin...

  • Contact, Ep. 2 - The Beatles by David Hurn

    Directed by Mario Paloschi, Gianluigi Attorre • Documentary • 2014 • 26 minutes

    British photographer David Hurn takes us to swinging London to introduce us to the legendary photo session with The Fab Four.

  • Suzy Lake: Playing with Time

    Directed by Annette Mangaard • Documentary • 2015 • 62 minutes

    Photographer Suzy Lake is one of the formative feminist artists to evolve out of the heyday of the 1960’s and the Second Wave. A master of the art of self-portraiture, Lake influenced Cindy Sherman as well as a host of other female a...

  • Contact, Ep. 3 - Tiananmen Square by Stuart Franklin

    Directed by Mario Paloschi, Gianluigi Attorre • Documentary • 2014 • 26 minutes

    A lonely man facing Chinese tanks on Tiananmen Square is often described as the most famous photo of the 20th century. Stuart Franklin led us to the 5th of June 1989, when the unknown rioter faced the regime.

  • Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann

    Directed by Steven Cantor and Peter Spirer • Documentary • With Sally Mann • 1994 • 30 minutes

    BLOOD TIES artfully explores the world of the prominent and controversial photographer, Sally Mann. With her own children as subjects, Mann has been exploring the subtle truths of childhood in an ongoi...

  • Through A Lens Darkly

    Directed by Thomas Allen Harris • Documentary • 2014 • 92 minutes

    The first documentary to explore the American family photo album through the eyes of black photographers, Through a Lens Darkly probes the recesses of American history to discover images that have been suppressed, forgotten and lo...

  • A Baptism of Fire

    Directed by Jerome Clement-Wilz • Documentary • 2015 • 52 minutes

    'As it gets harder to sell pictures, we take greater and greater risks,' explains Corentin Fohlen. A war correspondent still in his twenties, Fohlen is part of a new generation of freelance journalists who fly to war zones from Li...

  • Conversations with Roy DeCarava

    Directed by Carroll Parrot Blue • Documentary • 1984 • 28 minutes

    'It starts before you snap the shutter... It starts with your sense of what's important.' These are the words of Roy DeCarava, one of the foremost photographic artists of the twentieth century, contributor to the Family of Man exh...

  • Journal de France

    Directed by Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret • Documentary • 2012 • 100 minutes

    Travelling alone, internationally acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon spent six years capturing his home country with a large format camera. This long, solitary road trip provided fertile grou...

  • Remembrance of Things to Come

    Directed by Chris Marker, Yannick Bellon • Documentary • 2001 • 42 minutes

    Chris Marker's "cine-essay" is dense and demanding, a splendid reminder of the agility, poetry, and power of his nimble, capacious mind.

    Ostensibly a portrait of photographer Denise Bellon, focusing on the two decades be...

  • Sermons and Sacred Pictures

    Directed by Lynne Sachs • Documentary • 2004 • 29 minutes

    In association with the Center for Southern Folklore, SERMONS AND SACRED PICTURES profiles Reverend L.O. Taylor, a Memphis-based Baptist minister who in the 1930s and 40s built a fiery reputation by lacing his sermons with parables, fable...

  • The Spectre of Hope

    Directed by Paul Carlin • Documentary • With John Berger, Sebastiao Salgado • 2001 • 52 minutes

    Over the past 30 years Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado's work has won every major award for excellence. More importantly, his photographs have had an actual impact on the world and how it is ...

  • Coming to Light

    Directed by Anne Makepeace • Documentary • 2000 • 84 minutes

    Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) was a driven, charismatic, obsessive artist, a pioneer photographer who set out in 1900 to document traditional Indian life. He rose from obscurity to become the most famous photographer of his time, create...

  • Photographic Memory

    Directed by Ross McElwee • Documentary • 2012 • 87 minutes

    Filmmaker Ross McElwee (Sherman’s March, Bright Leaves) finds himself in frequent conflict with his son, a young adult who seems addicted to and distracted by the virtual worlds of the internet. To understand his fractured love for his s...

  • Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti

    Directed by Laura Mulvey • Documentary • With Miriam Margolyes • 1983 • 29 minutes

    This tautly structured documentary sheds light on the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and Italian photographer Tina Modotti, women icons of the Mexican Renaissance. The film not only explores the two women's a...

  • F11 and Be There

    Directed by Jethro Waters • Documentary • 2020 • 80 minutes

    F11 AND BE THERE is a commentary on American civil rights, race, social justice, and art, told through the many lenses of legendary photographer Burk Uzzle. With a career that spans 65+ years, Burk Uzzle has created some of the most ico...

  • Malick Sidibé

    Directed by Susan Vogel • Documentary • 2006 • 8 minutes

    Malick Sidibé started out as a local photographer in Bamako, Mali. After independence in 1960, his snazzy studio portraits and party shots captured the buoyant optimism of a new nation. Today they are recognized internationally as masterpi...

  • The Woodmans

    Directed by C. Scott Willis • Documentary • With Betty Woodman, Francesca Woodman, Charles Woodman George Woodman • 2010 • 83 minutes

    The Woodmans are a family of well-known artists bonded in their belief of art-making as the highest form of expression. But for their daughter Francesca — one of ...

  • Tina In Mexico

    Directed by Brenda Longfellow • Documentary • 2004 • 60 minutes

    A new independent feature documentary by acclaimed Canadian director Brenda Longfellow, TINA IN MEXICO, follows the tumultuous and epic story of Tina Modotti, revolutionary, bohemian spirit and renowned photographer, acclaimed for h...

  • Searching For Gerda Taro

    Directed by Camille Ménager • Documentary • 2021 • 58 minutes

    SEARCHING FOR GERDA TARO celebrates the life and work of Taro — a charismatic Jewish refugee from Germany, an anti-fascist, and a trailblazing photographer whose work would be forgotten for decades.

    In 1935, Taro (then going by her b...

  • On the French Riviera with Man Ray and Picasso

    Directed by François Lévy-Kuentz • Documentary • 2021 • 53 minutes

    A group of friends meet up in the country to spend the summer together. They go to the beach, play cards, and take day trips in the surrounding region. But these aren’t everyday city folk on vacation. The hosts are Pablo Picasso ...