In Complete World

In Complete World

2008 · 53 min · ★ 9.0 · Documentary

in complete world is a feature-length documentary made up of street interviews done throughout NYC. Mixing political questions (Are we responsible for the government we get?) with more broadly existential ones (Do you feel you have control over your life?), the film centers on the tension between individual and collective responsibility. The film can be seen as a user's manual for citizenship in the 21st century, as well as a glimpse into the opinions and self-perceptions of a diverse group of Americans. It is a testament to the people of NYC in this new millennium, who freely offer up thoughtful, provocative and at times tender revelations to a complete stranger, just because she asked.

Directed by Shelly Silver

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In Complete World

Girls / Museum

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A group of cops laugh and talk, while scanning the street for suspicious activity. An extreme close-up of a sensuously exposed neck; a soft pink fleshy ear turns to reveal an inquisitive hostile eye.... [Overview courtesy of Shelly Silver]

Girls / Museum

Girls / Museum · 2020

MovieDocumentary

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37 Stories About Leaving Home

37 Stories About Leaving Home · 1996

37 Stories About Leaving Home

Explores the relationships among grandmothers, mothers and daughters in a changing Japanese society.

Touch

MovieDocumentary

A man returns, after fifty years, to Chinatown to care for his dying mother. He is a librarian, a cataloguer and recorder, a gay man, a watcher, an impersonator. He passes his time collecting images - his witnesses and collaborators. Sitting in the dark, we look at them and share his cloak of invisibility, both a benefit and a curse.

Turn

In 1959, Jean Seberg stares into Raoul Coutard’s 35mm camera lens and then turns – the closing frame of Godard’s Breathless is the back of her head. For the film it is a closing. For her character it is less clear. Is it a refusal? A denial? A shying away from? An admission of guilt or not caring? A disappearing act? In 2017 on the streets of Berlin, twenty-three women, friends and passersby, reverse Seberg’s action.

A short, graphically dynamic work contrasting contradictory views of perception and interpretation, by way of society's assumptions vis-a-vis phallocentrism and fetishism.

Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy

Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy · 1993

Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy

MovieDocumentary

This spellbinding documentary re-examines the issues raised by Oliver Stone's JFK, and explores the late Jim Garrison's contention that there was a "second conspiracy" to cover up the truth, including attempts to ruin his own reputation.

Getting In

Getting In · 1989

Starting with the deceptively soothing pastel hues of a sunny afternoon in San Francisco, getting in stages a collision between two rarely questioned phenomenon, heterosexual sex and real estate.

This Film

This Film · 2018

Filming is alchemy; preserving, seeing, devouring, cutting. Chopping the flow of images with a push of a button. It privileges a solitary unseen protagonist, choosing this over that and then that, it eats anything, not everything,

Suicide

Suicide · 2003

A woman's voyage through the malls, airports and train stations of Asia, Europe and Central America, chronicling her fiercely hopeful and desperate search for a reason to continue living.

The Lamps

The Lamps · 2015

MovieDocumentary

The Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was an unsung member of the Dada Movement. The Baroness was a poet, artist, vaudeville performer, runaway, rabble rouser, crossdresser, and all around public provocateur. As with many women artists throughout history, her cultural legacy has been obscured.

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Meet the People · 1986

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Out of Darkness: The Mine Workers' Story

Out of Darkness: The Mine Workers' Story · 1990

Out of Darkness: The Mine Workers' Story

MovieDocumentary

OUT OF DARKNESS: THE MINE WORKERS' STORY is a documentary by Academy Award-winning director Barbara Kopple (HARLAN COUNTY, USA). Historical film footage and photographs are integrated with first-hand accounts of UMWA history and of the Pittston strike of 1989-90.

A Strange New Beauty

A Strange New Beauty · 2017

A Strange New Beauty

A disturbing intrusion into the luxurious homes of Silicon Valley. Using an aggressive soundtrack and a full frame often fractured into small rectangles covered by text, Silver reveals a deafening violence behind the glittering beauty and deceptively calm of this suburban landscape. There is no human presence, but the homes seem to contain a memory of disturbing events, to bear the traces of a savagery just offscreen.

Former East/Former West

Former East/Former West · 1994

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MovieDocumentary

Made up of hundreds of street interviews done in Berlin two years after the Reunification, Former East/Former West is a vital, surprisingly open, and at times disturbing documentary about what it means to be German at this particular moment in history.

5 Lessons and 9 Questions about Chinatown

5 Lessons and 9 Questions about Chinatown · 2009

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You live somewhere, walk down the same street 50, 100, 10,000 times, each time taking in fragments, but never fully registering The Place. Years, decades go by and you continue, unseeing, possibly unseen. A building comes down, and before the next one is up you ask yourself 'what used to be there?' You are only vaguely aware of the district's shifting patterns and the sense that, since the 19th century, wave after wave of inhabitants have moved through and transformed these alleyways, tenements, stoops and shops. 10 square blocks, past, present, future, time, light, movement, immigration, exclusion, gentrification, racism, history, China, America, 3 languages, 13 voices, 152 years, 17,820 frames, 9 minutes, 54 seconds, 9 questions, 5 lessons, Chinatown

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