Ah Humanity!

Ah Humanity!

2015 · 23 min · Documentary

“Ah humanity! reflects on the fragility and folly of humanity in the age of the Anthropocene. Taking the 3/11/11 disaster of Fukushima as its point of departure, it evokes an apocalyptic vision of modernity, and our predilection for historical amnesia and futuristic flights of fancy. Shot on a telephone through a handheld telescope, at once close to and far from its subject, the audio composition combines excerpts from Japanese genbaku film soundtracks, audio recordings from scientific seismic laboratories, and location sound.”—Ernst Karel, Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor

Directed by Ernst Karel

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The Yellow Bank

The Yellow Bank · 2010

The Yellow Bank

MovieDocumentary

A short documentary that captures the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, The Yellow Bank takes you on a contemplative boat ride across the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China. Filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki, who lived and worked in Shanghai nine years earlier, uses the eclipse as a catalyst to explore the way weather, light, and sound affect the urban architectural environment during this extremely rare phenomenon.

Sweetgrass

Sweetgrass · 2009

MovieDocumentary

An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture, revealing a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.

Krabi, 2562

Krabi, 2562 · 2019

MovieDocumentaryDrama

Explores the landscape and stories within the community of Krabi, Southern Thailand. A major tourist destination in Thailand, the filmmakers want to capture the town in this specific moment where the pre-historic, the more recent past and the contemporary world collide, sometimes uneasily.

Stray

MovieDocumentary

Experience the bustle of Istanbul street life through the eyes of three stray dogs – Zeytin, Nazar and Kartal.

The Tree House

The Tree House · 2019

MovieDocumentaryScience Fiction

In 2045, a filmmaker lands on Mars and tries to make a film. “Home… Far away from home”, he recalls faces of people, thus a collection of moving images emerge.

Foreign Parts

Foreign Parts · 2010

MovieDocumentary

A portrayal of a hidden enclave of auto shops and junkyards fated for demolition in the shadow of a new baseball stadium in Queens. The film observes this vibrant community of immigrants – where wrecks, refuse, and recycling form a thriving commerce – as it struggles for daily survival and contests New York City's development scheme.

Ghost Strata

Ghost Strata · 2019

MovieDocumentary

Filmed in various places over the globe, Ghost Strata explores the differing scales of impact that humanity’s presence has on the earth in the past, present and into the future. Found sound and text create a meditation on time, memory, leftovers and extinction.

The Hottest August

The Hottest August · 2019

The Hottest August

MovieDocumentary

Brett Story's visionary look at New York City as it braces for an uncertain future.

Single Stream

Single Stream · 2014

MovieDocumentary

Single Stream explores a recycling facility in the Boston area, where hundreds of tons of refuse are sorted daily. Blurring the line between observation and abstraction, Single Stream plunges the viewer into the steady flow of the plant and the waste it treats, examining the material consequences of our society's culture of excess.

Phases of Matter

Phases of Matter · 2020

Phases of Matter

MovieDocumentary

Phases of Matter follows living and inanimate residents of a teaching hospital in Istanbul, moving from the operating room to the morgue, between life and other states, the real and the virtual.

Every Pulse of the Heart Is Work

Every Pulse of the Heart Is Work · 2019

Every Pulse of the Heart Is Work

MovieDocumentary

From a snake charmer to a welder, from a weaver to an obstetrician, the inhabitants of the holy city of Varanasi are striving for survival, and transform and ennoble themselves in the process. A hypnotic study of people at work—a street beggar, a surgeon, a weaver, a priest, a masseur, a tabla drum maker, and a crane operator: people who in their intense concentration and ritualized movements evoke the idea of human labor as an act of spiritual devotion and social interdependence. Filmed largely in India’s ancient holy city of Varanasi

Detour de Force

Detour de Force · 2014

Detour de Force

A fascinating portrait of "thoughtographer" Ted Serios, a hard-drinking Chicago bellhop who caused a sensation in the sixties with his psychic ability to produce hundreds of Polaroid images from his mind.

Hair, Paper, Water...

Hair, Paper, Water... · 2026

Hair, Paper, Water...

MovieDramaDocumentary

She was born in a cave, more than 60 years ago. Now she lives in a village, with many children and grandchildren to look after. Sometimes, she dreams of her dead mother calling her home – to the cave.

Bedding Down

Bedding Down · 2012

MovieDocumentary

Exploring the intersection between experimental documentary and ethnographic anthropology, this short film silently follows a herd of sheep and a faceless cowboy through magic hour in Montana. A Western without guns or dames, just the open country, man and the animal world are left behind.

Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild] · 2026

Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

MovieDocumentary

Trapped in museum archives, Ancestors bend time and space to find their way home. History, spirituality, and the law collide as tribal repatriation specialists fight to return and rebury Indigenous human remains, offering a revealing look at the still-pervasive worldviews that justified collecting them in the first place.

Expedition Content

Expedition Content · 2022

Expedition Content

MovieDocumentary

Constructed from the audio archive of the 1961 Harvard Peabody Expedition to Netherlands New Guinea: In the encounter with the Hubula people, this work reflects a parallaxing image of the histories of field recording, ethnographic film, and colonialism.

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The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat · 1896

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

MovieHistoryDocumentary

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

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