Cinema Futures

Cinema Futures

2016 · 126 min · ★ 6.2 · Documentary, Drama

Analog celluloid strips are disappearing. Is film dying, or just changing? Are the world's film archives on the brink of a dark age? Renowned filmmakers, museum curators, historians, and engineers help dramatize the future of film and the cinema in the age of digital moving pictures.

Directed by Michael Palm · Written by Michael Palm

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

DocAlliance Films

Rent or Buy

DocAlliance Films

Cast

Make it a double feature

Cinema Futures

Was uns bindet

Both from Michael Palm.

More from Michael PalmSee all →

It worksIt works · 1998
It works
10.01998
MovieDocumentary
The accomplishments of four handicapped ten-year-olds are recorded on camera. Their determination to do and create is obvious in each action.
When It Blinds, Open Your EyesWhen It Blinds, Open Your Eyes · 2014
When It Blinds, Open Your Eyes
8.52014
MovieDocumentary
Zhanna und Lyosha are survivors. The couple, now in their mid-thirties, became heroin addicts in the turbulent years of upheaval in Russia. They know their days are numbered, and pit their frail zest for life and gallows humor against this fact. The film draws on these moments and offers an intimate portrayal of a fragile and ambivalent love affair.
Was uns bindetWas uns bindet · 2017
Was uns bindet
8.02017
MovieDocumentary
A documentary about the parents of director Ivette Löcker, who have been living apart in their shared home for 20 years.
Total TherapyTotal Therapy · 1997
Total Therapy
8.01997
MovieThrillerDrama
Nine persons sign up for a self-awareness course at an isolated country estate. Dr. Romero, a charismatic therapist, and his assistants confront the patients with their problems. Cut off from the rest of the world, the participants are increasingly drawn into the therapy's spell.
I Am from NowhereI Am from Nowhere · 2002
I Am from Nowhere
8.02002
MovieDocumentary
Since 1952 countless films, documentaries, and reports have been made about Miková, the small village in Eastern Slovakia with a population of one hundred and fifty from where Andy Warhol’s family emigrated to the US. Focussing on his relatives who still live there, I Am From Nowhere examines the media’s obsession with Miková, thus reflecting on fame, filming as well as being filmed, and on Warhol’s legendary “15 minutes of fame”. More than that however, it is a film about the dreams and hopes of the people there, about the universal human dream of a better life, and an “American Dream”, which turns out to be completely different than expected.
Sea Concrete Human — Malfunctions #1Sea Concrete Human — Malfunctions #1 · 2001
Sea Concrete Human — Malfunctions #1
8.02001
Movie
An experimental sci-fi documentary focusing on the question of what will remain visible and what will be left to tell if humans vanish from the world, from the image. Landscapes and architecture become mummified relics of a former human presence.
Henry Fonda for PresidentHenry Fonda for President · 2025
Henry Fonda for President
7.02025
MovieDocumentary
A personal essay about the United States viewed through the life and work of the late American film and stage actor Henry Fonda.
Calling Hedy LamarrCalling Hedy Lamarr · 2006
Calling Hedy Lamarr
7.02006
MovieDocumentary
A film about the world's most beautiful woman, a Hollywood goddess and her forgotten breakthrough invention that revolutionized mobile phones. A film about a mother, an emancipated woman and a failed life. The Hedy Lamarr Story tells her tale as a fusion of modern myths, constructed legends and true stories.
Homo SapiensHomo Sapiens · 2016
Homo Sapiens
7.02016
MovieDocumentary
HOMO SAPIENS is visionary documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter's exploration of the finiteness and fragility of human existence, the end of the industrial age, and what it means to be a human being. What will remain of our lives after we're gone? Empty spaces, ruins, cities, increasingly overgrown with vegetation, crumbling asphalt: the areas we currently inhabit, now abandoned and decaying, gradually reclaimed by nature. Comprised of a succession of eerily depopulated, dystopian landscapes from across the world, HOMO SAPIENS offers an at once mesmerizing and chilling vision of what a posthuman future might look like.
Goodnight MommyGoodnight Mommy · 2015
Goodnight Mommy
6.72015
MovieHorrorMystery
In the heat of the summer lays a lonesome house in the countryside where nine year old twin brothers await their mother’s return. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before and the children start to doubt whether this woman is actually who she says she is.
The Devil's BathThe Devil's Bath · 2024
The Devil's Bath
6.62024
MovieDramaMystery
In 1750 Austria, a deeply religious woman named Agnes has just married her beloved, but her mind and heart soon grow heavy as her life becomes a long list of chores and expectations. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts, until the possibility of committing a shocking act of violence seems like the only way out of her inner prison.
Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-ScreenEdgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen · 2004
Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen
6.52004
MovieDocumentary
Documentary on the life and work of B-movie filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer, spanning from his early life to his last film.
The TrialThe Trial · 2011
The Trial
6.32011
MovieDocumentary
At 6am on May 21, 2008, armed police burst into the apartment of Austrian dog trainer and animal-rights activist Sabine Koch, arresting her. After three months in custody, Koch, together with 12 other animal-rights activists, went on trial. They were charged with being members of a criminal organisation and therefore breaching article 273a of the Austrian Penal Code, introduced in the wake of 9/11. The article’s intention is to allow the state to stifle terrorist activity. Years of observation, house searches, and undercover agents – the police left no stone unturned in its bid to prove the animal-rights activists’ guilt. The sobering result: five million Euros worth of investigation, no proof and a great deal of scepticism towards the Austrian justice system – and democracy itself.
Matter Out of PlaceMatter Out of Place · 2022
Matter Out of Place
6.32022
MovieDocumentary
A film about our garbage that is found in the most remote areas and about the people who try to dispose of it. Not only in the sea and on coasts, also in the Arctic, the jungle, high up on the mountains and deep inside the desert, garbage is found almost everywhere in various forms and dimensions, sometimes as whole car wrecks, old TV sets or simply construction rubble, but mostly in the form of disintegrated plastic particles a few millimetres in size. Humanity has handed out its visiting cards thoroughly.
LillianLillian · 2019
Lillian
6.22019
MovieDrama
Lillian, stranded as an emigrant in New York, wants to walk back to her native Russia. Determined, she sets out on the long journey. A road movie across the United States into the cold of Alaska. The chronicle of a slow disappearance.
The LodgeThe Lodge · 2020
The Lodge
6.12020
MovieHorrorMystery
When a father is forced to abruptly depart for work, he leaves his children, Aidan and Mia, at their holiday home in the care of his new girlfriend, Grace. Isolated and alone, a blizzard traps them inside the lodge as terrifying events summon specters from Grace's dark past.

More Like This

JacquotJacquot · 1991
Jacquot
7.51991
MovieDrama
Jacquot Demy, the son of a garage owner and a hairdresser, is fascinated by cinema and decides to pursue his dream of becoming a filmmaker by any means necessary.
Camera BuffCamera Buff · 1979
Camera Buff
7.51979
MovieDrama
Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works but his focus on movie making also leads to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas.
Henri-Georges Clouzot's InfernoHenri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno · 2009
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
7.22009
MovieDocumentary
In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.
Visions of LightVisions of Light · 1992
Visions of Light
7.01992
MovieDocumentaryHistory
Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.
Sweet DreamsSweet Dreams · 1981
Sweet Dreams
7.11981
MovieComedyDrama
Michele is a young filmmaker frustrated by the lack of understanding his work receives and at odds with the film industry, especially a colleague making a musical on the '68 student protests. As he struggles to complete his own film about Freud's mother, Michele's insecurity and creative block manifest in a series of unsettling nightmares. Nanni Moretti's self-inquiry into cinema, political ennui, and men's relationships with their mothers.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter