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SPOTLIGHT's Film Curation Archives

Spotlight: New Polish Cinema

The New Polish Cinema arose out of a newfound freedom and independence from Stalinist censorship in the years after the Polish October of 1956. This freedom led to the exploration of formerly taboo subjects such as politics and sexuality, as well as formal experimentation with narrative and cinema.

New Polish Cinema
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Spotlight: Directors: Werner Herzog

A maverick director of fiery narratives and boldly stylized documentaries, Werner Herzog is a seemingly unstoppable force whose filmmaking career began when he stole a camera from school in 1961, came into its own in the New German Cinema movement of the 1970s and '80s, and has been going strong ever since.

Directors: Werner Herzog
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Spotlight: Dogme 95

Dogme 95 is a film movement started by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in 1995 and lasting about ten years. The movement’s manifesto championed a focus on story, acting, and theme, and decried the use of elaborate special effects or technology. While 35 films were eventually certified as part of the official movement, this week we present the nine currently streaming in the US.

Dogme 95
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Spotlight: Woman, Life, Freedom

This week marks the first anniversary of the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, following her arrest by the Iranian morality police for allegedly violating mandatory dress codes. Her death has triggered ongoing protests characterized by the chant "Woman, Life, Freedom." This week, we offer a selection of films by women directors from Iran.

Woman, Life, Freedom
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Spotlight: Alternative Education

At the time of year when many of us head back to school, we thought we'd take a moment to showcase films that recognize that teachers come in many forms, that education happens outside as well as inside the classroom, that life lessons are not always the ones we’d choose to learn.

Alternative Education
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Spotlight: West African Cinema

Grappling with the end of colonialism and the immense changes brought by modernization, West African filmmakers have sought to tell their own stories, through filmmaking that is post-imperial and Afrocentric in subject and form, a revolutionary cinema by African filmmakers for African audiences.

West African Cinema
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Spotlight: Across the Universe: Space and the Human Imagination

Space has captured the imagination of filmmakers from the earliest days of the medium, resulting in some of the first, as well as some of the best, films ever made. In genres ranging from existential dramas to comedies to Westerns, space has functioned as a fruitful realm of human projection and fantasy.

Across the Universe: Space and the Human Imagination
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Spotlight: Leopards of Locarno

From postwar neorealism to contemporary slow cinema, Locarno has championed artistic, experimental, and avant-garde filmmaking since 1946. These films come from far and wide, all winners of the Golden Leopard, driven not by commercial interests but by the spirit of pushing the boundaries of cinema into new realms.

Leopards of Locarno
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Spotlight: Emerging from the Archives

In these films, filmmakers repurpose archival images and footage to remake a world of visual history. From fiction films to documentaries to something in-between, these films meditate on the possibilities and meanings of time in motion.

Emerging from the Archives
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