The Creative Brain

Trees talk, know family ties and care for their young? Is this too fantastic to be true? German forester Peter Wohlleben and scientist Suzanne Simard have been observing and investigating the communication between trees over decades. And their findings are most astounding.

The amazing story of the animograph, a machine created in France in the sixties by the cartoonist and self-taught inventor Jean Dejoux (1922-2015), whose creation was intended to revolutionize the animation industry.

An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.

In one of those wonderful coincidences of history, lumière, the French word for “light,” was also the last name of brothers Auguste and Louis, whose brilliant invention, the cinematograph, helped to inaugurate the most beloved art form of the last 130 years. Institute Lumière director Thierry Frémaux uses Lumière, Le Cinema! to guide the viewer through over a hundred shorts—some famous, some forgotten, some never before seen—directed by Lumière and company. In the process, Frémaux illuminates how the brothers employed the camera as a creative instrument as they (and their operators) mastered framing, staging, and subject selection for quotidian and exotic microdocumentaries as well as the first ever fictional motion pictures. The result is not only a glorious re(telling) of the genesis of cinema but a profound meditation on the beautiful world captured—and the mysterious world imagined—by the Lumières.

A reflective look at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and how individuals rose to the occasion during the first years of the crisis.

Parfenov's documentary is about a brilliant scientist and engineer, born in Russia, but only known on the other side of the ocean. The invention of modern television changed the history of mankind. The invention has an author, who is almost unknown in his homeland. Vladimir Zworykin, born in Murom, a Russian American, was the person who created distant wireless transmission of images.

"American Cafe" is a look into Cafe Racer motorcycle culture in the United States. Transplanted from Europe, the term "Cafe Racer" describes both a type of motorcycle as well as the personality of those who ride them. American Cafe tells the story of this culture in America by following two motorcyclists attempting to build Cafe Racers to ride in the Slimey Crud Motorcycle Gang Cafe Racer Run; one of the most well known, yet least understood, cafe racer events in the country.

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This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short tells the story of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, and later established the Nobel Prize.

Chemical engineer and inventor Maria Telkes worked for nearly 50 years to harness the power of the sun, designing and building the world's first successful solar-heated modern residence and identifying a new chemical that could store solar heat like a battery. Telkes was undercut and thwarted by her (male) boss and colleagues at MIT, but she persevered. Upon her death in 1995 Telkes held more than 20 patents, and now she is recognized as a visionary pioneer in the field of sustainable energy whose work continues to shape how we power our lives today.

This documentary interweaves films and voice recordings by Maya Deren with interviews featuring colleagues and contemporaries who worked with or knew her firsthand. Drawing on archival material and commentary from figures such as Jean Rouch and Jonas Mekas, the film traces Deren’s work and influence across experimental cinema and ethnographic thought.

A collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.