Under the Skins

Part fictional documentary, part musical anthropology, scientific magic, and eco-anarchic utopian journey in a landscape of eight parts. You're Kaloyan, the sax player. Or Diana, the Gypsy dancer. You journey together through Bulgaria in search of the utopian village Dolphinovo. It's not Sofia, Paris or New York. That's why this story is rural, rustic and polyphonic. It's like a string of painted walls of village houses, folk songs and allegories. However, who is Ivo? And why does he lead you through these winter landscapes a year later?

This film documents the Kukeri rituals in Bulgaria, focusing on the mask makers and performers who keep this ancient tradition alive. Their dedication to this agrarian custom is a visual testament to the power of tradition to provide hope and community in a time of diaspora and urbanization.

The Balkans is home to an ancient pagan tradition where magic and mystery still have a sacred place in the cosmic order. The Kukeri festival has had a strong hold over Bulgarian cultural life since the fifth century, surviving the Ottomans, Christendom and communist rule. Every winter, hundreds of terrifying figures prowl snow-capped forests and village centers in search of evil spirits to dispel from their communities.

A documentary about lamentation songs of Bulgarian funeral rites.

Every year in June, the small Bulgarian village of Balgari celebrates St Constantine with a special ritual. Initiated ‘nestinari’ go into a music-induced trance and dance on bonfires in a display of religious passion.

Graying Spaniard Daniel has a healthy budget for indulging in the finer things in life. Daniel's favorite luxury is playing sponsor to younger men amid the lights and sights of Madrid's gay club scene. After Daniel shares a night with handsome Bulgarian emigre Kyril, he finds himself consumed with an insatiable lust for the charismatic foreigner. But, as their relationship takes shape, Daniel's latest conquest reveals his own manipulative tendencies.

A documentary about the making of The Turin Horse, the last film directed by Hungarian master Béla Tarr.

An extraordinary film about memory, and specifically the fading memory of an 86-year-old political activist who has fought tirelessly against historical amnesia and for justice in Argentina. The director’s grandmother, Laura Bonaparte, was one of the founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, formed during the 1970s by women whose children and family members had been disappeared by the Videla military dictatorship. Laura herself lost three children and their partners, including the director’s parents. Today, after a lifetime battling that the disappeared never be forgotten, Laura faces her own struggle to remember.

Neuropsychologist Paul Broks travels America in search of the soul of legendary jazz guitarist Pat Martino who was brutally silenced by memory stripping brain surgery. Tracing his remarkable ascent from the depths of amnesia, back to the peak of artistry, Broks explores the nature of memory, self, creativity and the brain systems underlying personal identity. Filmed throughout the US in 2006 and 2007 the film features Delmar Brown, Red Holloway, John Patitucci, Les Paul, Joe Pesci, Carlos Santana and Pete Townshend.

Diana Mariscal reached a moment of fame in the sixties, when at just 18 years of age she was the lead actress of the movie Fando and Lis by Alejandro Jodorowsky. The moment seemed to trigger a promising career, but her public image faded little by little until disappearing. Forty years later the traces of her existence have not been entirely erased.

At the beginning of 2012 the so called war against crime, led by the Mexican Federal Government brought, as consequence, a number of nearly 50,000 casualties and a social climate of violence and distrust. How was this experienced by the men and women who fight this violence from the trenches of science? To the End of Reckoning tells through the eyes of the Jalisco Forensics Institute the development of this engagement, in one of the most violent states in the Country.

During 1950, Miguel Contreras Torres led a group of filmmakers to officially denounce William O. Jenkins' monopoly on film theaters, which was built throughout the country upon crime and corruption. Ever since, Uncle Miguel was ridiculed and eventually forgotten, but it is certain that his proclaim announced the separation of Mexican cinema and its audience. Discoveries may be found in the films made by Miguel, and bringing back to life these moving pictures might recover this history that was never told, a story that is almost lost and that Contreras Torres himself tried to pass on through his writings in The Black Book of Mexican Cinema.