Un sale métier

Since her debut at the age of 18, musician, civil rights campaigner and activist Joan Baez has been on stage for over 60 years. For the now 82-year-old, the personal has always been political, and her friendship with Martin Luther King and her pacifism have shaped her commitment. In this biography that opens with her farewell tour, Baez takes stock in an unsparing fashion and confronts sometimes painful memories.

Work is becoming more service oriented and more and more services rely upon us doing harm to each other. In most people's lives, work operates as a degrading and debilitating force. It disables people's critical and perception capacities. Unless workers assume responsibility for evaluating the meaning and implications of the work they do, there will never be the capacity to redirect the modern work institutions from their courses of violence and exploitation. Built in seven parts which correspond to each day of the week, this film studies the relationship between work being done and the nature of the people that are doing it.

Animation pioneer Evelyn Lambart recalls arriving at the NFB in the 1940s, her celebrated collaborations with Norman McLaren and her approach to her solo work.

Common sense says you can't make a living in America playing avant-garde improvisational jazz. But Ken Vandermark does it anyway. Among musicians, Vandermark's work ethic is almost mythic. The Chicago reed player has released over 100 albums with nearly 40 ensembles, spends over eight months per year on the road, and lives every other waking moment composing, arranging, performing—and trying to discipline his two hyperactive canines. Though Vandermark was the recipient of a 1999 MacArthur genius grant, he still spends most of his life in smoky clubs and low-budget recording studios, hoping people will plunk down hard-earned cash to hear his wholly non-commercial music. Following the artful cinéma vérité style of the internationally acclaimed Sheriff (Work Series #1), Musician (Work Series #2) forgoes all interviews and voice-overs. It is a fly-on-the-wall time capsule that expertly captures every subtle sound and texture of this most American of art forms.

Portrait documentary of the Swedish comedic actor Thor Modéen full of clips from his greatest roles.

Stylized with dramatic interiors and a distorted frame rate, this early documentary miniature from Szulkin depicts six sequences of solitary, repetitious labor.

When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.

Sylvia Kristel – Paris is a portrait of Sylvia Kristel , best known for her role in the 1970’s erotic cult classic Emmanuelle, as well as a film about the impossibility of memory in relation to biography. Between November 2000 and June 2002 Manon de Boer recorded the stories and memories of Kristel. At each recording session she asked her to speak about a city where Kristel has lived: Paris, Los Angeles, Brussels or Amsterdam; over the two years she spoke on several occasions about the same city. At first glance the collection of stories appears to make up a sort of biography, but over time it shows the impossibility of biography: the impossibility of ‘plotting’ somebody’s life as a coherent narrative.