Art of the Real 2017

Now in its fourth year, the Art of the Real festival offers a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. This edition features titles from established figures such as Ignacio Agüero, Jem Cohen, Robinson Devor, and the late Michael Glawogger alongside up-and-comers Theo Anthony (Rat Film), Salomé Jashi (The Dazzling Light of Sunset), and Shengze Zhu (Another Year), as well as a tribute to the late Brazilian filmmaker Andrea Tonacci.

Now in its fourth year, the Art of the Real festival offers a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. This edition features titles from established figures such as Laura Poitras, Ignacio Agüero, Jem Cohen, Robinson Devor, and the late Michael Glawogger alongside up-and-comers Theo Anthony (Rat Film), Salomé Jashi (The Dazzling Light of Sunset), and Shengze Zhu (Another Year), as well as a tribute to the late Brazilian filmmaker Andrea Tonacci.

Presented with support from MUBI.

Tickets on sale now! See more and save with a 3+ Film Package or All Access Pass. And, don't forget to take advantage of our discounted student tickets!

Rat Film

Theo Anthony

Rat Film

2016|

USA|

84 minutes

An essayistic cultural history of rats, segregation, and scientific research in the city of Baltimore.

Risk

Laura Poitras

Risk

2017|

USA|

87 minutes

Laura Poitras returns to the knotty territory of political truth-telling and international espionage with this years-in-the-making portrait of controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

2+2=22 [The Alphabet]

Heinz Emigholz

2+2=22 [The Alphabet]

2017|

Germany|

88 minutes|

German with English subtitles

The first part of the director’s ambitious new “Streetscapes” cycle is a response to Godard’s One Plus One, an immersive look into both the recording of Kreidler’s album ABC and the architecture of Tbilisi.

Ama-San

Cláudia Varejão

Ama-San

2016|

Portugal / Switzerland|

113 minutes|

Japanese with English subtitles

This intimate documentary focuses on the Japanese women who have been performing traditional dives (sans oxygen tanks) together for 30 years.

Another Year

Shengze Zhu

Another Year

2016|

China|

181 minutes|

Chinese (Hubei dialect) with English subtitles

Through a simple premise—13 meals shared by a family of migrant workers over 14 months, rendered in leisurely long takes—Shengze Zhu’s compassionate film speaks volumes about socioeconomic realities in contemporary China.

Brothers of the Night

2016|

Austria|

88 minutes|

Romani, Bulgarian, and German with English subtitles

With visuals inspired by Fassbinder’s Querelle, Patric Chiha’s stylized film follows a group of Bulgarian Roma in Vienna who support their families back home by taking on gay sex work.

Casa Roshell

Camila José Donoso

Casa Roshell

2016|

Chile|

71 minutes

Mixing digital, 16mm film, and closed-circuit TV footage to locate a glamorous utopia within the confines of a Mexico City transgender club, Casa Roshell is a richly detailed and immersive portrait of a place whose patrons are allowed to own their identities and feel less alone.

The Dazzling Light of Sunset

2016|

Georgia / Germany|

74 minutes|

Georgian with English subtitles

In a provincial Georgian town, an ultra-low-budget local news team covers weddings, politics, and teenage beauty pageants with a remarkable code of professionalism.

Dark Skull

Kiro Russo

Dark Skull

2016|

Bolivia / Qatar|

80 minutes|

Spanish with English subtitles

Made in collaboration with a crew of Bolivian miners, this formally ambitious work tells an unsparing tale of grueling work, family drama, and drug abuse.

Doppelgänger: a cine-performance by Basma Alsharif

2014|

45 minutes

In this cine-performance, Alsharif weaves together the Occupation of Palestine, narrative cinema, and the possibility for Utopia.

Empathy

Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli

Empathy

2016|

USA|

83 minutes

Rovinelli’s rigorous yet sensitive debut follows Em, a queer sex worker struggling to kick heroin, and depicts what it means to be young and at odds with oneself today.

From a Year of Non-Events

Ann Carolin Renninger

From a Year of Non-Events

2017|

Germany|

83 minutes|

German with English subtitles

Renninger and Frölke’s latest tenderly traces the daily rhythms and rituals of 90-year-old Willi Detert on his rural northern German farm by way of an elegantly interwoven tapestry of 16mm and Super 8mm images.

Gray House

Austin Lynch

Gray House

2017|

USA|

76 minutes

Austin Lynch (son of David) and Matthew Booth candidly explore the American working class through a stunningly photographed weave of verité footage, interviews, landscapes, and fictional elements.

In Time to Come

Tan Pin Pin

In Time to Come

2017|

Singapore|

62 minutes

Tan Pin Pin returns to themes of redevelopment and excavation of the past in Singapore, subtly questioning our relationship to time and each other.

The Modern Jungle

Charles Fairbanks

The Modern Jungle

2016|

Mexico / USA|

72 minutes|

Zoque and Spanish with English subtitles

This bold, reflexive ethnography charts the relationship of an indigenous couple struggling with health problems and land rights.

Moyra Davey: Two Premieres

USA|

65 minutes

Hemlock Forest (2016, 42m) + Wedding Loop (2017, 23m)
These two new works by artist Moyra Davey are personal and essayistic tributes to Chantal Akerman, Karl Ove Knausgård, and Julia Margaret Cameron.

The Other Day

Ignacio Agüero

The Other Day

2013|

Chile|

122 minutes|

Spanish with English subtitles

Ignacio Agüero’s documentary encompassed his family and national history, Chile’s economic problems, identity, and nature even while being shot primarily inside his home and through a door that leads to the street.

Pow Wow

Robinson Devor

Pow Wow

2016|

USA|

72 minutes

Robinson Devor (Zoo) illustrates the legend of a native American youth through breathtaking views of California’s Coachella Valley and interviews with its oddball denizens.

The Sky, the Earth, and the Rain

José Luis Torres Leiva

The Sky, the Earth, and the Rain

2008|

Chile / France / Germany|

112 minutes|

Spanish with English subtitles

In remote, rural southern Chile, Ana, Veronica, Marta, and Toro struggle to find connections with each other and discover themselves.

Streetscapes [Dialogue]

2017|

Germany|

132 minutes|

English and German with English subtitles

A director speaks at length to a psychoanalyst, confiding his obsessions, fears, ideas about cinema, and psychological blocks. Emigholz’s magnum opus is a playful, moving treatise on trauma and architecture in which foreground and background carry equal weight.

This Is the Way I Like It II

2016|

Chile|

86 minutes|

Spanish with English subtitles

Moving between past and present, this fascinating portrait reveals today’s Chile through the eyes of one director (who remained in Chile throughout the dictatorship) and his contemporaries.

Untitled

Michael Glawogger

Untitled

2017|

Austria|

107 minutes|

In English and German with English subtitles

The late Michael Glawogger’s longtime editor combines the remarkable footage from the director’s final, unfinished project with excerpts from his journals for a revealing and moving elegy.

Voyage to Terengganu

2016|

Malaysia|

62 minutes|

Malay with English subtitles

Retracing the early 19th-century travels of the great Malaysian writer Munshi Abdullah through the eastern Malaysian state of Terengganu, this humanistic travelogue explores contemporary beliefs about money, religion, and nationhood.

The Wind Knows That I’m Coming Back Home

2016|

Chile|

103 minutes|

Spanish with English subtitles

A filmmaker prepares to shoot his first fiction film, about the real-life disappearance of two lovers in the woods of Chile’s remote Meulín Island in the early 1980s.

World Without End (No Reported Incidents)

2016|

USA / UK|

56 minutes

Jem Cohen (Museum Hours) offers a sweet-hearted, structuralist look at three cities along the Thames Estuary: Southend-on-Sea, Leigh-on-Sea, and Canvey Island.

Spotlight on Andrea Tonacci

Blah Blah Blah + Bang Bang

Brazil|

106 minutes

Two classics of the marginal cinema movement that opposed both the Cinema Novo movement and Brazil’s military government.

Hills of Disorder

Andrea Tonacci

Hills of Disorder

2006|

Brazil|

135 minutes|

Portuguese with English subtitles

Through a heady blend of re-enactments and archival news reports, the film tells the story of Carapiru, an indigenous man who survived the massacre of his tribe in 1978.

Member
$9
Student & Senior
$11
General Public
$14

Now in its fourth year, the Art of the Real festival offers a survey of the most vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking. This edition features titles from established figures such as Laura Poitras, Ignacio Agüero, Jem Cohen, Robinson Devor, and the late Michael Glawogger alongside up-and-comers Theo Anthony (Rat Film), Salomé Jashi (The Dazzling Light of Sunset), and Shengze Zhu (Another Year), as well as a tribute to the late Brazilian filmmaker Andrea Tonacci.

Save with our special student and member rate! 3 films for $24 and each additional film for just $8 per ticket.

Presented with support from MUBI.

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