Misrepresented, maligned and on the verge of extinction, the great white shark is an iconic predator: the creature we love to fear. Great White Shark will explore the great white's place in our imaginations, in our fears and in the reality of its role at the top of the oceanic food chain. The film will concentrate on key aggregation points around the world: Mexico, South Africa, Los Angeles and New Zealand. Key figures in the history of shark research, people whose lives have been changed by contact with the great white, will tell us of their experiences, culminating in a direct encounter between man and shark.
James Benning’s first film called The United States of America was a 1975 trip across the country, capturing its scenery through a car windshield. This second one also crisscrosses the nation, but without a car, carving it up instead into a series of static shots of just under two minutes, one for each state, presented alphabetically, from Heron Bay, Alabama to Kelly, Wyoming. The names of the places are nondescript, but the images attached to them are anything but, immaculately composed shots of landscape, cityscape and the spaces in between. As we move from A to Z, the images coalesce into a portrait of today’s USA, tracing out its fault lines almost in passing: fenced-off facilities, a river bed running dry, factories and refineries, run-down streets and gas stations, a camp under a bridge. The past is there too, seeping up through the songs and speeches that sporadically pierce the background noise or the motifs that evoke a whole career the clouds, trains and cabins are stand-ins for films, not just states. As always, there’s time for more abstract thoughts too: each image may stand for a state, but representativity is slippery. Which state is more cinematic than the rest?
在每个人的掌握中, 作为失落的伊甸园可到达的形式, 每个人都来到大自然中寻找避难所。各行各业的人都有权利在这里: 富人、穷人、法国人、外国人、异性恋、一个人或有人陪、老派或时髦。森林是一个被城镇围绕的岛屿: 一个由疲惫的市民虚构的海市蜃楼。住在这个城市所遇到的困难被抛在脑后。在这里, 我们治愈, 我们玩耍, 我们开心, 我们做梦。整个季节里, 这一系列的交流都围绕着每个人所想象的乌托邦。
As a reachable form of a lost Eden within everyone's grasp, everybody comes to the Bois de Vincennes to seek refuge in Nature. People from all walks of life have the right to be here: rich, poor, french, foreign, gay, straight, alone or accompanied, old school or hip.
The Woods are an island surrounded by the towns that encircle it: a mirage dreamed-up by a fatigued city-dweller. The difficulty of living in the city is left behind. Here we heal, we play, we have fun and we dream. Throughout the seasons, the series of exchanges speak of this utopia that everyone imagines for him or herself.
2015 国际人权电影节 最佳长篇纪录片/荷兰阿姆斯特丹国际纪录片节 最佳巡回影片
ACLU lawyer Jeffery Robinson’s shattering talk on the history of U.S. anti-Black racism is interwoven with archival footage, interviews and Robinson’s story, exploring the legacy of white supremacy and our collective responsibility to overcome it.
