Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment

Grey Gardens

1976

Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the conversation is centered on their pasts, as mother and daughter now rarely leave home.

The Times That Are

1967

Four years after Pour la suite du monde (1963), director Pierre Perrault asks Alexis Tremblay if he'll agree to travel with his wife Marie to the country of their ancestors, France. In a montage parallel, we follow them in France and listen to them talking to their friends about it.

The Revolt

2023

La Revuelta accounts for the tension experienced by those who, as of October 2019, came out to express their social discontent. The work has as its main stage, renamed by the people, as "Plaza de la Dignidad". It is a choral story, woven with the reflections of the protesters under the protection of the contextualization of a story in off that is unraveling the causes and effects of the outbreak. Thus, more than three years after the social demonstration, La Revuelta, is presented as a critical and contestative reflection, around the popular protest maintained by a people that took 30 years to awaken.

Gimme Shelter

1970

A detailed chronicle of the famous 1969 tour of the United States by the British rock band The Rolling Stones, which culminated with the disastrous and tragic concert held on December 6 at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, an event of historical significance, as it marked the end of an era: the generation of peace and love suddenly became the generation of disillusionment.

Primary

1960

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

Dont Look Back

1967

In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.

Taurobolium

1994

Have you ever been to the bullfights in Tijuana? Larry Wessel's TAUROBOLIUM is not only cinema verite at it's best, Larry Wessel's TAUROBOLIUM is the best documentary on bullfighting ever made!

See You Tomorrow

Musician, octogenarian and transgender activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his wife navigate the implications of the former’s dementia diagnosis, contemplating high stakes, complex decisions about care and wellbeing while they embark on a mission to preserve his artistic legacy.

Fairy Creek

2025

In Fairy Creek, director Jen Muranetz documents the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, creating a searing portrait of contemporary environmental activism, bearing witness to the lengths activists are willing to take to protect British Columbia’s last old growth forests.

Nightcrawlers

2019

For five years, Stephen McCoy documented street life in Boston. This is what he captured.

Valldaura: A Quarantine Cabin

2022

A group of young architects, confined to a forest in Barcelona during the COVID crisis, explore the problems generated by the ambition of wanting to be completely self-sufficient.

Salesman

1969

This documentary from Albert and David Maysles follows the bitter rivalry of four door-to-door salesmen working for the Mid-American Bible Company: Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker and Raymond "The Bull" Martos. Times are tough for this hard-living quartet, who spend their days traveling through small-town America, trying their best to peddle gold-leaf Bibles to an apathetic crowd of lower-middle-class housewives and elderly couples.