Moments choisis des Histoire(s) du cinéma (2001)

Italy, 1970. An increasing legion of harmless warriors begins a peaceful struggle for sexual freedom through pornography, shaking and shocking religious authorities and conservative political institutions. They are ironic, happy, crazy. They are dreamers, defenders of definitive communion between body and soul. But they were censored and humiliated. They were mistreated and arrested for demanding loud a new cultural renaissance.

Spain, 1970s. A Clockwork Orange, a film considered by critics and audiences as one of the best works in the history of cinema, directed by Stanley Kubrick and released in 1971, was banned by the strict Franco government. However, the film was finally premiered, without going through censorship, during the 20th edition of the Seminci, the Valladolid Film Festival, on April 24, 1975. How was this possible?

An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.

Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.

London, 1956. Genius actor and film director Laurence Olivier is about to begin the shooting of his upcoming movie, premiered in 1957 as The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe. Young Colin Clark, who dreams on having a career in movie business, manages to get a job on the set as third assistant director.

An exploration of the history, artistry and emotional power of cinema sound, as revealed by legendary sound designers and visionary directors, via interviews, clips from movies, and a look at their actual process of creation and discovery.

Deep Throat, a pornographic film directed by Gerard Damiano, a film-loving hairdresser, and starring Linda Lovelace, a shy girl manipulated by a controlling husband, was released in 1972 and divided audiences, who began to talk openly about sex, desire and female pleasure; but also about violence and abuse; and about pornography, until then an almost clandestine industry, as a revolutionary cultural phenomenon.

A group of college students, led by Claudia, decide to investigate a local tower that has figured prominently in disturbing reoccurring dreams Claudia has been having. They are suspended from school for their antics, but Claudia learns from one of the female staff members that the person in the dream is a student who killed herself years before and that the headmistress has seen her ghost.

Hawaii, May 1977. After the success of Star Wars, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg meet to find a new project to work on together, the former as producer, the latter as director. The story of how the charismatic archaeologist Indiana Jones was born and how his first adventure, released in 1981, triumphed at box offices around the world.

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Movie stars and members of the film industry make fun of several narrative and visual clichés that are as shocking and aesthetic as they are often truly ridiculous.

As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.

In 1939, boy-wonder Orson Welles leaves New York, where he has succeeded in radio and theater, and, hired by RKO Pictures, moves to Hollywood with the purpose of making his first film.

Documents the lives of infamous fakers Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. De Hory, who later committed suicide to avoid more prison time, made his name by selling forged works of art by painters like Picasso and Matisse. Irving was infamous for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles moves between documentary and fiction as he examines the fundamental elements of fraud and the people who commit fraud at the expense of others.

The mad and evil scientist, Dr. Clayton Forrester, has created an evil little scheme that is bound to give him world global domination but first things first. He plans to torment Mike Nelson and the robots by sending them a real stinker of a film to watch called, "This Island Earth." He is convinced that this movie will drive them insane. Will this be the ultimate cheese that breaks the boys' spirits?

In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.

In 1965 Mexico City, Flavia, a wealthy yet lonely schoolgirl, befriends Veronica, a young orphan girl who has a fascination with witchcraft. Veronica convinces Flavia that she is a real witch and forces her to be her assistant. The children's games gradually become more serious and Veronica demands more from Flavia.

A hilarious introduction, using as examples some of the best films ever made, to some of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek's most exciting ideas on personal subjectivity, fantasy and reality, desire and sexuality.

A journey into the labyrinthine heart of ideology, which shapes and justifies both collective and personal beliefs and practices: with an infectious zeal and voracious appetite for popular culture, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek analyzes several of the most important films in the history of cinema to explain how cinematic narrative helps to reinforce prevailing ethics and political ideas.

A chronicle of the long career of American filmmaker Roger Corman, the most tenacious and ingenious low-budget producer and director in the US film industry, a pioneer of independent filmmaking and discoverer of new talent.