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Perhaps no film critic has been as influential, or as controversial, as Pauline Kael (1919-2001). The short documentary Ed and Pauline (2014) explores Kael’s early writing life by focusing on her successful partnership with – and brief marriage to – Edward Landberg (1923-2012), with whom she ran the beloved Berkeley Cinema Guild and Studio in California. Combining archival footage, re-enactments and interviews with industry insiders such as the filmmaker John Waters, the directors Christian Bruno and Natalija Vekic reveal Kael’s impact on cinema lovers in California’s Bay Area, before her fame-making stint as a film critic at The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Using excerpts from Kael’s programme notes for the small independent theatre, Bruno and Vekic find fragments of the idiosyncratic opinions, anti-elitist sensibilities and witty, colloquial voice that made her writing legendary.
Directors: Christian Bruno, Natalija Vekic
Website: Electric Park Films
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Rituals and celebrations
A whale hunt is an act of prayer for an Inuit community north of the Arctic Circle
8 minutes
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Music
The peculiar beauty of a song caught between composition and improvisation
3 minutes
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Rituals and celebrations
A beginner’s guide to a joyful Persian tradition of spring renewal and rebirth
3 minutes
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Love and friendship
Love looks a bit different for a chain-smoking couple in a small apartment
11 minutes
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Metaphysics
Simple entities in universal harmony – Leibniz’s evocative perspective on reality
4 minutes
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Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes
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Engineering
A close-up look at electronic paper reveals its exquisite patterns – and limitations
9 minutes
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Architecture
West Africa was once an architectural laboratory. Is it time for a revival?
12 minutes
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Biography and memoir
The unique life philosophy of Abdi, born in Somalia, living in the Netherlands
29 minutes