New to Stream: OVID’s November 2020 Movie Lineup
OVID.tv, the curated streaming destination for documentaries and art-house films, has announced its November streaming lineup. On November 6, OVID brings out its first post-election release, the restored version of legendary situationist Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, based on his 1967 book.
Premiering on November 18, From What is Before, winner of five prizes at the Locarno Film Festival, is Lav Diaz’s extraordinary five-and-a-half-hour epic taking place in The Philippine countryside. Oliver Laxe’s Mimosas (November 19), winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is a breathtakingly shot Western that follows a mysterious caravan carrying a dying sheikh into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Also on November 19, the masters of the French New Wave (Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, and others) unfurl slices of Parisian life in a restored version of Six in Paris.
Debuting November 20, Patrick Wang’s critically acclaimed A Bread Factory, a New York Times Critics Pick, features a remarkable performance from Tyne Daly told in two films about big changes in a small town, and the remastered HD version of Bamako, executive produced by Danny Glover, is the critically acclaimed political drama by celebrated filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako that chronicles an extraordinary trial in the capital city of Mali.
Additionally, New York City’s Latin heritage and urban landscapes are chronicled in three films. On November 25, David Riker’s La Ciudad is a collection of stories and an affecting portrait of disenfranchised Latin American immigrants living in New York. Diego Echeverria’s Los Sures is a complex portrait celebrating the vitality of this largely Puerto Rican and Dominican community in New York City. And Manfred Kirchheimer’s Stations of the Elevated weaves together vivid images of graffiti-covered elevated subway trains crisscrossing 1970s New York. The commentary-free soundtrack combines ambient city noise with jazz and gospel by Charles Mingus and Aretha Franklin.
Spotlighting classic films from the National Film Board of Canada (NFBC), OVID presents on November 12 two short docs by Roman Kroitor & Wolf Koenig, Glenn Gould – Off the Record and Glenn Gould – On the Record about the renowned Canadian concert pianist. On November 13, Caroline Leaf’s Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen, is a black-and-white portrait of the poet, novelist, and songwriter at age 30 on a visit to his hometown of Montreal.
RELATED: New to Netflix November 2020: All Movies & Shows Coming and Going
Details on these and the rest of the films coming to OVID in November are below:
Friday, November 6th
Society of the Spectacle (1973)
Directed by Guy Debord; Icarus Films, Documentary
France
La Société du Spectacle (Society of the Spectacle) is a black-and-white 1973 film by the Situationist Guy Debord, based on his 1967 book of the same name. It was Debord’s first feature-length film. It uses found footage and détournement in a radical Marxist critique of mass marketing and its role in the alienation of modern society.
Mr. Fish: Cartooning from the Deep End (2017)
Directed by Pablo Bryant; Grasshopper Film, Documentary
U.S.
A political cartoonist known for his outrageous and subversive art, Mr. Fish’s work has been published in places such as Harper’s, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly and The Village Voice and sites like truthdig.com.
In this intimate and revealing documentary, Mr. Fish: Cartooning from the Deep End, we are introduced to the dangerously funny cartoonist as he struggles to stay true to his creativity in a world where biting satiric humor has an ever-diminishing commercial value.
Wednesday, November 10th
Churchill Island (1941)
Directed by Stuart Legg; National Film Board Canada, Documentary
Canada
This film won the NFB its first Oscar and was also the first documentary to win this coveted award. It presents the strategy of the Battle of Britain, showing with penetrating clarity the relationships between the various forces made up the island’s defenses. Here is the Royal Air Force in its epic battle with the Luftwaffe, the Navy in its stubborn fight against the raiders of sea and sky, the coastal defenses, the mechanized cavalry, the merchant seamen and behind them all, Britain’s tough, unbending civilian army.
City of Gold (1957)
Directed by Colin Low & Wolf Koenig; National Film Board Canada, Documentary
Canada
This classic short film from Pierre Berton depicts the Klondike gold rush at its peak, when would-be prospectors struggled through harsh conditions to reach the fabled gold fields over 3000 km north of civilization. Using a collection of still photographs, the film juxtaposes the Dawson City at the height of the gold rush with its bustling taverns and dance halls with the more tranquil Dawson City of the present.
King of the Hill (1974)
Directed by William Canning & Donald Brittain; National Film Board Canada, Documentary
Canada
This feature documentary follows one of the greatest Canadian baseball players of all time, Ferguson Jenkins, through the 1972-1973 season. From the hope and innocence of spring training to the dog days of an August slump, the camera gets up close and personal at the home plate and records the intimate chatter on the mound, in the dugout and in the locker room. It provides a glimpse into the rewards and pressures of sports stardom and the easy camaraderie of the quintessential summer sport.
Royal Journey (1951)
Directed by David Bairstow, Gudrun Parker & Roger Blais; National Film Board Canada, Documentary
Canada
A documentary account of the five-week visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to Canada and the United States in the fall of 1951. Stops on the royal tour include Québec City, the National War Memorial in Ottawa, the Trenton Air Force Base in Toronto, a performance of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Regina and visits to Calgary and Edmonton. The royal train crosses the Rockies and makes stops in several small towns. The royal couple boards HMCS Crusader in Vancouver and watches Native dances in Thunderbird Park, Victoria. They are then welcomed to the United States by President Truman. The remainder of the journey includes visits to Montreal, the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, a steel mill in Sydney, Nova Scotia and Portugal Cove, Newfoundland.
Thursday, November 12th
Glenn Gould – Off the Record (1959)
Directed by Roman Kroitor & Wolf Koenig; National Film Board Canada, Music Documentary
Canada
In this short documentary, Canadian concert pianist Glenn Gould enjoys a respite at his lakeside cottage. This is an aspect of Gould previously known only to the collie pacing beside him through the woods, the fishermen resting their oars to hear his piano, and fellow musicians like Franz Kraemer, with whom Gould talks of composition.
Glenn Gould – On the Record (1959)
Directed by Roman Kroitor & Wolf Koenig; National Film Board Canada, Music Documentary
Canada
This short documentary follows Glenn Gould to New York City. There, we see the renowned Canadian concert pianist kidding the cab driver, bantering with sound engineers at Columbia Records, and then, alone with the piano, fastidiously recording Bach’s Italian Concerto.
Friday, November 13th
Kate and Anna McGarrigle (1981)
Directed by Caroline Leaf; National Film Board Canada, Music Documentary
Canada
This short documentary profiles Quebec-born singing sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle. The sisters enjoy international acclaim—although outside of the mainstream—for their inimitable style, their talent as songwriters, and especially their unassuming, informal personalities. With camera and sketchbook in hand, artist and filmmaker Caroline Leaf captures the sisters’ endearing qualities. The result is an easygoing, sometimes whimsical portrait of the famous sisters on and off stage. Highlights include excerpts from the sisters’ Carnegie Hall performance and a look at their songwriting and recording processes.
Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965)
Directed by Caroline Leaf; National Film Board Canada, Music Documentary
Canada
This informal black-and-white portrait of Leonard Cohen shows him at age 30 on a visit to his hometown of Montreal, where the poet, novelist and songwriter comes “to renew his neurotic affiliations.” He reads his poetry to an enthusiastic crowd, strolls the streets of the city, relaxes in this three-dollar-a-night hotel room and even takes a bath.
Wednesday, November 18th
From What is Before (2014)
Directed by Lav Diaz; Starring Perry Dizon, Roeder, Hazel Orencio, Karenina Haniel, Reynan Abcede,
Mailes Kanapi; Grasshopper Film, Feature
Philippines
Winner of five prizes at the Locarno Film Festival, including the Golden Leopard for Best Film, Lav Diaz’s follow up to his acclaimed Norte, The End of History is an extraordinary five-and-a-half-hour epic that relates the strange, perhaps supernatural, occurrences that befall a remote village in the Philippine countryside.
Thursday, November 19th
Mimosas (2016)
Directed by Oliver Laxe; Starring Ahmed Hammoud, Shakib Ben Omar; Grasshopper Film, Feature
Morocco
Winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s stunning new film, Mimosas, is a breathtakingly shot Western that follows a mysterious caravan carrying a dying sheikh into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Somewhere in the desert, a caravan is escorting an elderly sheik to the village where he was born. His last wish is to be buried with his loved ones. But death does not wait. Without their leader, the company grows fearful. And at the foot of a mountain pass, they refuse to continue, entrusting the body to two men who agree to carry on and bring it to its final destination. But who are these men? And do they really know the way? In another world, a mysterious young man is chosen to find the caravan.
Six in Paris (1965)
Directed by Claude Chabrol, Jean Douchet, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Éric Rohmer, and Jean Rouch; Starring Barbara Wilkins, Jean-François Chappey, Barbet Schroeder, Nadine Ballot, Gilles Quéant, Claude Melki, Micheline Dax, Jean-Michel Rouzière, Joanna Shimkus, Serge Davri, Philippe Hiquilly, Gilles Chusseau, Chabrol, Stéphane Audran, Icarus Films, Feature
France
Six slices of Parisian life unfurl, each in a different neighborhood. Barbet Schroeder, produced and appears in Rouch’s Gare du Nord segment of marital dissatisfaction; Rohmer’s guilt-themed drama Place de l’Etoile benefits from longtime cinematographer Néstor Almendros; Chabrol stars in his La Muette opposite wife Stéphane Audran, as a couple whose child tries to tune out their bickering, and in Godard’s Montparnasse-Levallois, Joanna Shimkus mixes up letters to two different lovers.
Friday, November 20th
Bamako — remastered in HD! (2006)
Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako; Starring Aïssa Maïga, Tiécoura Traoré and Danny Glover Icarus Films, Feature
Mali
An extraordinary trial is taking place in a residential courtyard in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. African citizens have taken proceedings against such international financial institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whom civil society blames for perpetuating Africa’s debt crisis, at the heart of so many of the continent’s woes. As numerous trial witnesses (schoolteachers, farmers, writers, etc.) air bracing indictments against the global economic machinery that haunts them, life in the courtyard presses forward. Melé, a lounge singer, and her unemployed husband Chaka are on the verge of breaking up; a security guard’s gun goes missing; a young man lies ill; a wedding procession passes through; and women keep everything rolling – dyeing fabric, minding children, spinning cotton, and speaking their minds.
Written and directed by the celebrated filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako (Waiting for Happiness) and co-executive produced by Danny Glover (who also provides a cameo in the film), this critically acclaimed political drama – filled with a lush mix of warm colors and impassioned music – offers a unique opportunity for audiences to become familiar with contemporary Africa. Sissako, who grew up in the courtyard that the film is set in, hired professional lawyers and judges along with “witnesses” to express their true feelings. Bamako voices Africa’s grievances in an original and profoundly moving way.
A Bread Factory (2018)
Directed by Patrick Wang; Starring Elisabeth Henry, James Marsters, Tyne Daly; Grasshopper Film, Feature
U.S.
The acclaimed new work from filmmaker Patrick Wang (In the Family), featuring a remarkable performance from actress Tyne Daly, is the story of The Bread Factory, a community arts center in the small town of Checkford, told in two films. In part one, after 40 years of running The Bread Factory, Dorothea (Daly) and Greta (Elisabeth Henry) are suddenly fighting for survival when a celebrity couple—performance artists from China—come to Checkford and build an enormous complex down the street catapulting big changes in their small town. Part two revolves around rehearsals for the Greek play Hecuba. But the real theatrics are outside the theater where the town has been invaded by bizarre tourists and mysterious tech start-up workers.
Tuesday, November 24th
How to Build an Igloo (1949)
Directed by Douglas Wilkinson; National Film Board Canada, Documentary
Canada
This classic short film shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife. Two Inuit men in Canada’s Far North choose the site, cut and place snow blocks and create an entrance–a shelter completed in one-and-a-half hours. The commentary explains that the interior warmth and the wind outside cement the snow blocks firmly together. As the short winter day darkens, the two builders move their caribou sleeping robes and extra skins indoors, confident of spending a snug night in the midst of the Arctic cold!
Lonely Boy (1962)
Directed by Wolf Koenig & Roman Kroitor; National Film Board Canada, Music Documentary
Canada
This short film portrays the story of singer Paul Anka, who rose from obscurity to become the idol of millions of adolescent fans around the world. Taking a candid look at both sides of the footlights, this film examines the marketing machine behind a generation of pop singers. Interviews with Anka and his manager reveal their perspective on the industry.
Waiting for Fidel (1974)
Directed by Michael Rubbo; National Film Board Canada, Documentary
Canada
This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro’s Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundland premier Joseph Smallwood, radio and TV owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What happens while the crew awaits its star shows a good deal of the new Cuba, and also of the three Canadians who chose to film the island.
Wednesday, November 25th
La Ciudad (1998)
Directed by David Riker; Starring Anthony Rivera, Joseph Rigano; Oscilloscope Laboratories, Feature
U.S.
LA CIUDAD is a dramatically photographed collection of stories of love, hope, and loss, and an affecting portrait of disenfranchised Latin American immigrants living in New York. Filmed over the course of six years in the 1990s, LA CIUDAD takes us inside this community of newcomers, creating a powerful and incisive drama about the loneliness, displacement, and economic hardship which they face in the new and unfamiliar world of the city.
Los Sures (1984)
Directed by Diego Echeverria; Oscilloscope Laboratories, Documentary
U.S.
LOS SURES skillfully represents the challenges residents of the Southside faced: poverty, drugs, gang violence, crime, abandoned real estate, racial tension, single-parent homes, and inadequate local resources. The complex portrait also celebrates the vitality of this largely Puerto Rican and Dominican community, showing the strength of their culture, their creativity, and their determination to overcome a desperate situation. Beautifully restored for the 30th anniversary premiere at the New York Film Festival, this documentary is an invaluable piece of New York City history.
Stations of the Elevated (1981)
Directed by Manfred Kirchheimer; Oscilloscope Laboratories, Documentary
U.S.
Shot on lush 16mm color reversal stock, the film weaves together vivid images of graffiti- covered elevated subway trains crisscrossing the gritty urban landscape of 1970s New York, to a commentary-free soundtrack that combines ambient city noise with jazz and gospel by Charles Mingus and Aretha Franklin. Gliding through the South Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan – making a rural detour past a correctional facility upstate – Stations of the Elevated is an impressionistic portrait of and tribute to a New York that has long since disappeared.
And here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming to OVID in December:
Wednesday, Dec. 2nd
Border South (2019)
Directed by Raúl O. Paz Pastrana; Bullfrog Films, Documentary
U.S.
To stem the immigration tide, Mexico and the US collaborate to crack down on migrants, forcing them into ever more dangerous territory.
Every year hundreds of thousands of migrants make their way along the trail running from southern Mexico to the US border. Gustavo’s gunshot wounds from Mexican police, which received a lot of press attention, might just earn him a ticket out of Nicaragua. Meanwhile anthropologist Jason De León painstakingly collects objects left behind by migrants on the trail, which have their own stories to tell. These remains, from Hondurans crossing through southern Mexico, reveal a vivid portrait of the thousands of immigrants who disappear along the trail.
Day One (2019)
Directed by Lori Miller; Bullfrog Films, Documentary
U.S.
Traumatized Middle Eastern and African teen refugees are guided through a program of healing by devoted educators at a unique St. Louis public school for refugees only.
Thursday, Dec. 3rd
Sad Song of Yellow Skin (1970)
Directed by Michael Rubbo; National Film Board Canada, Documentary
Canada
A film about the people of Saigon told through the experiences of 3 young American journalists who, in 1970, explored the consequences of war and of the American presence in Vietnam. It is not a film about the Vietnam War, but about the people who lived on the fringe of battle. The views of the city are arresting, but away from the shrines and the open-air markets lies another city, swollen with refugees and war orphans, where every inch of habitable space is coveted.
RELATED: New to Stream: Acorn TV’s November 2020 Lineup
With the help of an unprecedented collaborative effort by eight of the most noteworthy, independent film distribution companies in the U.S., Docuseek, LLC launched an innovative, new, subscription video-on-demand service, OVID.tv. OVID is available in the U.S. and Canada. New subscribers can sign-up for a free 14-day trial. After that, subscriptions are just $6.99/mo or $69.99 for an annual subscription.
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