Thread
Classics
5 films
The essay film genre continually reinvents itself, adapting to new questions and circumstances. Yet classic essay films remain ever relevant, offering insight into the historical conditions that have shaped our present while providing foundational strategies that continue to inspire new generations of filmmakers. By presenting these films alongside contemporary essay films, we invite audiences to reflect on their enduring relevance and meaning for the present.
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This landmark essay film uses hundreds of film clips to reveal how Los Angeles has been mythologized and distorted by Hollywood, reclaiming the city as both a real place and a cinematic protagonist.
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The evolution of witchcraft through the ages is traced in this proto-essay film made over 100 years ago. Stunning monotone vignettes form a visionary blend of fictionalised documentary and horror film. This silent film will have live sound performed by members of Sticky Buttons Records.
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Thread Classics
Far from Vietnam
In 1967, seven famous directors co-directed this film to support the Vietnamese struggle against American forces, offering different perspectives on a conflict pitting the rich against the poor.
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In 1985 McElwee set out to document the lingering traces of General Sherman's march through the American South. He instead created a landmark autobiographical essay film in which history gives way to self-portraiture, a method he would later reexamine with Remake (2025), which is also screening at this festival.
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A landmark essay film in which director Masao Adachi reconstructs the life of a teenage murderer through the spaces he once traversed, rejecting sensationalism and using landscapes as his primary subject, offering meditations on violence and the political forces embedded in everyday life.
