American filmmaker Bill Morrison, known for the award-winning Dawson City: Frozen Time, is a keen visual archaeologist and time traveler. In this 2005 short film commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he manages to unearth a “rarefied view” on the Brooklyn Bridge we can no longer experience.

[…] The unique central perspective lends itself to abstraction and time travel: the journey from one side of the East River to the other becoming a unit of both time and space, increasingly compressible and distributable.

The obsessive repetition in split screen view of the trolley trip from Manhattan to Brooklyn combined with T. Reynolds‘ original score creates a hypnotic effect which is likely to stay in our minds. Thanks to Aeon for letting us spot this gem.

Everybody is trying to convince you to buy a book for Christmas, so why don’t you watch a good movie instead? Here are some of our favorites from 2017.

1. Happy End by Michael Haneke (Drama) – A fearful new world of lives adrift.
2. The Great Buddha + by H. Hsin-Yao (Drama) – Neither new nor improved.
3. Motherland by Ramona S. Diaz (Doc) – Masterpiece of Filipino neorealism.
4. The Rider by Chloé Zhao (Drama) – Frail human nature in the “Wild West”.
5. Can’t Say Goodbye by Lino Escalera (Drama) – Debut film with great acting.
6. Just Like Our Parents by Laís Bodanzky (Drama) – Brazilian cinema at its best.
7. The Sea Stares at Us from Afar by Manuel M. Rivas (Doc) – Time and the land.
8. Faces Places by JR, Agnès Varda (Doc) – A very special journey in rural France.
9. Under the Tree by Hafsteinn Sigurðsson (Drama) – Pitch-dark Icelandic humor.
10. Taste of Cement by Ziad Kalthoum (Doc) – War as the only travel opportunity.

Scared of Rocket Man? It is known that North Korea is a mysterious and isolated country, but at least its capital Pyongyang does not look that different from any North American city. On the contrary, it is even more colorful. Aram Pan flew over it with a microlight aircraft to make an exclusive 360 video for NK News.

For those of you who are interested in knowing more about the country from the ground, we recommend two excellent movies: Under the Sun, presented at Austin’s South by Southwest film festival in 2016, and the recent Liberation Day, which records the first performance of a foreign band (Laibach) in North Korea.

This year again we will take part in l’Alternativa, an Independent Film Festival held in Barcelona, Spain (or is it the self-proclaimed Republic of Catalonia?). A whole week to enjoy the screening of more than 200 movies from around the world and engage in various activities, including debates and workshops.

Cinema is a reflection of our society and helps us to ponder the crises that we live in. Based on this idea, most of the movies selected for the 24th edition of Barcelona’s Independent Film Festival deal with topics such as human rights, personal freedom, and overcoming borders. Save the date: Nov 13-19, 2017.

An acclaimed film director (Agnes Varda) and a young, brilliant photographer (JR) travel around rural France with no fixed plan in mind. To guide them is the power of images, which in this case serve to preserve the memory of the places.

Faces Places is an inspiring documentary/road movie of rare tenderness and gentle irony. The unusual couple works perfectly even though she’s losing sight and he always wears sunglasses like J. L. Godard. Past and future shake hands.