Sans Soleil

Mar 2, 1983

1h 40m

★ 7.4

He wrote me...

Overview

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Argos films

Sans Soleil Trailers

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Florence Delay

Self (archive footage)

Amílcar Cabral

Self

Arielle Dombasle

Self (uncredited)

Bin Akao

Self / Deep Purple Singer (uncredited)

David Coverdale

Self (uncredited)

Chris Marker

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

6.7

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

Jun 2, 1938

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

7.2

The Endless Summer

Jun 15, 1966

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

7.5

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

Sep 23, 1927

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

6.0

Pick up the Wind

Apr 11, 2021

A short film following Anthony, a young child from the small, rural town of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. We see him in different moments of his daily life as he interacts with different forms of environmental, familial, and social influences. While Anthony displays contradictory traits of creativity, destruction, rigidity, and tenderness as he interacts with his external and internal worlds, we see a story built from the the multidimensionality of Anthony's layered personality as a young man.

7.9

Koyaanisqatsi

Apr 27, 1983

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

0.0

Tears on Yesterday's Skin

Sep 18, 2024

A poetic documentary in which the narrator must grapple with the grief and emotions following the death of a close friend.

0.0

Wild Honey

Invalid Date

No overview available.

0.0

The Song of the Years to Come

Apr 8, 2024

On the island of La Gomera, children imagine stories while they examine archeological remains. An ethno-fictional journey in which past and present coalesce, creating resonances between the volcanic landscape and Silbo, the whistled language of the island.

0.0

Melodies of the mountains

Jan 1, 2006

Film about the singing and dancing culture of the Ingush people

8.2

Baraka

Sep 15, 1992

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

0.0

Capturing Memories

Dec 14, 2027

Time passes, slips away, dissolves. But what if we could hold it for a moment? "Capturing Memories" is a dive into the essence of the inconsistent, an invitation to reflect on the importance of preserving moments before they are lost in oblivion. Through visual fragments, the documentary reveals how small scenes of everyday life carry echoes of the past and seeds of the future. In a world where everything passes, what really remains? This film is a tribute to the art of immortalizing the moment, to the beauty of seeing beyond the present and to the need to give meaning to what may one day become a memory.

5.0

Picturesque India or, In and About Calcutta

Jan 1, 1913

Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.

7.3

Powaqqatsi

Apr 29, 1988

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

5.7

In the Frozen Tomb of Mongolia

Aug 30, 2014

No overview available.

No Image Available

0.0

Andrei Bely: Armenia

Jan 1, 2019

The film is a cinematic interpretation of the travel book “Armenia” by Russian poet Andrei Bely.

0.0

Messengers

Apr 9, 2025

A poetic exploration of three subterranean telescopes in remote regions of Canada, Japan, and Antarctica that reveal a new way of perceiving the universe from within. Underground, we are dreaming into the earth.

0.0

Finnish American Lives

Jan 1, 1982

A moving portrait of traditional Finnish American culture in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, highlighting that fragile community of memory connecting ourselves with parents and grandparents. It uses the “biographical model” of folklore filmmaking to tell the story of Erikki Vourenmaa, a 92-year-old Finnish immigrant, and his family living near Ironwood, Michigan. This three-generation farm family works, celebrates, reflects, and grieves together. The film explores the meaning of family, ethnic history, aging and intergenerational bonds. It contrasts between the immigrant elder, his American-born son and the partially assimilated grandchildren to illustrate change and continuity in the "sauna belt" of the Lake Superior Region. As Dr. Sharon Sherman concluded, “Loukinen’s focus on the bonds between generations will strike emotional chords about family relationships and ethnic identity for numerous cultural groups.”

No Image Available

0.0

African Dwarves

Jan 1, 1953

No overview available.

No Image Available

0.0

Lovci lebek

Jan 1, 1954

No overview available.