Learning To See

Mar 13, 2016

1h 7m

★ 7.8

One man's tranformational journey to find the Amazon's strangest creature.

Overview

Struggling with a mid-life crisis, Robert Oelman leaves his psychology career in the early 1990s to photograph rare and exotic insects. After moving from the United States to Colombia, he forms a special bond with his subjects in the Amazon rainforest. This connection enables him to make striking photographic images of new and undocumented species. After more than 20 years of traveling, searching, and photographing, his quest culminates with a New York City gallery show where he finally shares his images with the public.

Genres

Documentary

Learning To See Trailers

Cast

Himself

Robert Oelman

The film explores the role of photography, since its rudimentary beginnings in the 1840s, in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present. The dramatic arch is developed as a visual narrative that flows through the past 160 years to reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, an African American point-of-view on American history, and a particularized aesthetic vision.

8.1

The Salt of the Earth

Aug 29, 2014

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

6.0

Iwianch, the Devil Deer

Mar 11, 2021

An enigmatic presence haunts the depths of the Amazon rainforest, where an indigenous Achuar teenager has disappeared. During the search for the young man, his family decides to consult with a Shaman, who, immersed in trance, reveals that the young man was taken by the devil, but that he has intervened by showing him the way back to his home. While waiting for his return, secrets of the rainforest and Amazonian visions of life after death are touched, vanishing the documentary filmmaker’s concepts of reality.

7.2

The Last Shaman

May 12, 2017

James, giving himself 12 months before he has "a license to kill himself," sets off to the Amazon rainforest with hopes of finding a shaman who can save his life.

No Image Available

8.0

Don Emilio and His Little Doctors

Jan 1, 1982

Don Emilio is a humble, 63-year-old man who lives in the Amazon rainforest, seven miles from the city of Iquitos, Peru. For all of his adult life he has worked as a curandero and vegetalista, a traditional healer. He estimates that in his career he has treated more than 2,500 clients. Through the camera lens of anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna, Don Emilio tells us about his practice, his beliefs, his community, and his life. He shows us how he prepares ayahuasca and other herbal medicines. Finally, we see Don Emilio treat a man who has come to him for help, and hear from a poor woman who has brought her infant son for medical care.

7.9

The Work of Director Anton Corbijn

Sep 13, 2005

Legendary photographer and director Anton Corbijn is responsible for many of the most indelible and important images of the past two and a half decades. His recently released book U2 & I is a photographic retrospective of his 25 year collaboration with U2. Later this year, Anton will direct his first feature film, Control, based on the life of the late Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis.

6.8

Standard Operating Procedure

Feb 12, 2008

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

6.0

Memories of Origin: Hiroshi Sugimoto

Mar 31, 2012

This documentary follows 200 days in the life of contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto— a leading presence in the world of modern art. He is the winner of many prestigious awards and his photographs are sold for millions of yen at overseas auctions. The film shows the sites of the Architecture series shot in southern France, the huge installation art work at 17th Biennale of Sydney, his new work Mathematics at Provence, his art studio while working on Lightning Fields, and more. It thoroughly pursues the question Sugimoto's works pose - "living in modern times, what are these works trying to tell us?" A thrilling look into the world of Hiroshi Sugimoto.

4.2

Everything at Once (Paco & Manolo's Gaze)

Apr 8, 2021

Paco and Manolo are two Catalan photographers from the outskirts of Barcelona who have been working together for thirty years as if they were a single person, capturing their images in Kink magazine, a very personal photography fanzine with a homoerotic aesthetic of Mediterranean essence.

7.5

Microcosmos

Sep 6, 1996

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

6.4

The Hellstrom Chronicle

May 5, 1971

A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.

0.0

In the Theatre of the Gogs

Jun 3, 2021

A contemplation of art and adventure in the southern wilds of New Zealand by both a landscape photographer and an adventure filmmaker. This film is the unexpected result of their two unique perspectives.

8.6

32 Pills: My Sister's Suicide

Nov 29, 2017

Traces the life and mental illness of New York artist and photographer Ruth Litoff, and her sister's struggle to come to terms with her tragic suicide.

7.7

Rise of the Warrior Apes

Mar 5, 2017

Filmed over 23 years, Rise of the Warrior Apes tells the epic story of an extraordinary troop of chimpanzees in Ngogo, Uganda – featuring four mighty warriors who rule through moral ambiguity, questionable politics, strategic alliances and destroyed trust.

7.5

Elliott Erwitt - Silence Sounds Good

Jul 5, 2019

Elliott Erwitt has spent his entire adult life taking photographs, of presidents, popes and movie stars, as well as regular people and their pets. His work is iconic in world culture while his life is largely unknown.

6.9

Reporters

Jun 10, 1981

The co-founder of the Gamma press agency, Raymond Depardon, created this documentary of press photographers in Paris and their subjects by following the photographers around for one month, in October, 1980. In-between long hours waiting for a celebrity to emerge from a restaurant or a hotel, boredom immediately switches to fast action as the cameras click and roll when the person appears. The reaction to the gaggle of photographers is as varied as the people they often literally chase all around town. While some of the celebrities, such as Jacques Chirac who was mayor of Paris at the time, are perceived as comical caricatures, others are shown simply going about ordinary pursuits - including Catherine Deneuve, Gene Kelly, and Jean-Luc Godard.

6.7

The Last Forest

Apr 18, 2021

In powerful images, alternating between documentary observation and staged sequences, and dense soundscapes, Luiz Bolognesi documents the Indigenous community of the Yanomami and depicts their threatened natural environment in the Amazon rainforest.

10.0

Le Regard Tairraz

May 11, 2015

For a century and a half, mountain images by their beauty have largely gained from its influence, its frequentation and its development. But they are also a tool in the service of science, fixing the transformation of landscapes, habitats... Over 150 years, the Tairraz dynasty photographed the mountain. Four generations of photographers have magnified the Mont-Blanc massif. From the first photograph taken at the summit of Mont-Blanc in 1861 to the present day, this art is at the origin of many mountaineering vocations and has largely contributed to the tourist development of these formerly ignored valleys. Here is the wonderful story of a dynasty of photographers, the Tairraz, which stretches from 1861 to the dawn of the 2000s.

6.5

Amazon

Jan 1, 1997

Explore the mysterious Amazon through the amazing IMAX experience. Amazon celebrates the beauty, vitality and wonder of the rapidly disappearing rain forest.

0.0

The Body of Emmett Till

Jul 17, 2016

Emmett Till was brutally killed in the summer of 1955. At his funeral, his mother forced the world to reckon with the brutality of American racism. This short documentary was commissioned by "Time" magazine for their series "100 Photos" about the most influential photographs of all time.

Learning To See

Overview

Genres

Learning To See Trailers