Six Beautiful, Personal Films to Watch this Weekend
Or whenever you feel like it.
I’ve been watching a lot of diary films and personal documentaries recently, since I’m in the process of making my own, and this week I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you.
Hope you enjoy them.
Mariner of the Mountains (2021), Karim Aïnouz
Karim Aïnouz’s intimate travel diary centers around the Brazilian director’s first trip to Algeria, the country his father comes from. He interweaves past and present to explore his parents’ relationship and his own family’s history.
Okurimono (2024), Laurence Lévesque
After years of living in Montreal, a woman returns to Nagasaki to sell her late mother’s home, and grapples with the horrors of the city’s past and how the atomic bomb affected her family’s history.
Beba (2021), Rebeca Huntt
Filmmaker Rebeca Huntt weaves her own coming-of-age story with her parents’ past to examine race, identity, and inherited trauma in America. Through archival footage and personal reflection, the film interrogates how history lives on in the body.
Pictures of Ghosts (2023), Kleber Mendonça Filho
Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho explores the history of movie theaters in Recife as a way of tracing personal memory and collective loss. The film becomes an elegy for disappearing cultural spaces and the ghosts they leave behind.
Beaches of Agnès (2008), Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda reflects on her life and career. Playful and deeply personal, the film blends autobiography, cinema, and art into a self-portrait of a singular creative life.
The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman (2017), Rosine Mbakam
A Franco-Cameroonian filmmaker confronts her divided identity by returning to Cameroon with her young son after living abroad for seven years. Through interviews with her mother and other female relatives and the director’s own self-interrogation, the film examines the tensions between diaspora, tradition, and self-definition. The opening scene is mesmerizing.
Until next time,
Tara
Thanks!