1996

Mark O’Brien was a poet-journalist who lived in an iron lung for four decades. Incorporating the vivid imagery of O’Brien’s poetry and his candid, wry and often profound reflections on work, sex, death and God, this provocative film asks: What is a life worth living? Winner of Best Documentary-Short Subject, 1997 Academy Awards.

Based on 1992 journals of Bosnian visual artist Alma Hajric who was forced into a basement shelter to survive the siege of Sarajevo, Black Kites skillfully merges the reality-based content of her journal with interpretive visual material to reveal the simple, sometimes beautiful, yet brutal truth of her existence. Non-linear, dreamlike and spectral, Black Kites is a testament to artistry, imagination and the resiliency of the human psyche. Features sensitive performances by Steve Buscemi, Mimi Goese and Mira Furlan, a prominent actress from the former Yugoslavia, as the narrator.