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Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.

state. is an exploration of liminal spaces, physical and emotional, from the perspective of a teenager. Unravelling through a desktop screen, the film navigates between different states: physical and digital, reality and whimsicality, and childhood and adulthood.

An intimate stream of memories reaching out across time and space, taking on a uniquely experimental form that cuts the viewer adrift in a weave of old footage rising to the surface of consciousness like a dream.

A bleak, cryptic vision of life in contemporary Iran that eschews overt social commentary in favour of a very personal vision of stifled lives. Directed remotely by Rashidi from Ireland over Skype, the making of this unique film reflects the alienation it so compellingly portrays.

Surreal and mysterious, in equal parts absurd and intense, Mutual Admiration Society is part of the noted multi-film collaboration between actor James Devereaux and experimental filmmaker Rouzbeh Rashidi. Based entirely around a silent, tour-de-force one-man performance by Devereaux as a man who appears to be haunting and threatening himself, Mutual Admiration Society uses startling visual techniques and editing rhythms to create a claustrophobic hall of mirrors with Devereaux’s tormented protagonist at its centre.

“Persistencies of Sadness & Still Days”, is a four hour feature film by Maximilian Le Cain and Rouzbeh Rashidi. Structured in two sections or ‘takes’ of two hours each, this dream-like, experimental project offers two complementary explorations of cinematic form that skirt around possible narratives, ducking through a series of fluctuating audio-visual categories and intensities.

A family deals with loss of a family member while reflecting on moments of happiness

The tranquility of Uncle No Rules's home is disturbed when a mysterious variety-show equipped with a studio audience and charismatic host (Marky Ramone) descends upon the household.

An assortment of obscure private obsessions, conspiracies and perversions flicker on the verge of incoherence against the context of vast cosmic disaster in Rouzbeh Rashidi’s boldest film to date. This sensory onslaught combines a homage to the subversive humour of Luis Buñuel and Joao Cesar Monteiro with the visionary scope of a demented science fiction epic.

A static close-up of a clock. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

A young boy creates a make believe world to escape his truth, a world where, at the water's edge, beneath the shade of an ancient tree, a mother forms a perimeter to protect herself and her child from an unspeakable darkness.

Proximities focuses on the trope of the Malay Boy found in the works of Singaporean artist Cheong Soo Pieng (b. 1917-1983). It attempts to locate the Malay male in art history while unpacking underlying systems of power that have shaped and naturalised the understanding of difference.

A 16mm experimental short film loosely following a cormorant as it attempts to dry its wings.

Informed by Taoist notions on the flow of nature, Freedom of Clouds is an experimental audiovisual poem composed of two visual languages which shift in tandem with the sonic landscape. The first involves abstract audio-reactive particles imitating the movement of dust, while the second is composed of Myanmar’s urban scenes which blur and morph as the piece moves away from form and definition.

Set against an operatic soundscape, period@period is a sensual interplay of sound and image that focuses on the anonymous protagonist’s monthly period and the rituals associated with it.

A troubled woman demonstrates how to bake whole grain, stone-milled sourdough bread.

The Garden is an experimental work that describes the inner worlds of two sisters manifested through their connection with the garden outside their home. While mourning the passing of their close relative, the sisters encounter a man in the garden, evoking a sense of mortality in one and awakening the sensuality in another. The film was directed by Ong Ann Meng (better known as Meng Ong), who went on to win numerous awards for his short films at the Singapore International Film Festival between 1991 and 1993. His first feature, Miss Wonton (2001), won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Locarno International Film Festival.

Homo Sapiens Project (200) was completed in 2020 as part of the 20th anniversary of Experimental Film Society. This eight-hour experimental feature is constituted from short film experiments made between 2000 to 2010. These films have already undergone many metamorphoses over the years. They were always restless wandering spirits seeking a permanent place of rest but so far without success. Each section of Homo Sapiens Project (200) was made under the unique condition of living out a form of subtle therapeutic practice. Collectively they reflect major life-changing events, formalistic mutations and thematic shifts within Rouzbeh Rashidi’s filmography. In spite of this, they could not find the peace of a satisfactory final shape. Indeed, they are about peace, something that rarely (if ever) exists within Rashidi’s work. But now, after twenty years of roaming the subconscious, they have come to rest in a permanent retirement in one world, one very personal floating planet.

Homo Sapiens Project (201) was completed in 2021 as part of re-envisioning and restructuring Rashidi's filmography. This nineteen-hour experimental feature is constituted from many feature films produced between 2002 to 2014. These experimental features were made as a type of test or trial experiment. Rashidi assembled the films from footage accumulated over the years, archival footage, found footage and rushes donated by his close collaborators.

Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.