A garden of shadows

Trapped and alone, a young man must confront the pain he's ignored when he finds himself face-to-face with consequence.

an exploration of ennui split between two worlds

A man reflects on his past through visions of a mysterious figure guiding him through different phases of his life.

It's good to get lost...

Host Scott Forrest presents a curated compilation of eight independent short films in this rapid-fire science-fiction feature. Genres collide, narratives twist, aesthetics clash, and even humor, both campy and dystopian, showcase the vast creative possibilities of each story's individual world, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into the lives of every character's attempt to survive the otherworldly chaos around them. Released in 2001, the selected shorts span original creation dates of 1997 to 2001; most of the featured filmmakers also appear as themselves in short video interviews to talk about their inspirations, creative process and motivations while working on their individual shorts.

To the sound of a heartbeat and made entirely without the use of a camera, this film projects abstract forms and illuminations on a night-black background and suggests as Tambellini says, “seed black, seed black, sperm black, sperm black.”

Through thread and textile, an Asian seamstress tries to escape from the factory.

A presentation of an expanding formation of "Elements of Nothing". The systematic harsh noise shaped by water and trees gives birth to a storm of novel imagination in the viewer's emotions.

A corridor of an apartment is transformed into a claustrophobic and vertiginous vortex that swallows and imprisons you in an infinite fall through a mise en abyme: it’s a pure enclosure inside the image world, it’s the Descent into the Maelstrom.

A frenetic found-footage documentary made entirely from “lost” unlabeled media on YouTube - weaving together nearly a thousand raw videos, each mistakenly or mindlessly uploaded under a generic filename (e.g., IMG 1326, IMG 5493…).

Quinn is a grade school teacher who is exploited by a group of memoryless individuals who reeducate his long-term partner Amy.

Deemed "too ambient for broadcast" by MTV's AMP, Thaemlitz' first video "Silent Passability (Ride to the Countryside)" contrasts cinematic footage from drag performances in upstate New York with highly processed digital audio from his CD "Couture Cosmetique" (US: Caipirinha/Japan: Daisyworld, 1997). Thaemlitz is known for his fusion of computer synthesis techniques with non-essentialist transgenderism as two methodoligies which appropriate and critically recontextualize cultural signifiers, whether they be audio sources or gender constructs. The audio for "Silent Passability" deals with fears of violence while travelling in 'passable' drag between safe zones, and Thaemlitz' unsettling compulsion to remain silent in such circumstances so as to avoid confrontation. Antithetically beatific images from the transgendered stage question posturing as a means for alieviating and/or concealing such oppressive circumstances.

This hand-painted and elaborately step-printed work begins with a flourish of reds and yellows and purples in palpable fruit-like shapes interspersed by darkness, then becomes lit lightning-like by sharp multiply-colored twigs-of shape, all resolving into shapes of decay. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Multiple thrusts and then retractions of oranges, reds, blues, and the flickering, almost black, textural dissolves suggesting an amalgam approaching script. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Dark, fast-paced symmetry in mixed weave of tones moving from oranges & yellows to blue-greens, then retreating (dissolves of zooming away) to both rounded and soft-edged shapes shot with black. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

A short experimental film shot on Super 8, inspired by the music of Richard Wagner.

Woman chasing projected images of typical screensavers such as idyllic meadows and mountainscapes. These images are embellished by design programs to be more attractive to appeal to our primal desire to be outside rather than in front of a computer or in ugly urban landscapes. Even if she were to ever catch up her object of desire, she will find it never existed in the first place, and she has been chasing the unattainable.

The model’s feet are uncomfortably squeezed into the heels, and her movements are slippery on slick silver liquid, before she slowly and ominously destroys the glass pane separating the subject from the viewer.

A washed up actor performs night after night in a grimy theater to a nearly empty audience. However, everything changes when a clueless dog jumps on stage.

New York's floral district, like Amsterdam's is a scene that is most vibrant at the crack of dawn when flowers are shipped in to wholesalers. Very convenient timing if you've spent all night at the disco! If you want it fresh, you have to be there early. Not only are the better florists there to get the freshest flowers, but also the latest, freshest, and hottest dish. The scenario of this video is inspired by the central core of the design world: innuendo, rumors and gossip. Hearsay based on the cruising practices of one of New York's top gay floral designers. A vignette in a pastoral country setting–full of sunflowers and wild flowers–shows what the honey bee is really attracted to. Two lusty youths get it on atop a bed of exotic varieties.