Reflections of a society

A housekeeper received a film made by her daughter. It's a film that combines found footages of Thailand during the Cold War with the present days images of Bangkok. Through these images she tells a story of the house owner and her own story of coming to the capital.

A being from the beyond returns to Chile in 2019, embodied in a worker who dreams of social upheaval. Viral videos intertwine with fiction to narrate the experiences of a polarized country that wanders between drama and absurdity, illusion and failure.

Directed by Jacob Miguel, "PUNK ROCK LOTTERY" embarks on a mission to capture the rapid growth of an annual event known as "The Punk Rock Lottery" in Austin, Texas. What sets this film apart is its self-awareness, playfully breaking the fourth wall and transforming into an immersive journey through history and the creative process. The narrative builds its foundation by featuring insights from punk legends and influential figures who helped shape both the film and Austin itself. As the story unfolds, it delves into the heart of the project as Jacob actively participates in the event, offering an inside look at the frenetic pace of life in a band. Through the experiences of over 30 characters, the film uncovers universal truths about creativity, camaraderie, and the struggles inherent in pursuing one's artistic passion.

After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.

Jonas Mekas recites poems of his, both in English and Lithuanian. Exclusive Mekas interview by the poet Sparrow. The legendary poet-film critic and film diarist waxes philosophical in rare extended setting exhibiting his transcendental poetic humor. Jonas attacks the crass world of TV advertising and sell-out commercial filmmakers. Contributes zen anecdotes and filmmaking advice. Choice clips include Mekas' Film Diaries with deceivingly formalist amateur "home movie" style, but in small bursts of expression in a quick collage. Footage from Jonas' homeland as well as clips of famed pop figures John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Tiny Tim.

A film of and through the trees. Leaves catch, consume and resist the light through the seasons.

Memory is a collaboration with musician Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), exploring the relationship between a musician and filmmaker and their personal reflection on memories. From Super 8 home movies and entirely handmade, this film explores familiar memories, the present moment combined with past experiences and how it all seems to evade from our present memory.

A silent city symphony, projected from gorgeous black and white 16mm film. Materia vibrante lets the resonating frequencies of the urban environment create the inaudible hum that keeps the engines of society running, absent of the inhabitants running around like little ants toiling away.

In the summer of 1900, the first film camera was purchased by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar for Iran, and immediately the first Iranian moving images were captured by this camera. These images, in an obsessive manner, have embodied the mesmerized gaze of people. In the span of 79 years since the purchase of this camera, Iran has undergone two revolutions and two coups, and throughout all these moments, the camera has been present as the recorder of people's mesmerized gazes. These mesmerized gazes are in a way as if they are the ones looking at us, not the other way around. It seems like these gazes are trying to convey something, but what? No one knows. Now, we gaze at those who have gazed at us from a distant time.

Fireworks

In a leafy forest, a Galician sovereign who longs to attain wisdom meets a sorcerer, who tells him: “Go back to your country and study the Earth and the Stars in the sky; anywhere in the world reflects an image of it. You will ride on this arrow, which you must keep for a hundred years and a day. After this time, stick it in the widest valley of all those you possess, with the tip facing the sky. Then the Moon will come and, just as it exerts its action on the waters of the sea, it will act on the arrow, turning it into a holy mountain." - Legend about the Pico Sacro Inspired by Hokusai's views of Mount Fuji and Cézanne's paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, "Pico Sacro [The Holy Mountain]" aims to reveal the mystery and the magic that underlie reality.

Cartas de Arapuca

A funeral car cruises the streets of Medellín, while a young director tells the story of his past in this violent and conservative city. He remembers the pre-production of his first film, a Class-B movie with ghosts. The young queer scene of Medellín is casted for the film, but the main protagonist dies of a heroin overdose at the age of 21, just like many friends of the director. Anhell69 explores the dreams, doubts and fears of an annihilated generation, and the struggle to carry on making cinema.

An urban essay film searching for meaning and philosophy: "When you enter an existential crisis, all filters fall. Reality is shaded in low contrast, low key, foggy. Every outside signal grinds down mind and teeth and gets caught in a feedback loop. Every thought is a downward spiral."

Shot on three cameras over the life cycle of one snowfall, Decaying Vessel is an expression of transness and the feeling of being stuck in a body bound by time.

"This project consists a visual fluidity of construction, harmony and thoughts taking colors and length from this body of autonomy. Different images between figuration and abstraction are created by meaning and phenomenon letting the decoupage revealing a piece of a strange underworld. I built it like a window opened to the fresh air of improvisation by familiar landscapes, those exact moments articulating a connection between light and movement."

A spate of robberies in Southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, d/Deaf first-time feature director Alison O’Daniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle. The film unfolds mimicking a game of telephone, where sound’s feeble transmissibility is proven as the story bends and weaves to human interpretation and miscommunication. The result is a stunning contribution to cinematic language. O’Daniel has developed a syntax of deafness that offers a complex, overlaid, surprising new texture, which offers a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way.

An experimental half-documentary half-fiction about a young person’s routine of getting to sleep and waking up.

“I've never seen light that looks or feels so dark; forward moving possibility united with so much cosmic terror.”—Marilyn Brakhage

Drawing on a wealth of unseen archival material and unpublished notebooks, the film weaves a complex and personal portrait of Margaret’s life, from the perspective of a fellow artist sensitive to the potential Margaret envisaged for film as a poetic medium.