The Weavers of Nishijin

Migrating by sea from Holland as an eight-year-old, Dirk de Bruyn went on to be a doyen of Australian experimental cinema. But as this intimate film reveals, his work is suffused with the trauma of migration, and the struggle to recognise himself as a ‘new Australian'. In conversation with documentarian Steven McIntyre, Dirk guides us through more than 40 years of his filmmaking: the early years exploring technique and technology, a subsequent phase of unflinching self-examination brought on by upheaval and overseas travel, and more recent projects where he attempts a fusion of personal, cultural, and historical identity. What emerges is an inspiring, rugged, and at times poignant portrait of an artist committed to self-expression and self-discovery through the medium of film.

Everyday Portabella

The constant movement of the wheels, threads, sprockets, feet and hands suggests restlessness, and this is paralleled by the soundtrack. The unknown woman could be Gretchen from Faust, hopelessly in love or Ariadne who gave Theseus the thread to find his way out of labyrinth or perhaps she is one of the fates, weaving destiny… Enlarged from Super-8 to 35mm, the film is very grainy, in itself an homage to the medium of film which is also emphasized by the depiction of all kinds of turning machines, both in image and sound.

A girl reads during a bus ride

Director Lam Can-Zhao leads a small film crew as they shoot a film about a stray dog in the streets of Guangzhou, leading viewers into an unpredictable, peculiar and incredible journey.

Experimental film by Motoharu Jonouchi comprised of both archival footage from the 1960s Japanese student riots and dramatised re-enactions. It was created as a tribute to Michiko Kamba, a student victim of the riots.

A group of leftist activists expose the exploitation of immigrant workers by a criminal network with connections to local government officials. The movie was produced by the group SLON (Société pour le Lancement des Oeuvres Nouvelles, also the Russian word for elephant). SLON was a film collective whose objectives were to make films and to encourage industrial workers to create film collectives of their own. Its members included Valerie Mayoux, Jean-Claude Lerner, Alain Adair and John Tooker, and Chris Marker.

One of Paik’s most overtly political and poignant statements, Guadalcanal Requiem is a performance/documentary collage that confronts history, time, cultural memory and mythology on the site of one of World War II’s most devastating battles.

A thrillingly lo-fi salute to the old-school, hand-crafted special effects that were once a mainstay of pre-CGI science-fiction films.

The Black Album places scrutiny on the notion of "Black Excellence" in a revisionist take.

An experimental film that lifts the veil on the world of African American drag racing.

For us, a thought always presupposes a society, a culture and above all the consciousness of time. We are haunted by immortality, human notion par excellence. As if the world was here to fascinate us. And to disappoint us. The film travels around the bulb like the Earth around the Sun. Light makes the film visible. A fragile film, like our existence. In the orbit of the film tragedy and our reality, the image resists the cruelty of the experiment.

Two halves split by the perseverance of a scorpion. Come on, feet.

An eight-hour contemplative epic, entirely starring sheep.

A small portrait of the volatility of intimacy and of breaking free from abusive cycles: made in response to a year of collapsing relationships and violent accidents that left me broken, dislocated and stuck in my apartment.

For five grueling years, Li Ning documents his struggle to achieve success as an avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li's chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen. Tape shatters documentary conventions, utilizing a variety of approaches, including guerilla documentary, experimental street video, even CGI. Tape captures a decade's worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.

A "thing" created by Frank Zappa from two concerts filmed live at the Palladium, New York City, on Halloween 1981. With Ray White, Steve Vai, Bobby Martin, Tommy Mars, Ed Mann, Scott Thunes & Chad Wackerman.

Idiosyncratic composer, unique musician and ground-breaking film director…..Frank Zappa packed more into his short lifetime than most men would manage in two. His restless, challenging, creative spirit meant that he never stood still during a career that bought huge critical and commercial success – Zappa sold more than 60 million albums both as a solo artist and with the Mothers of Invention. The life and work of Frank Zappa are examined in this superb new critical review, which features new in-depth interviews with industry insiders, rock journalists and respected critics plus highlights from the songs that re-drew the face of rock music.

Thanks to his myriad film roles, Lon Chaney is known as “the man of a thousand faces,” and you could say that the early horror era never beheld a figure more intriguing. Yet because of his numerous transformations, his face never became as iconic as that of, say, Boris Karloff. Accompanied by a soundtrack from Bernhard Lang, this “re-imagination of shots” taken from Chaney´s forty-six surviving films offers a beguiling excursion into the history of film. The director reveals surprising associations, while highlighting the enduring magic of works which are now more or less forgotten.

Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) explores Video Art, revealing how different generations ‘hacked’ the tools of television to pioneer new ways of creating art that can be beautiful, bewildering and wildly experimental.