This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of falling away from conscious thought. The film can only be said to describe or be emblematic of this state because I cannot imagine symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness itself. Thus the actors in the film, Jane Brakhage, Tom and Gloria Bartek, Williams Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Olovsky and Phillip Whalen are figments of this 'Thought-Fallen Process', as are their images in the film to find themselves being photographed."
A Japanese salaryman finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.
Two friends walk and draw circles. It is what it is, idizwadidiz, c’est ce que c’est, seskecé. Nice weather.
A young woman and man are riding bikes through nature, having a good time. When she speeds up, he loses her, and after a while he stumbles across her bike without any trace of her. He stumbles through the forest looking for her, imagining how she kisses him. No dialogue, just "audio credits" instead of titles, saying the name of the film, actors and director.
Seeking fulfillment, a young drifter forgoes isolation to embark on a year-long murder spree.
The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
A filmmaker recalls his youth in the town of Onomichi. In the present, he shoots a film in Onomichi alongside his cast, crew and family.
A look at the various modes of transportation made for the Expo '86 World Fair in Vancouver, Canada.
In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.
A short film recounting the travels of a lonely astronaut confronted by the unknown. Unfolding as a mystery, it becomes a carefully subtle, autobiographical examination of the feeling of loneliness and the existential issue of not understanding life on earth and ones place among it.
The main protagonist is a young fellow who tries to live his life within 30 frames. He's a person suitable for any atmosphere, which makes him different from the rest. He's like a plant that differs from others, an informer who wants to escape out from his skin. This man loves, hates, eats, drinks, lies ill, laughs, cries, kisses, plays... These are agonies of a contemporary man.
A man and woman embark on a sexual journey to detach mind from body. The relationship slowly grows into one of emotional domination, physical disease, abandonment and the creation of personal pornography.
A manufactured memory.
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.
"Ryuta is 5 years old. Even though he is my son, I sometimes wonder what this small person is to me. Even though I see his joys and sadnesses and know the feel of his warmth on my skin when I hold him, there are moments when my feelings for him become vague and blank." - Takashi Ito
Roda Viva Roda Brasil
The Greek island of Syros is visited by a series of unexpected guests. Immutable forms, outside of time, aloof observants to human conditions.
The rare short film presents a curious dialogue between filmmaker Julio Bressane and actor Grande Otelo, where, in a mixture of decorated and improvised text, we discover a little manifesto to the Brazilian experimental cinema. Also called "Belair's last film," Chinese Viola reveals the first partnership between photographer Walter Carvalho and Bressane.
An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.
A take it or leave it auteur-experimental fiction exercise: two women are monitoring their dreams, dreams that may of course also be stark naked reality, at least to the dreamers, as they come and they go like bubbles, rising, floating, bursting. A man appears out of nowhere. Poet Peter Laugesen co-wrote the script with Tom Elling, who was Lars von Trier's director of photography on "The Element of Crime".