Last Day of Freedom

Spectacle is proud to present HEAD SPACE, a showcase of animated works exploring dimensions both interior and outlying. Featuring an extremely talented and creative group working in a diverse array of styles, the shorts wander through strange and sometimes sketchy landscapes, including alternate-universe appliance stores, the ramblings of Charles Manson, environmental catastrophes in the Dutch style of painting, and a houseplant’s musings. Some, like Sally Cruikshank’s Make Me Psychic, are established classics; others feature newer animators working in looping GIF format, presented away from the small screen’s momentary pleasures to fully appreciate the art that it is. Occasionally gross, often beautiful, and always interesting, HEAD SPACE is a sampler of the thoughts happening inside and out of each frame.

Lonely. It could be you. It could be me. There are millions of us out there. The headlines call this 'The Age of Loneliness'. They say it's a major public health issue. A silent epidemic that's starting to kill us. But we don't want to talk about it. No-one really wants to admit they are lonely. Award-winning film-maker Sue Bourne believes loneliness has to be talked about. It affects so many of us in so many different ways and at so many different stages of our lives. So she went out to find people brave enough to go on camera and talk about their loneliness. The Age of Loneliness has people of all ages in it, from Isobel the 19-year-old student to Olive the feisty 100-year-old, Ben the divorcee, Jaye the 40-year-old singleton, Richard the 72-year-old internet-dating widower, to Martin, Iain and Christine talking about their mental health problems. Everyone talks with such remarkable honesty and bravery that you can't help but be touched by their stories.

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.

Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.

A fictional documentary that portrays the city of Dakar, Senegal, as we hear the conversation between a Senegalese man (the director, Djibril Diop Mambéty) and a French woman, Inge Hirschnitz. As we travel through the city in a picturesque horse drawn wagon, we chaotically rush into this and that popular neighborhood of the capital, discovering contrast after contrast: A small African community waiting at the Church's door, Muslims praying on the sidewalk, the Rococo architecture of the Government buildings, the modest stores of the craftsmen near the main market.

How did Hollywood pitch movies about gays and lesbians between 1956 and 1977? Here are theatrical trailers for 27 mainstream and art-house films, presented chronologically from "Tea and Sympathy" to "Outrageous!" More than half are films released between 1968 and 1972. Half are dramas and half are comedies, with farce dominating the films released after 1971. At least three advertise X-rated films: "The Killing of Sister George," "Midnight Cowboy," and Visconti's "The Damned." There's no voice-over commentary for this compilation, but it does include advertisements for snacks and one warning against public displays of affection aimed at "her" to control "him."

Pastry chef Ben van Bommel runs a hitherto successful bakery, but lately run into trouble with the tax service. In order to save his business, he succumbs to criminal temptation. So he's persuaded to bake a cake with a valuable 'secret ingredient': smuggled drugs. Nobody could have foreseen the wide ramifications, such as who ends up saving Ben's bacon.

Bimbo becomes a long distance accordion champ and comes through with a load of credit.

Set in Bangkok, the film shows the process of urbanization of the city while humans lose control over the consequences of their actions and their greed. The story begins and we move underground to meet the two protagonists: a pangolin couple. The two lovers are living a tranquil life in their hidden city beneath, when their quiet is upset by sudden earth shakes provoked by the drilling of a construction site above. Separated by the cracks in the soil, they begin an adventurous journey to find each other, taking the viewer deeper into the causes of the loss of connection between humans and the earth beneath and ultimately, of the pandemic.

A man tries to remind himself to go to the doctor.

Derren Brown investigates the power of social compliance by persuading an unwitting member of the public into believing that they have pushed someone to their death.

Short combining fiction and documentary.

An insider's look at the first year of an activist group known as the Lesbian Avengers.

New York City, October 10, 1965. A group of wooden giant figures from Pamplona, representing Basque culture and traditions, parade down the street; but the local authorities have not allowed the appearance of all of them: due to the racial prejudices that persist in many sectors of society, the participation of two black giants has been banned.

Tout conte fait

At dawn, in a mismatched architectural megalopolis, we enter into the intimacy of three people: A tormented YOUNG WOMAN, a STREET MAN and an OLD LADY. We go through with them what we experience on a daily basis: Waking. Within this moment of solitude and small daily gestures, we discover the simple pleasures of awakening the senses that pushes them out of bed.

Tommy’s Train is a story about imagination, drive, and the power of a dream. Once existing as a tourist attraction in the city of Anacortes, Washington, Tommy Thompson’s Railway ran every summer from 1987 until 1999. The genuine steam locomotive and coaches were all hand built by Tommy in his garage workshop, and he maintained and operated the railway with his family.