Underwater Blues

Short film by Mary Ellen Bute

On planet Sigma, enormous creatures are trapped inside the ice. And then, all of a sudden explosions erupt from subterranean volcanoes. The ice begins to melt; a global warming concludes the giants’ deep slumber and new life begins. The creatures crawl forth, out of the ice.

In this child's game, a live-action boy and girl draw characters and compete who is better. The girl draws a flower and the boy draws a car that runs it over. Then a drawn lion chases a drawn girl, until it all becomes frightfully serious.

It is well known that the disposition of the images drawn by Escher are neither for animation nor for pre-animation; actually, quite the opposite. His images appear to be the carrying out of metamorphic dissolves. A bird gives way to the recognition of a house, which turns into fish, which turns into birds, and so on. Not a single flapping of wings takes place; everything is reiterated and fixed, becoming immersed in and re-emerging from a static continuum. All of Escher is an homage to one of the major animating forces of the cinema: the cross-dissolve. Precisely there, I found cinematic attitudes: in the house which turns into fish and in everything that transforms into something else. I gradually managed to figure out various types of non-existent sequences and then finally found myself dissolved, crossing over metamorphically. —P.G.

Toroid is an experimental audio-reactive animation work that demonstrates the possibilities of harnessing digital waveforms of electronic origin into a continual source of power. By making the invisible visible, the work bears similarity and inspiration from the extensive quantum energy research at CERN which seeks to uncover and control the particles in and around us. In this era of over-production and over-algorithmic data illusion of choices, Toroid inserts itself in the digital narrative as a power source simulation showing a possibility for ensuring a positive flow of eternal (renewable) energy working in parallel with the natural order.

Norman McLaren made Scherzo early after his arrival in North America in 1939, but the film was subsequently lost. In 1984 the original materials were found and the hand-drawn images and sound were reconstituted. Picture and sound dance triple-quick in this animated version of a musical scherzo. A film without words.

The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.

Both a scientific and dreamlike documentary at once, Ghost Cell is a stereoscopic plunge into the guts of an organic Paris seen as a cell through a virtual microscope.

White Tape explores the theme of boundaries: the frame, the space between brushstrokes and the implications of occupation.

A space occupies it, awaiting to be unlocked by a freeing action or notion. What lies ahead is its determination.

A meek office worker finds himself flung into a fantasy world as a naked muscleman. An early version of the Den character, known from the comic magazine Heavy Metal and the movie by the same name.

An abstract experimental short film from Jordan Belson.

Believe it or not, esoteric film sages, i.e., Phil Solomon, are open to the possibilities of working with video — and even video games. This is a film that takes images from the notorious wanton car-jacking shoot-em-up Grand Theft Auto video game.

Indo...

In a city inhabited by drawn beings, an indigenous boy witnesses a holographic appearance. It is the arrival of an entity of unknown materiality. With a mysterious presence and exotic allegories, it starts to enchant the residents, awakening their most insane senses.

An Eternalism film

Two criminals take a trip up the coast of California. As they arrive at a small town- what should just be a small stop on the way- one of them begins to feel as though they've been their before.

Square

363°

La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a grandfather's memories as he adds more blocks to his house to stem the flooding waters.