Sam in the Bag

A film essay investigating the question of what “the West” means beyond the cardinal direction: a model of society inscribed itself in the Federal Republic of Germany’s postwar history and architecture. The narrator shifts among reflections on modern architecture and property relations, detailed scenes from childhood, and a passed-down memory of a “hemmed-in West Germany,” recalling the years of her parents’ membership in a 1970s communist splinter group.

The creative processes of avant-garde composer Philip Glass and progressive director/designer Robert Wilson are examined in this film. It documents their collaboration on this tradition breaking opera.

A whirlwind of improvisation combines the images of animator Pierre Hébert with the avant-garde sound of techno whiz Bob Ostertag in this singular multimedia experience, a hybrid of live animation and performance art.

Five lonesome cowboys get all hot and bothered at home on the range after confronting Ramona Alvarez and her nurse.

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Filmmaker John Torres describes his childhood and discusses his father's infidelities.

The Mutability of All Things and the Possibility of Changing Some explores our human adaptability in light of catastrophe by way of seminal literature passages implying a transitory social body.

Film by Robert Todd

In an anachronistic dystopian landscape, a beleaguered young man attempts to navigate his way through the indie film scene in LA.

The Dadaist, an eccentric creature who embodies the concept of the 20th century European avant-garde art movement Dadaism, destroys and mocks art pieces such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, whilst expressing his impulsive fury at logic and reason.

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

A flickering dance of intriguing imagery brings to light the possibilities of ordinary movements from the everyday which appear, evolve and freeze before your eyes. Made entirely from archive photographs and footage from the earliest days of moving image, All This Can Happen (2012) follows the footsteps of the protagonist from the short story 'The Walk' by Robert Walser. Juxtapositions, different speeds and split frame techniques convey the walker's state of mind as he encounters a world of hilarity, despair and ceaseless variety.

A surreal musical comedy set in a world where the avant-garde and the mainstream are reversed.

This audio-visual tone poem uses the language of filmmaking to offer a first-hand evocation of the turbulent psychological effects one can experience due to prolonged lack of sunlight.

The first film made by Markopoulos after moving to Europe, Bliss was shot over the course of two days using only available light to create a lyrical study of the interior of the Church of St. John on the island of Hydra.

A poetic journey from the darkness of dawn into the brightness of the midday sun in the American South. Filmed over the course of six months on one bus route in Durham, North Carolina, this film is a celebration of light and a meditation on leaving.

A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…

Jeff Wall is one of the most important and influential photographers working today. His work played a key role in establishing photography as a contemporary art form.

Made from reimagined/recycled images and sounds from the filmmaker’s archive and other found materials, Undercurrents is a poetic essay documentary about the undercurrents of history playing out in the present. It is also (at its heart) about the power of resistance.

Florent Tillon takes an anthropological lens to Las Vegas, Nevada. What he finds is some curious new species of Americana. (Dorothy Woodend, DOXA Documentary Film Festival)