Before the Gates

Born in Los Angeles but a New Yorker by choice, Barbara Hammer is a whole genre unto herself. Her pioneering 1974 short film Dyketactics, a four-minute, hippie wonder consisting of frolicking naked women in the countryside, broke new ground for its exploration of lesbian identity, desire and aesthetic.

Adachi's follow-up to Bowl using the figure of a woman suffering from an unusual sexual aliment has often been taken as a controversial allegory for the political stalemate of the Leftist student movement after their impressive wave of massive fiery protests failed to defeat the neo-imperialist Japan-US Security Treaty. The ritualistic solemnity of the charged sexual scenes contribute to the oneiric qualities of Closed Vagina which Adachi would later insist was an open work, not meant to deliver any kind of deliberate political message. - Harvard Film Archive

In the final days of the American Civil War, an emigre Hungarian military officer attempts to map the situation of the enemy. Many veterans of the 1848 War of Independence in Hungary fought on the northern side. Experienced Fiala, Boldogh who struggles with homesickness and the reckless Vereczky all experience their enforced emigration in different ways and news of impending peace elicits different reactions from them all.

Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.

Lights flicker & fade as focus shifts from artificial to natural light, ending on a second artificial light speeding through the blackened miasma of the night sky.

In the nineteenth century, a French adventurer sets off to establish a kingdom in the inhospitable South of Chile, uniting the feared Mapuche under him. The response of the Chilean army is devastating.

In Razor Blades, Paul SHARITS consciously challenges our eyes, ears and minds to withstand a barrage of high powered and often contradictory stimuli. In a careful juxtaposition and fusion of these elements on different parts of our being, usually occurring simultaneously, we feel at times hypnotised and re-educated by some potent and mysterious force.

A documentary that explores the challenges that a life in music can bring.

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

Lacking a formal narrative, Warhol's mammoth film follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City. The film was intended to be screened via dual projector set-up.

This is the only feature directed by the famed French painter and sculptor Martial Raysse. In keeping with the revolutionary spirit of the time, the movie has no plot to speak of and appears to have been largely made up on the spot. We follow the cat man into a bizarre fantasy universe presented in negative exposure that reverses color values (black is white and vice versa) and written words. The cat man steals a car and then picks up a young girl he promises to take to “Heaven.” Heaven turns out to be a country chateau inhabited by several more animal mask wearing weirdoes...

formula, a constantly evolving work updated with each presentation, is a perfect synchronisation between sound frequencies and the movements on the screen. It places the viewer in a binary geometry of space and exploits the darkness to amplify one's perceptions. There is a complete integration of the various elements, composing music, images, lighting and orchestrating the relationships between them through a highly precise score.

Miguel, a debutant director, and his young team live a series of tribulations during the shootings of their first film, which unrolls between Lisbon, Venice, Paris and Madrid.

Suzanne is waking up. In the fleeting moments before she forgets her dreams, she searches her subconscious for an answer to the question on the tip of her tongue. But can Suzanne learn to break free of her suspended state of being? Inspired by the Edward Hopper painting 'Morning Sun.'

A production company begins casting for its next feature, and an up-and-coming actress named Rose tries to manipulate her filmmaker boyfriend, Alex, into giving her a screen test. Alex's wife, Emma, knows about the affair and is considering divorce, while Rose's girlfriend secretly spies on her and attempts to sabotage the relationship. The four storylines in the film were each shot in one take and are shown simultaneously, each taking up a quarter of the screen.

Marguerite loses her wallet, and it's found by Georges, a seemingly happy head of family. As he looks through the wallet and examines the photos of Marguerite, he finds he's fascinated with her and her life, and soon his curiosity about her becomes an obsession.

When the strongest earthquake in a century hit Mexico in 2017, everyone had eyes on the rescue of 12-year old Frida - until the story took a very strange twist.

Cremaster 5 is a five-act opera (sung in Hungarian) set in late-ninteenth century Budapest. The last film in the series, Cremaster 5 represents the moment when the testicles are finally released and sexual differentiation is fully attained. The lamenting tone of the opera suggests that Barney invisions this as a moment of tragedy and loss. The primary character is the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress). Barney, himself, plays three characters who appear in the mind of the Queen: her Diva, Magician, and Giant. The Magician is a stand-in for Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874 and appears as a recurring character in the Cremaster cycle.

Something I know or something I was told? When something scalding translates something to behold.

This is a time when we learn afresh that nothing lasts forever and that the variability is an integral part of everyday life. What is a river today does not mean that tomorrow will not become a sea. Life itself is one large metamorphosis, and the human being is its variable shape...