"In medical terminology, absence of genitalia in females is referred to as "gynatresia". In other words, an extreme defect that goes beyond a mere illness" 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
The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.
A journey to an unknown star, a children's theatre play, an untalented writer and the fear of becoming the worst version of oneself. A mixture of live-action footage and animated scenes. A stream of (un)conscious stereotypes.
Odvaha
Kren's second film and the first he cut according to a strictly serial, sequence technique: in various frame sizes, the 48 portraits from the Szondi Test for "experimental diagnosis of human impulses" are shown in pre-specified lengths (between one and eight frames).
Bjørn Nørgaard and a team of Czech glass artists in the demanding process of creating a grave monument for Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik of Denmark.
A watchman at an apartment complex in Assam, India, spends an ordinary evening. A surreal, expressionistic landscape unfolds.
The Emmy-winning story of how an American treasure hunter and a Mexican artist transformed a dying desert village into a home for world-class art.
The first artist to be showcased as part of Apple Music’s Up Next series is Atlanta’s 6LACK. For the promotional campaign, Apple hosted a short documentary on 6LACK, an audio/visual EP taken from one of his live sessions, and an in-depth interview between him and Beats 1’s Zane Lowe. Here’s the full EP both audio and visual.
Two damned women escape from hell and discover the modern world. They are followed by Hades coming to collect their souls.
Kaplnka svätej Barbory
An afternoon of training for Olympic diver Greg Louganis transforms into a visual poem about freedom, the flight of the spirit, and the astonishing physical prowess of which the human body is capable. The title of this award-winning short film alludes to the mythical kingfisher, a harbinger of calm after the storm and a symbol of grace, elegance, and vigor.
To summon the third eye awakening, we should not agitate the surface of the mind and physical eye, but soothe and provoke the third eye to awaken. In the gap of time, the flame of images that rise and become eternity is forming the rhythm and the speech. The teachings received in my travels and in green crystals. In distanced mysteries, the half rotten emulsion is the art of metaphysical connection and path of the awakening.
Women, landscapes and manifestations of color meet experimentally with the possibilities of the artisanal copying technique on 16mm.
Starting from frame by frame in-camera editing, the film translates a nursery garden from Chillán into a filmic landscape, with a rhythm and structure coming from a personal relationship with color, light and occurrences that took place near the end of the summer at the Olaxis garden. This is the first part of a work which takes reference from Violeta Parra's poetry, created from flowers, plants and certain places of the Ñuble area.
Electro-Pythagorus is an intimate and subjective portrait of the late Martin Bartlett, the Canadian electronic music pioneer who studied with Pauline Oliveros, David Tudor, John Cage, and Pandit Pran Nath. His contribution as an interdisciplinary composer, educator, and founding member of Western Front, though undoubtedly extensive, is in danger of being erased from cultural memory since his death from AIDS in 1993. Navigating an array of archival materials including letters, correspondences, notebooks, personal photos, and a huge body of unreleased music and field recordings held at the archives of Simon Fraser University, Electro-Pythagoras is a journey through the evolution of Bartlett’s musical time and space, softly guided by Luke Fowler’s insightful camera and montage—creating an experimental portrait that defies one-dimensionality.
A photographer and a painter are challenged to swap mediums, to create an abstract self-portrait exploring unfamiliar techniques.
This documentary features a kinetic artist who creates vibrant mixed media works that push the boundary between 2D and 3D.
The creation of an infinite space. Light modulations over water surfaces, conjugating into multiple alterations. Time and light being reshaped through a liquid lens. The illusion of a starry night turns into a sea “roofed over by rainbows.”
Staggeringly simple films: a man itching his back, a man thinking, a man yawning, but like the works of Samuel Beckett, these minute gestures stand in as grand statements of the human condition, akin to the films of Bas Jan Ader and Marcel Broodthaers.