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...
Moonwalker is a 1988 American experimental anthology musical film starring Michael Jackson. Rather than featuring one continuous narrative, the film expresses the influence of fandom and innocence through a collection of short films about Jackson, some of which are long-form music videos from Jackson's 1987 album Bad. The film is named after his famous dance, "the moonwalk", which he originally learned as "the backslide" but perfected the dance into something no one had seen before. The movie's introduction is a type of music video for Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" but is not the official video for the song. The film then expresses a montage of Michael's career, which leads into a parody of his Bad video titled "Badder", followed by sections "Speed Demon" and "Leave Me Alone". What follows is the biggest section where Michael plays a hero with magical powers and saves three children from Mr. Big. This section is "Smooth Criminal" which leads into a performance of "Come Together".
Begotten is the creation myth brought to life, the story of no less than the violent death of God and the (re)birth of nature on a barren earth.
Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip to the countryside to visit her aunt at their ancestral house. She invites her six friends, Prof, Melody, Mac, Fantasy, Kung Fu, and Sweet, to join her. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.
An attempt to bring the work of surrealist artists to a wider public. The plot is that of an average Joe who can conjure up dreams that will improve his customer's lives. This frame story serves as a link between several avant-garde sequences created by leading visual artists of their day, most of whom were emigres to the US during WWII.
A sexual reverie unfolds over the course of one ethereal night. Characters wander through an erotic maze of love and lust, blurring the lines between wet dream and lucid nightmare as a macabre, erotic stage performance sends a ripple of lustful desires through its audience and performers.
A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.
Dislocation in time, time signatures, time as a philosophical concept, and slavery to time are some of the themes touched upon in this 9-minute experimental film, which was written, directed, and produced by Jim Henson. Screened for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in May of 1965, "Time Piece" enjoyed an eighteen-month run at one Manhattan movie theater and was nominated for an Academy Award for Outstanding Short Subject.
An abandoned seaside resort. The shooting for a fantasy film about the end of an era wraps up. Two women, both members of the film crew, one an actrice, the other a director, Apocalypse and Joy, are on the verge of concluding their love affair.
Drawing inspiration from a poem penned by Castro Alves, this film vividly captures the political, cultural, and intellectual climate of Brazil during the late 1970s. At its core, the story revolves around four distinctive embodiments of Christ's image: a black man, a soldier, an Indian, and a guerrilla fighter. These courageous individuals, hailed as the harbingers of doom in the tupiniquim lands, valiantly combat the insatiable avarice and oppressive "civilizing" brutality propagated by the formidable John Brahms—a foreign exploiter devoid of morals.
Julie, a teen who died from a PCP overdose in the early '70s, searches from beyond the grave for her younger brother Bob, who now in the '90s is an obese watch seller suffering with sucrose intolerance.
Cinematic magician, legendary provocateur, and author of Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger was a unique figure in post-war American culture. His iconic short films are characterised by a mystical-symbolic visual language and phantasmagorical-sensual opulence that underscores the medium’s transgressive potential. Anger’s work fundamentally shaped the aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s subcultures, the visual lexicon of pop and music videos and queer iconography. These nine films form the basis of Anger’s reputation as one of the most influential pioneers of avant-garde film and video art. Fireworks, 1947, 14 min Puce Moment, 1949, 6 min Rabbit's Moon, 1950/1971, 16 min Eaux d'Artifice, 1953, 13 min Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 1954, 37 min Scorpio Rising, 1964, 28 min Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, 3 min Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, 11 min Lucifer Rising, 1981, 27 min
A “reading film” of delirious image and text, Les chants de Maldoror takes its title and inspiration from Comte de Lautréamont’s 1869 proto-Surrealist poetic novel which, for instance, describes beauty as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table. In the novel’s six cantos, a young misanthrope indulges in depraved and destructive acts. Unexpected encounters abound, with turtles and birds joining Terayama’s regular cast of snails and dogs to wander over books and bare torsos. Feverish video processing posterizes, inverts and overlays images that are further colored by sound—pushing the limits of his literary adaptation. Terayama wrote that the only tombstone he wanted was his words, but, as Les chants de Maldoror demonstrates, words need not be confined to carved monuments or bound hardcopies.
A space occupies it, awaiting to be unlocked by a freeing action or notion. What lies ahead is its determination.
While under the effects of anasthesia in a dentist's office, a young man and woman fantasize a romantic triangle between themselves and the dentist.
Hartt’s film Et in Arcadia Ego, commissioned by The Glass House, responds to Philip Johnson’s mid-century modern residence and the surrounding landscape.
30 year old child enters the new city, riding on a donkey. He says he is the Savior. He has spent no time among men. He is trembling with cold. His clothes are soaked. His mother was overprotective ; his father conspicuously absent. He knows that he must face the mockery, refusal, ignorance and blindness of the men around him. They travel in gangs, in large numbers : soldiers, mercenaries or the like, on majestic, imposing horses. Everything is out of proportion to his thin, bewildered, innocent body ; he is the madman of the new city...
FREAK ORLANDO is divided into five more-or-less distinct sections, all featuring "Freak" Orlando, a woman, played by the late Magdalena Montezuma, who appears in various guises, and deformities, throughout.
Experimental short film depicting the life, perhaps real, perhaps a dream, of a young girl named Emi. Emi travels to the city where she encounters her counterpart, Sari, and falls in love with…a vampire?
A baby, John, who was abandoned in the church with a horse-headed koto on his side. His grandfather was once a Morin Khuur player and died in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The brilliantly colored images have an avant-garde charm while hiding the sadness of the war, and will grab the viewer's heart.