Das Prinzip Dada

Exclusively created with period engravings, this animated feature explores the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the ensuing Paris Commune revolution in 1871.

Man Ray, the master of experimental and fashion photography was also a painter, a filmmaker, a poet, an essayist, a philosopher, and a leader of American modernism. Known for documenting the cultural elite living in France, Man Ray spent much of his time fighting the formal constraints of the visual arts. Ray’s life and art were always provocative, engaging, and challenging.

Documentary on industrial lubrification.

Seeing the Great War, no longer content with simply recounting it, but showing it and embodying it: this is what comics offer today. By questioning archives and history, the comic book authors featured in this film engage in a dialogue with the depths of time. They bring the First World War back to life in our imagination: their drawings are more than just lines.

Paul Grimault, image par image

Drôle d'oiseau

A documentary-feature film mix detailing the life of famous German dadaist Kurt Schwitters.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the surreal art movement, comedian Jim Moir (a.k.a. Vic Reeves) presents this documentary exploring the history of Dadism and the lasting influence it has had on himself and others.

A short documentary about the life of director and artist René Laloux, featuring an interview with Laloux from 2001.

Two Penny Magic (Zweigroschenzauber) starting off with a little magic trick. It then presents an array of images from swimmers, bicyclers, murderers, airplanes in flight, boxers, lovers, runners, becoming in the end a collection of images in a magazine.

This walk in the daily life of several psychiatric institutions, allows us to meet extraordinary people who let us enter their privacy.

Canceled short film.

The Awakened Dreamer

Bokanowski returns to the complex - and mind-bending - optical array of pinholes, mirrors, prisms, and refractive substrates of his earlier film, La Plage to create the whimsical and playful Au bord du lac. The film is composed of mundane, everyday scenes of recreation and leisure on an idyllic, sunny day at a park that overlooks a lake - rowing a boat, playing a game of volleyball, rollerskating, bicycling, reading a newspaper, sunbathing, riding on horseback, or strolling on the promenade - shot through optical distortions to create fractured and knotted images that resemble embellished, gothic fairytale illustrations or appear to resolve into morphing, geometric patterns of fluid motion. Evoking the vibrant colors and sun-soaked palette of an invigorated Vincent van Gogh in Arles, Bokanowski transforms the quotidian into an infinitely mesmerizing dynamic kaleidoscope of shape-shifting textures and self-reconstituting objects of organic, abstract art.

S'il n'en reste qu'un, nous serons ces deux-là

Jim Dine at work and at home. Includes footage of Dine discussing his life, his artistic development, and what is called "ugly" in his work. Examines a number of Dine's works from different periods, including his tie paintings, tool paintings, palettes, collages, and "happenings," and considers Dine's concern with objects in his work.

Pouce, on tourne

"The Role of Chance" ("La part du hasard") focuses exclusively on drawing and painting techniques used by the painter Henri Dimier. Shot over several weeks in the same artist's studio, the film shows works in their different phases, processes rarely explained or little known. It also addresses many practical issues (choice of paper, pigment grinding, reports drawings, put the tiles, cliches, etc) as well as broader questions of method and inspiration (use of space, the role of contours, power of suggestion perspectives, use of random processes). Patrick Bokanowski sought with this film to restore the spirit of this teaching, showing how to bend a note or sometimes revealing an essential mystery of creation.

Six exotic fables, each unfold in a unique locale, from Tibet, to medieval Europe, an Aztec kingdom, the African plains, and even the Land of the Dead.

An animated film by French auteur Émile Cohl, one of the earliest examples of hand-drawn film animation. Drawing inspiration from J. Stuart Blackton and the Incoherents of club Hydropathes, the film, with all its wild transformations, sees our protagonist materialize a movie theatre, meet an elephant and escape from jail; A morphing, stream-of-consciousness delight.