Set halfway through the 17th century, a church play is performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.
The Alchemist assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.
Five lonesome cowboys get all hot and bothered at home on the range after confronting Ramona Alvarez and her nurse.
Jack Douglas interviews for a position at Egress, the most prestigious company in the world. Disturbed by a confident applicant, the liminal office space, and an authoritative interviewer, Jack is forced to confront the worst parts of himself and his past.
The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.
Two young men and two girls on a moonlit night confess to each other in their strange fantasies and loves that go beyond the usual standards.. The impetus to making the film was the book of the same name by the Russian religious philosopher Vasily Rozanov, who died 100 years ago. His treatise was devoted to the study of sexuality and its denial in Christianity. The film was made in the style of experimental films of the 1920s with a non-linear narration full of strange surrealistic images. He is black and white and devoid of dialogue. Filmed on film 16 mm of firm "Svema", released in the USSR. This added to his exoticism. The image was put to the music of Alexander Scriabin “The Poem of Ecstasy” (1907).
Conducting a series of experiments in his makeshift home-lab, a skeptic IT worker tries to cure his harrowing hearing impairment. But where will his research lead him? "Masking Threshold" combines a chamber play, a scientific procedural, an unpacking video, and a DIY YouTube channel while suggesting endless vistas of existential pain and decay. Glimpse the world of the nameless protagonist in this eldritch tale, which is by no means for the faint of heart.
Swain is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Fanshawe, features a dreamlike narrative of a young man’s ritualized rejection of heterosexuality, as a mysterious woman in white gossamer pursues him through a ruined landscape.
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.
Features four distinct, bizarre, existential tales about people whose lives are in transition, who are each asking questions about themselves, their environments, and about God(s).
Frank Scheffer's (collage like) documentary on the American composer and rock guitarist Frank Zappa, as broadcast by VPRO in the Netherlands April 22,2007. Most of what’s on here is seen before, particularly in Roelof Kier’s 1971 documentary and/or Scheffer’s own documentary “A present day composer refuses to die”. But there is some new stuff too, particularly interviews with Denny Walley, Haskell Wekler, Elliot Ingber and Bruce Fowler.
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
A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his mother – the leader of a strange religious cult – and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.
A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.
A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.
Solo live concert recorded in Brussels, April 12, 1992. Tracks: 1) On A Wedding Anniversary 2) Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed 3) Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night 4) The Soul of Carmen Miranda 5) Cordoba 6) Ship Of Fools 7) Leaving It Up To You 8) The Ballad Of Cable Hogue 9) Chinese Envoy 10) Fear Is A Man's Best Friend 11) Dying On The Vine 12) Heartbreak Hotel 13) Paris 1919 14) (I Keep A) Close Watch 15) Hallelujah
Dinner time in a remote home of a prairie family turns nightmarish when a band of blood spattered outlaws break through the front door in search of food, horses, and women. Nothing is as it seems in this constantly twisting genre bender.
Tom is a young guy from Zagreb, completely without money, trying to make films in Belgrade. He somehow manages to survive with a help of women. He doesn't believe in anybody, respects no one and is in constant conflict with the ruling system and order. After being left by a silly American girl, Tom binds with a woman whose husband is abroad. When she kicks him out, he moves in with her husband's sister, who later kills him in the attack of jealousy. All this is shown in the context of major historical events prior to 1968. with lots of archive footage of world leaders.
An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.
Two actresses, Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are on a film set telling stories about witches.