What I Learned at the Harun Farocki Residency

Two decades on from Cinema of Unease, Tim Wong’s essay film contemplates the prevailing image of a national cinema while privileging some of the images and image-makers displaced by the popular view of filmmaking in Aotearoa. Now streaming for free at: films.lumiere.net.nz

An experimental documentary about dead turtles, crab swarms, decaying tennis courts, and microscopic histories. The filmmakers shot their explorations into the abandoned golf courses, factories, and resorts of Sarasota, Florida and spoke to local youths who are using them for new and strange purposes. What would the Surrealists and Situationists think of a suburban, subtropical tourist town? What goes on in a storage unit in the dead of night? What is the afterlife of a decommissioned train car? What ghosts haunt a ruined hotel? What is the life cycle of a city? When will waters wash it all away?

In this deeply personal video diary, a young researcher tries to make sense of her fascination for the film "The Pain of Others" by Penny Lane. A deep dive into the discomforting world of YouTube and online conspiracies, that challenges traditional notions of what documentary cinema is, or should be.

Kogonada's visual essay about the formalistice choices of master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick

A video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns examining Roger Corman’s adaptation of 'The Fall of the House of Usher' in relation to Poe’s story.

90's era home videos of a Mexican father starting a new life in the United States

Valtos is a story told from thirty years hence, in the last moments of its narrator, who awoke one day in 1987 'with the knowledge that I had been duplicated during the night, and that I was an inferior replica of myself'. There follows a relentless, epic, pursuit of an absconding phantom - his 'original' - which ends in catastrophe at Valtos, a place at once ethereal and terrifying.

Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.

A reflection on the fate of humanity in the Anthropocene epoch, White Noise is a roller-coaster of a film, a whirlwind of sounds and images. The fourth feature-length work by Simon Beaulieu, this film essay plunges viewers into a subjective sensory adventure—a direct physical encounter with the information overload of daily life. White Noise transforms the imminent collapse of our civilization into a visceral aesthetic experience.

The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.

Chris Gallagher’s feature-length film essay Time Being is an elegant and thought-provoking investigation of the nature and experience of time, and its filmic representation. 88 one-minute shots or shot-sequences counterpoint a spoken commentary that probes and questions the subject from many different angles – psychological, philosophical, mechanical, cosmological, artistic. Equally, Gallagher combines aspects of different cinemas – documentary, structural, poetic, narrative, and personal – skillfully interweaving all the elements into a complex yet coherent and surprisingly moving statement on the human condition. The most brilliant film on its subject I’ve ever seen, Time Being is cool and non-academic yet deeply engaged, and beautifully shot. An educational film in the best sense. —Tony Reif

A photograph of an unknown Mapuche great-grandmother is the starting point of this documentary essay. Through the analysis of said picture, conversations with family members, a trip to southern Chile cities, and an actress who re-enacts the photo, we see the existing prejudice against indigenous people.

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art.

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art.

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art.

Pradera

A meditative essay.

Photography trip to Bolivia filmed with a rostrum camera and edited with original sounds from the country.

The film in a metaphorical form demonstrates a model of self-devouring in a closed spiritual system, it explores intermediate state between a human and a non-human: a subhuman deprived of a divine spark.

A fragmented collection of independent closed cinemas, in London during lockdown, captured on Super 8mm film.