In the Moroccan desert night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate landscape. From night´s abstraction, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates gaze and duration densify it. The adhan -muslim call to pray- sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolves into the desert.
When asked a question on politics, late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once answered: “I write about love to expose the conditions that don’t allow me to write about love.” In TWO TRAVELERS TO A RIVER Palestinian actress Manal Khader recites such a poem by Mahmoud Darwish: a concise reflection on how things could have been.
An enigmatic glimpse of life through precarious vignettes, propelling a narrative through a nebulous and opaque structure that sutures the filmmaker's home movie footage to archival material—from Hollywood narrative films to political selfie videos. A handmade impression of a time suspended between past and present and the ghosts and places occupying it, contemplating the nature and meaning of vision, memory and image making.
A hearse cruises the streets of Medellín, while a young director tells his story in this city marked by conflicts, violence and paradoxes. He remembers his childhood and the discovery of his sexuality.
Fame driven Ken Dean becomes the subject of a documentary when he attempts to start a pornography company. Following the failure of the company, Ken uses his father's religious music to start a Christian rock band but finds himself trapped in a gay conversion cult.
A ritual of grids, reflections and chasms; a complete state of entropy; a space that devours itself; a vertigo that destroys the gravity of the Earth; a trap that captures us inside the voids of the screen of light: «That blank arena wherein converge at once the hundred spaces» (Hollis Frampton).
Experimental short film that explores the rise and decline of the Soviet Union, from the revolutionary spark of 1917 to the challenges and sacrifices endured during World War II, until its dissolution in 1991.
Juan Méndez Bernal leaves his house on the 9th of april of 1936 to fight in the imminent Spanish Civil War. 83 years later, his body is still one of the Grass Dwellers. The only thing that he leaves from those years on the front is a collection of 28 letters in his own writing.
The Road is a deeply personal experimental film by Jana Hammoudeh, chronicling her journey as a nomadic soul, always on the move yet never truly belonging. Shot across three separate road trips, the film blends visual poetry with intimate monologues in multiple languages, reflecting the fragmented nature of the protagonist’s life. The film’s segments—Leaving Amman, Scrambled Eggs, and Postcards to a Friend—explore themes of love, loss, and freedom. The first segment, set in Amman, presents a conflicted relationship with home, inspired by Charles Bukowski’s Let It Enfold You. The second, in French, revisits past romances, while the third, narrated in Kazakh and Urdu, contemplates departure and longing. Through dreamlike cinematography and raw reflections, The Road captures the bittersweet beauty of transient nature of life and self-discovery.
A visual documentary of Einstürzende Neubauten, the German underground band, by Japanese cult director Sogo Ishii, made during their 1985 tour of Japan. The band makes an elaborate and remarkably choreographed appearance in the ruins of an old ironworks which was scheduled for demolition; footage of same was incorporated into the movie and a brief appearance on stage.
Directed by Jacob Miguel, "PUNK ROCK LOTTERY" embarks on a mission to capture the rapid growth of an annual event known as "The Punk Rock Lottery" in Austin, Texas. What sets this film apart is its self-awareness, playfully breaking the fourth wall and transforming into an immersive journey through history and the creative process. The narrative builds its foundation by featuring insights from punk legends and influential figures who helped shape both the film and Austin itself. As the story unfolds, it delves into the heart of the project as Jacob actively participates in the event, offering an inside look at the frenetic pace of life in a band. Through the experiences of over 30 characters, the film uncovers universal truths about creativity, camaraderie, and the struggles inherent in pursuing one's artistic passion.
In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?
After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.
A long-form 'artist moving image' documentary film that sits in a fictitious conceit that begins in a distant future, inspired by Russell Hoban’s cult novel ‘Riddley Walker’. A medley of documentary, fantasy, song and dance: shot on a tapestry of celluloid film stocks and developed by hand.
Welcome to the funbubble! Over 2 hours of bizarre entertainment. Meet Shaye Saint John, former supermodel who now has no arms or legs and her special friend Kiki (a burnt doll). This series of shorts documents the daily collision of Shaye's glamorous fantasies with the realities of the physical limitations of her everyday life. These films with their juxtaposition of child-like imagery can be genuinely disturbing without a hint of blood, violence, nudity, cursing, or off-color subject matter of any sort. Watching Shaye do her schtick is akin to watching a segment of one of John Waters' early flicks. There is no question about the fine line between maddness and genius here -- it's madness, plain and simple, dizzying in its detachment to reality. Depending on your outlook, Shaye Saint John is either a true testimony to the power of art to rise above adversity or these films are hidden footage from a ward for the criminally insane!
In this documentary, wealthy entrepreneur Bryan Johnson puts his body and fortune on the line to defy aging and extend his life beyond all known limits.
A collection of memories from a tumultuous time at University.
Rhythmic and raw, Dark City Beneath The Beat is a Baltimore club musical experience highlighting local Baltimore club artists, djs, dancers and producers pioneering the sound while rising above social and economic turmoil. Inspired by an original Baltimore club music soundtrack, Dark City Beneath The Beat showcases Baltimore club music as a positive subculture in a city overshadowed by trauma, drugs and violence.
A spate of robberies in Southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, d/Deaf first-time feature director Alison O’Daniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle. The film unfolds mimicking a game of telephone, where sound’s feeble transmissibility is proven as the story bends and weaves to human interpretation and miscommunication. The result is a stunning contribution to cinematic language. O’Daniel has developed a syntax of deafness that offers a complex, overlaid, surprising new texture, which offers a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way.
This experimental short traces the lifespan of the graffiti and murals present at the occupation of NYC’s City Hall in June and July of 2020. The encampment formed to demand the abolishment of the NYPD and the reallocation of its resources to housing, education, and other social programs.