Doors and Windows

Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly falling in love.

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.

Bas Jan Ader hangs from the branch of a tall tree, until he loses his grip and falls into a river below.

Bas Jan Ader's first fall film shows him seated on a chair, tumbling from the roof of his two-storey house in the Inland Empire.

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.

Welcome to the temple of fear and eroticism, as a monstrous madman slowly mutilates poor young girls! See the sensual act of voodoo performed on an innocent bar patron! View the lustful bite of a vampire!

The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.

Nina Regan, an established performance artist, launches her much-anticipated exhibition, the first since spending a decade in prison for the killing of her long-term collaborator Saul Olufsen.

A remarkable walk through the life and work of the French artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), one of the most important creators of the 20th century, revolutionary of arts, aesthetics and pop culture.

A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.

Tony spends his Saturdays at a disco where his stylish moves raise his popularity among the patrons. But his life outside the disco is not easy and things change when he gets attracted to Stephanie.

Dirty Martini and Tigger!, stars of the New York underground scene, reveal some of the secrets of their provocative and remonstrative forms of artistic expression in New York’s Off-Off-Broadway. Meanwhile, they will help us to understand from their everyday intimacy the reasons, the struggles and the keys that keep them in their place as the figures and references of the burlesque revival, more than 20 years after the phenomenon exploded in the New York of the 90s.

RABL combines film, early 3D computer animated human movement, and dance. RABL explores the interaction of human bodies and technology with choreography by Patrice M Regnier and the support of the Computer Graphics Laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology.

High school hotshot Zach Siler is the envy of his peers. But his popularity declines sharply when his cheerleader girlfriend, Taylor, leaves him for sleazy reality-television star Brock Hudson. Desperate to revive his fading reputation, Siler agrees to a seemingly impossible challenge. He has six weeks to gain the trust of nerdy outcast Laney Boggs -- and help her to become the school's next prom queen.

In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.

The heroic Leonidas, armed with nothing but leather underwear and a cape, leads a ragtag group of thirteen Spartans to defend their homeland against the invading Persians (whose ranks include Ghost Rider, Rocky Balboa, the Transformers, and a hunchbacked Paris Hilton). No one is safe when the Spartans take on the biggest icons in pop culture!

Starring the Academy Award-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, shot in high-definition video, and was transferred to 35mm film. Portrays a performance artist, Jack Narwhal, who cut himself into pieces for display in major museums around the world. In this film, he explains his bodiless condition to a belligerent workman who is setting up another exhibit in the gallery.

IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi, two intelligent and passionate men, found new depths in Shakespeare’s classic drama, Hamlet. Filmmakers Mark Olshaker and Larry Klein follow the company through four weeks of rehearsals, from the first read-throughs to opening night.