There is no escape… From one side of the globe to the other, there is no escaping the faces, the visions, the ever-watchful camera. There is no escaping the mask, there is no escaping the resonating echoes of images and sounds that cross each other over time. There is no escaping the cinema. There is no escaping the terrors of the mind. “A mysterious loner, perhaps a poet, journeys through a series of uncanny surrealistic landscapes with an unclear purpose. His adventure is divided into three sections. The main theme of this experiment is to compare the eerier qualities of different landscapes and interpose the characters within them, elaborating the project’s ongoing preoccupation with extracting sinister moods from ordinary settings. In a way, these can be seen as experimental horror films in which an atmosphere of dread is evoked and sustained without the expected narrative trappings.”
Experimental film by Toshio Matsumoto created for the 1970 world's fair, Expo '70 in Osaka. The film was made up of multiple projections onto the inside of the Textile Pavilion, a dome with an interior designed by Yokoo Tadanori, and featured a 57-channel music score by Joji Yuasa.
Part of the larger filmic Four Journeys Into Mystic Time, in this work director Shirley Clarke makes use of a dancer’s body not only as the primary performer, but also as a canvas on which to paint projected images. Further enhanced by editing and effective use of shadows, the film is a transformative experience.
Disillusioned English banker's wife Mary meets troubled Italian immigrant Bruno, with whom she is captivated by and they set off on a voyage on which they meet a variety of society's dropouts.
Avant-garde homage to pre-revolution Russian silent movies, and to the poet Aleksandr Blok.
Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.
An abstract work featuring three dancers, the performers interact with large screens as well as each other. Included in Shirley Clarke’s Four Journeys Into Mystic Time, costuming and color play an integral role in this piece.
Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche.
Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep is a hypnotic and oneiric cinematic poem composed from footage Michael Higgins shot on the road across Alberta and BC, Canada. Photographed on Super 8mm and using hand-processed film techniques to create an unworldly zone between sleep and wakefulness, it looks at three characters and the film’s material that connects them. It is a film that invites the viewer to sleep with the film’s protagonists, to drift across into the dream world of the film’s material and lose touch with their current surroundings.
CREMASTER 3 is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect...
CREMASTER 4 adheres most closely to the project's biological model. This penultimate episode describes the system's onward rush toward descension despite its resistance to division. The logo for this chapter is the Manx triskelion - three identical armored legs revolving around a central axis. Set on the Isle of Man, the film absorbs the island's folklore...
Mix of arthouse, comedy, horror. A man who has committed numerous crimes rescues a dog. An unique experimental movie in which a dog who died in a traffic accident after being tossed around by humans is reborn as a heretic and attempts revenge on humans. Under the guidance of the devil, he is reborn as a scarecrow to bring the Blood Festival. A 35mm independent film by the director who loves to make movies, but is not interested in professional film directors. The director who was shocked to see a picture of a dog abused and abandoned by humans, devoted his passion to this unique work that took seven years to complete.
A bohemian painter named Artist and a guitarist named James meet at a concert and have an instant connection. They start a philosophical discussion at her apartment, but they are interrupted by strange occurrences which reveal they are no longer in reality but an ominous dream world. Both Artist and James are confronted by characters and situations from their past, and they must work together to put the memory pieces together and escape to reality, if they can.
Be better and more beautiful than you were before.
A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.
A Hollywood actor grows tired of making the same corporate movies, so he moves to Argentina to find more experimental and meaningful work.
An attempt to bring the work of surrealist artists to a wider public. The plot is that of an average Joe who can conjure up dreams that will improve his customer's lives. This frame story serves as a link between several avant-garde sequences created by leading visual artists of their day, most of whom were emigres to the US during WWII.
In 1983, yacht sailor Will Parker leads an American crew financed by millionaire Morgan Weld to defeat during the America's Cup race against an Australian crew. Determined to get the prize back, Will convinces Morgan to finance an experimental boat designed by his ex-girlfriend Kate's new beau, Joe Heisler. When the boat is completed, the Americans head to Australia to reclaim the cup.
Experimental film by Aldo Francia that consists in diverse situations through the 123 steps of the Santa Justina staircase in the Cerro Larraín of Valparaíso.
An experimental journey through a year in the life of the director, using his always playing playlist to cross the boundaries of fiction and documentary. Through scenes of both comedy and tragedy, realistic documentary footage and experimental sequences of the director's environment and daily life we get a sometimes estranging image of a young man and also an intriguing insight in his mindset and how this translates to the imagery on screen.