Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky, shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve close-up images. Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds, the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building, and these only as fleeting glimpses. The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film. The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave, consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax. The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition. The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself: the grain, the light, the shadow and inconsistencies in the print.
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.
Roda Viva Roda Brasil
The title comes from Sergei Yesenin's last poem before comiting suicide. Using Virginia Woolf's last letters as a base, this film is meditation on the power of the word and its undertsanding and the the last moments before saying "goodbye".
Heartbeat
A documentary portrait of Utopia, loosely framed by Plato’s invocation of the lost continent of Atlantis in 360 BC and its re-resurrection via a 1970s science fiction pulp novel.
Man Ray, the master of experimental and fashion photography was also a painter, a filmmaker, a poet, an essayist, a philosopher, and a leader of American modernism. Known for documenting the cultural elite living in France, Man Ray spent much of his time fighting the formal constraints of the visual arts. Ray’s life and art were always provocative, engaging, and challenging.
A small portrait of the volatility of intimacy and of breaking free from abusive cycles: made in response to a year of collapsing relationships and violent accidents that left me broken, dislocated and stuck in my apartment.
An eight-hour contemplative epic, entirely starring sheep.
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.
Drawing on VHS tapes of a programme hosted by her mother on Bulgaria’s national television, the filmmaker gives a pop-style and in-depth chronicle of the gentle – even “over-gentle” – 1989 revolution.
"Ryuta is 5 years old. Even though he is my son, I sometimes wonder what this small person is to me. Even though I see his joys and sadnesses and know the feel of his warmth on my skin when I hold him, there are moments when my feelings for him become vague and blank." - Takashi Ito
"The majority of my 8-mm works were made for the three-minute "Personal Focus" film special put on in Fukuoka. This film is an animation of photographs I had taken on a regular basis as a sort of diary, and was made to have a rough feel to it." - Takashi Ito
A film in which the one 60-story skyscraper that soars in the spaces between roofs spins with incredible speed. I centered the circumference with its 400 or 500 meter radius on the skyscraper and divided it into 48 sections, then took photographs from those spots and shot the photographs frame by frame.
This film is depicts early lesbian sexuality, using reenacted scenes from the experience of a 12-year old girl as the platform for a meditation on forbidden desire, transgression, and Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts of identity formation. Raw adolescent memories counterpoint staged scenes, exploring mechanisms of power and submission.
A young woman and man are riding bikes through nature, having a good time. When she speeds up, he loses her, and after a while he stumbles across her bike without any trace of her. He stumbles through the forest looking for her, imagining how she kisses him. No dialogue, just "audio credits" instead of titles, saying the name of the film, actors and director.
In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.
"This film explores how freedom of speech — including dissent — is afforded to all Americans, and shows freedom of expression in art, music, dance, architecture, and science. The film also emphasizes the importance of the individual’s contribution to the whole of society and demonstrates how a productive and creative society is formed by the open and respectful exchange of ideas. The film was written, produced, and directed by William Greaves" (National Archives).
The inner world of the great painter Max Ernst is the subject of this film. One of the principal founders of Surrealism, Max Ernst explores the nature of materials and the emotional significance of shapes to combine with his collages and netherworld canvases. The director and Ernst together use the film creatively as a medium to explain the artist's own development.