Simmons, best-known for her photographs of miniature rooms populated by dolls and of oversized objects—such as a house, birthday cake, and pistol—balanced on female legs, both human and fake, brings these characters to life in a three-act mini-musical. The film is inspired by three distinct periods of Simmons’s photographic work: vintage hand puppets, ventriloquist dummies and walking objects enact tales of ambition, disappointment, love, loss, and regret. Working with composer Michael Rohaytn ("Personal Velocity") and cameraman Ed Lachman ("The Virgin Suicides" and "Far From Heaven"), Simmons’s puppets come to life in miniature domestic scenes that echo real life.
A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.
A character from a musical film falls into the real world in this short, predating similar films by Woody Allen (The Purple Rose of Cairo) and Wojciech Marczewski (Escape from the 'Liberty' Cinema).
A filmed version of Aaron Copland's most famous ballet, with its original star, who also choreographed.
Utterly astounding, iridescent sand animation from Aleksandra Korejwo based around Bizet's Carmen.
A beautifully fluid sand animation inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns' piece, 'Danse Macabre.'
A romantic drama about two couples shifting sexual dynamics over one night in a music bar.
The 2017 OSCAR® nominated short films, live action: Midenki (Sing), Silent Nights, Timecode, Ennemis Interieurs (Enemies Within), La Femme et le TGV (The Woman and the TGV).
Stepping is a dance form that can be found across the country at virtually every college with a substantial African American enrollment. Stepping is performed informally during parties as well as more formally during organized step shows. This film explores this tradition, its historical roots as well as its contemporary forms, styles and uses, to understand how students construct various levels of identity through this dance form…African American identity, fraternity or sorority identity, gendered identity and personal identity. The film goes behind the scenes with the Alpha Phi Alphas as they prepare for a step show that is only a few hours away. Cutting between this show and interviews with current and past steppers as well as footage from previous shows, the film provides a broad picture of this vibrant and dynamic dance form.
Tar Steam Princess Armada travels along Lake Saimaa to St. Petersburg and back during the years of Russian rule over Finland. The ship's crew gets tired of their sophisticated coffee maker and replaces her with Roma girl Veera, who has escaped from an arranged marriage. On the way back, mysterious passengers appear on the ship.
Inspired by the horrific Mann family murders of spring 1988, Garden Valley follows two friends lost in a haze of hard rock, reckless choices, drugs, and volatile romance. Set against the bleak landscape of the Garden Valley trailer park on San Antonio’s Southside, the story unfolds over one fateful day—April 14, 1988—when their lives descend into chaos, obsession, and the lingering psychological shadows of violence.
Tina, a singing Gypsy with a band of roving gypsies, is invited by Tom to come over to his mother's estate where a lawn party is in progress. She brings along her friends and a whole caravan of gypsies take over the green, telling fortunes, singing and dancing. Most of the comedy is supplied by the kleptomaniac butler, Bellingham, and his employer who humors his nutty ways...as good help seems to be hard to find.
A tribute to Mexican animation, with the characters of The Leyends, Villainous and Frankelda. Inspired by the music of Mecano.
Surrendering the mind to the hypnotic dance of fire, a candle's glimmer reveals dreamlike memories, illustrated by flickering fragments of experimental films that overlap alongside a deconstructed soundscape. Entering a hallucinatory state in a haunted ambience, one's own subconscious is put on display.
During a game of catch-the-boy-and-kiss-him, Emmy, a precocious ten-year-old, kisses another little girl, Alice.
Pina Bausch created and performed Café Müller for her dance company Tanztheater Wuppertal. The dance was inspired by and based on her childhood memories of watching her father work at his café in Germany during and immediately following World War II. In this silent style featurette, Bausch shows a restaurant after closing, in which the ghosts of the departed customers stumble blindly into walls and onto chairs but fail to find one another.
The film sketches the creative life of the protagonist Kapila. The film’s narrative is structured as one day in the life of a Koodiyattam performer.
A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.
A short film exploring queerness, blackness and religion.
A story of an artist entertainer who swallowed razors, glasses, records, light bulbs, nails, forks and everything else hard to swallow. Cannibalism and auto-cannibalism included.