The Ruins

A drawing of an ancient bathhouse in a French travel book to the Middle East sparks a visual poem, inspired by the Arab poetry tradition of "standing by the ruins". The ambivalence of the five-hundred-year-old image gestures towards enduring capitalist and colonial power dynamics. Pleasure and pain, seduction and domination, archives and ruins, histories of sex, and histories of empire, all commingle in this essay film. What transpires is a web of visible and invisible threads where homosexuality in the Middle East today seems to be enmeshe

Kewaaj

The word kewaaj (কেওয়াজ) is colloquially used to explain chaos, noisiness or annoyance. "Kewaaj" is an audiovisual attempt to give you a glimpse into how the people of Dhaka function in one of the most unliveable cities, according to the Global Liveability Index.

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An unknown girl breaks out of her daily grind by undergoing an intense audio-visual trip.

Corner

The corner of a street is matched and mixed with the chant of a bird recorded on that same street. A symbiotic relationship is triggered: the rapid and successively repetitive montage cuts between the image of the street and the corners of the video frame itself produce new textures and shapes in our brain, whilst the sound follows the same rhythmic movements by emphasizing different “corners” (frequencies) from the bird’s singing. The energetic potency stemming from the junction of these elements creates a new image that is almost tactitle, maleable and rippling. The result is a somewhat humorous operation of the portuguese word "corner" throughout the different stages of making the piece, finally unveiling a piercing physical and kinetic experience for all the corners of our eyes and ears.

Blocked Together

Whilst a boy mourns the passing of his younger brother, hope of unity is found in his grief.

Chinese Characters

Best known for his work in video, Richard Fung has made the politics of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation his central focus. Chinese Characters (1986) examines the ambiguous relationship of gay Asian men with white gay porn.

Yoni

This provocative short film explores women's power, force and passion through an enigmatic series of images, erotic performances and tableaux vivant. Beautifully shot, it references as well as recreates a trajectory of images of women throughout history. Moving from the slow, thoughtful effect of allegorical painting to the fast paced impact of MTV, Yoni plays with the structures of stylization, narrative and montage. There is a poetic and lyrical feel to this film's investigation of representing the feminine and it manages to explore both the chains that bind as well as the threads that connect women --across time, culture and history.

Remastered Brutality

Alinur, a student filmmaker, tries to make a film about the apocalypse for his capstone project. The movie itself happens to be about a mercenary named M who inadvertently causes an apocalypse. As he tries to “create” the destruction of this supposed apocalypse through utilizing technical gimmicks that he has enforced onto the production of the film, this supposed effort also creeps in as a force that starts to “destroy” him, piece by piece. The outcome of it tests the sincerity of not only the film itself but also of the performative efforts that Alinur has made as a filmmaker—even this test might not be as sincere as it seems.

Dantes Traum von der Hölle

An attempt to bring texts from Dante's "Divine Comedy" to life. Nine episodes from the Inferno with a concluding episode from the Purgatorio.

Interferenzen

Experimental short film

Echo

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?

Le crash

Otto Betulle

Friend of the World

After a catastrophic global war, a young filmmaker awakens in the carnage and seeks refuge in the only other survivor: an eccentric, ideologically opposed figure of the United States military. Together, they brave the toxic landscape in search of safety... and answers.

It’s Only a Film

Bobby breadcrumb lives a terrible life of hitting his head on doorways, running out of milk, and slipping on banana peels. In an effort to find meaning and change the script of his life, he journeys beyond the fourth wall to fight against the powers that be.

Orbit

The sun’s energy circulates throughout the earth, feeding the cycle of life. Everything is connected in a natural loop, which repeats, like the circular discs of magical optical toys. This perfectly balanced rhythm is disrupted by human excess, throwing the cycle out of orbit and temporarily stopping the circulation of energy in nature.

The Inexhaustible Variety of Life

A conversation between reality and consciousness.

Chamber

"The film's title takes into account meanings and implication of the word 'chamber', as well as of the heart, intimate music, darkness, room, camera, prison, gun part...both empty and loaded. CHAMBER provided my conversion from painter to filmmaker." -JB

Parergon

“All that which in Picture is not of the body or argument thereof is Landskip, Parergon, or By-work” (Thomas Blount, Glossographia, 1656).

Witness

Experimental short film by Barbara Sykes

The Lady from Nowhere

A mysterious woman, claiming to be a nurse who had disappeared during the bombing of Nagasaki, communicates with an atomic plant engineer by means of his TV set

Guilt Trip: Hitchcock and 'The Wrong Man'

Documentary on the making of Alfred Hitchcock’s "The Wrong Man."

The Secrets of Love: Three Rakish Tales

Three erotic stories from classic writers Marguerite de Navarre, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne and Guy de Maupassant.

Jurassic Fight Club

Jurassic Fight Club, a paleontology-based miniseries that ran for 12 episodes, depicts how prehistoric beasts hunted their prey, dissecting these battles and uncovering a predatory world far more calculated and complex than originally thought. It was hosted by George Blasing, a self-taught paleontologist.

Red, Honest, in Love

A story about a young fox Ludwig XIV Larsen and his friendship with a handsome chicken Tutta Karlson. Based on Jan-Olof Ekholm book.

Mana Huncha Khina Sawule Chuti Dinna Aama

The air in London was damp and cold, a stark contrast to the vibrant warmth of Kathmandu that Anmol often dreamed of. It had been five years since he left Nepal for the United Kingdom, chasing the dreams his mother, Susmita, had envisioned for him. She had sacrificed everything-her small savings, her comfort, and her daily joy of having her son by her side-so Anmol could study and build a better life abroad. Anmol was a hard worker, juggling university classes and long hours at Amrish's restaurant. The boss, a shrewd businessman, valued profits over people. Anmol, like the rest of the staff, was little more than a cog in the relentless machinery of the restaurant's success. One evening, after another grueling 12-hour shift, Anmol sat on his small bed in his shared apartment. His phone buzzed. It was his mother. "Anmol, Dashain and Tihar are coming. I've cleaned the house and even set aside some money to buy your favorite sweets.

White Wolf

A gray wolf raised on a farm kills the family dog, and to save him from being destroyed, a boy named Lasset makes a trek through the wilderness with the wolf to a wilderness sanctuary 300 miles to the north. The BGM in the film consists entirely of Dvorak's Serenade for Strings, making it perhaps the only anime since Gauche the Cellist to make use of a single piece of classical music as the soundtrack. The plot of the film is simple and the outcome obvious, but the atmosphere of the film is genuine, and it is very moving in parts thanks to Dvorak's music (which is scored entirely for the most emotional of the instrument groups, the strings). This is a straightforward drama about the friendship between a boy and his wolf, and it pushes all the buttons you'd expect, but it's very enjoyable despite all that.

Bigfoot or Bust

A team of celebrities head out on a quest to search for the Bigfoot, unaware another group of time traveling women from the future are also looking for the creature.

Desperate Widows

A widow and her daughter join a commune that is actually a front for something much more sinister.

Vacation of Petrov and Vasechkin, Usual and Incredible

In the first part, the students complain that classic works of literature have no bearing on modern life - and find themselves in a situation strangely resembling something they've read... It's Gogol's "Inspector General" - but set in a summer camp... In the second part, after reading Don Quixote, the ever-adventurous Vasechkin convinces more cautious Petrov that he has found a game that they could play for life. No sooner they go off than Vasechkin, on a bike, brandishing an umbrella, attacks a giant... That is, a windmill...

The Sound of Falling

A tangerine farmer lives on the outskirts of the city of Taiwan. His financial problems lead him to make decisions that take him out of the farm routine.

And Still I Believe

Originally called World '68, later retitled The World of Today Romm’s film was conceived as an impassioned, large-scale essay on the origins of the 20th century and the subsequent reality the disappointed director felt slipping away from him. The film itself slipped away from him and was left unfinished at the time of his death. His younger colleagues, Marlen Khutsiev, Elem Klimov and German Lavrov, completed the film from the elements he left behind in addition to segments from Ordinary Fascism, closing the film with Romm’s ultimately optimistic outlook: "And still I believe that man is sensible..."

Anari

A country rube goes to the city to try and find work and runs into misunderstandings and trouble.

Bus Conductor

Kunjakka, a bus conductor, struggles as his rival Anil, who runs another bus in the same city, always creates trouble for him.

Cotoons

This is a fantastically lovely, modern computer animation for little childrens.