A haiku about a window and a woman.
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A woman walks, loves, eats and washes herself, dances. It all takes place in a bedroom. At times flashbacks, or visualizations of previous or following scenes. Unless her life in the bedroom becomes an obsession, she lives through the other scenes.
Homeo is a mental construction made from visual reality, just as music is made from auditive reality. I put in this film no personal intentions. All my intentions are personal. I’ve made this film thinking of what the audience would have liked to see, not something specific that I wanted to say: what the film depicts is above all reality, not fiction. Homeo is, for me, the search for an autonomous cinematographic language, which doesn't owe anything to traditional narrative, or maybe everything. Cinema is, above all, part of a way of life which will become more and more self-assured in the years and century to come. We are part of this change, and that’s why I tried in Homeo to establish a series of perpetual changes, in constant evolution or regress, which tries, above all, to focus on things.
One of the very few films made by Etienne O'Leary, all of which emerged from the French underground circa 1968 and can be very loosely designated 'diary films.' Like the contemporaneous films by O'Leary's more famous friend Pierre Clementi, they trippily document the drug-drenched hedonism of that era's dandies. O'Leary worked with an intoxicating style that foregrounded rapid and even subliminal cutting, dense layering of superimposed images and a spontaneous notebook type shooting style. Yet even if much of O'Leary's material was initially 'diaristic,' depicting the friends, lovers, and places that he encountered in his private life, the metamorphoses it underwent during editing transformed it into a series of ambiguously fictionalized, sometimes darkly sexual fantasias. - Experimental Film Club
In the eyes of a foreigner practically any street of Mexico City’s Centro Histórico holds potential for a film. Life on the street deserves more than just the natural condition of observer anyone could have, it demands an extra attention. In a 100-meter radius, the sociological exuberance of the events going on is simply impossible to ignore. The street is a mise en scène in itself.
An insight into the lecture "How to rule the others" given by Mr. Slobodan Cirkovic 'Roko', a well-known Yugoslav experimentalist on telepathy and hypnosis.
Larry Gottheim’s Fog Line consists of a fixed shot of clearing fog in a valley in upstate New York where he lived and worked in the early seventies.
Rupert, a ten year old boy, falls hopelessly in love for the first time. When it all goes terribly wrong, he wishes never to experience heartache again. Turning to a book of magic, he invokes a spell to shield him from emotion forever.
An early experiment in employing computers to animate film. The result is a dazzling vibration of geometric forms in vivid color, an effect achieved by varying the speed at which alternate colors change, so producing optical illusions. In between these screen pyrotechnics appears a simple line form gyrating in smooth rhythm. Sound effects are created by registering sound shapes directly on the soundtrack of the film.
The short film is a montage of sped up clips of The Ringling Brothers Circus in action set to a musical track. The film is separated into four segments, each segment which focuses on different acts within the circus. The later segments often incorporate clips from earlier segments, mostly as background to the featured acts. The speed of the clips match the tempo of the soundtrack music.
The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.
"In the first shot of Reinke’s new feature length video, we see the desert landscape of the American Southwest from a car window. Though shaky and handheld, it is an immediately recognizable and iconic image: the great vistas of Hollywood westerns, of American westward expansion, of monumental modernist land art from the late 20th century. On the soundtrack, Reinke’s unmistakable voice apologizes for beginning the film with a shot of a landscape from a moving car, but what is he to do? The camera is already rolling. This moment encapsulates much of what transpires in the scenes that follow: presenting us with an image, dismissing that image and wryly suggesting he is doing nothing here, that the footage is just unreeling. Reinke’s collection and organization of images and sounds seem casual at first, but ultimately reveal themselves to be heavily mediated and orchestrated."
Through the uses of kinescope, video, multimedia, and direct painting on film, an impression is gained of the frantic action of protoplasm under a microscope where an imaginative viewer may see the genesis of it all. – Grove Press Film Catalog
Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory.
Featuring a cast that includes Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, Mike Watt of the legendary hardcore band Minutemen, and Pettibon himself, this deadpan narrative pays dubious homage to the 1960's radical underground. In this crudely rendered home video of a commune of stoned revolutionaries, the cameras are hand-held, the edits in-camera, and the dialogue is wryly on-target. Pettibon's band of outsiders reenacts a countercultural moment defined by rock music, drugs, and ideological paradox — and in so doing, captures their own late-80's West Coast grunge milieu as well.
A psychiatrist and his patient discuss their relationship in a snow-covered field.
(…) To go to the other side, she builds a night vision, from those whom make the dead alive. A vision that has the makings of a dream, which makes the invisible visible: Orpheus falls asleep and allows the cinema to be.
This experiment was a “prestige advertisement” for Shell Motor Oil. As conventional animation became dominated by Walt Disney, many European filmmakers turned to puppets as an alternative, and Lye enlisted the help of avant-garde friends such as Humphrey Jennings and John Banting to make the amusing puppets. Exploring the still-complex color process, which involved the combination of three separate images, Lye creates such a vivid storm scene that reviewers hailed it as “proof that the color film has entered a new stage.” The music is Holst’s The Planets. - Harvard Film Archive
Intended as a publicity film for Chrysler, Rhythm uses rapid editing to speed up the assembly of a car, synchronizing it to African drum music. The sponsor was horrified by the music and suspicious of the way a worker was shown winking at the camera; although Rhythm won first prize at a New York advertising festival, it was disqualified because Chrysler had never given it a television screening. P. Adams Sitney wrote, “Although his reputation has been sustained by the invention of direct painting on film, Lye deserves equal credit as one of the great masters of montage.” And in Film Culture, Jonas Mekas said to Peter Kubelka, “Have you seen Len Lye’s 50-second automobile commercial? Nothing happens there…except that it’s filled with some kind of secret action of cinema.” - Harvard Film Archive
In December, 1941, using music by Stravinsky, this film provides a reaction to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. An egg is smashed by a hammer; red color with white and then blue dominates the frame. Blue paint runs; small bulbs float. The dark colors spread. White, red, blue, and black dominate the frame. Then comes fire. The bulbs burn and break. A broken bulb's filaments are exposed.
A film woven around the idea that between early cinema and avant-garde film exists a connection.
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.
In this gripping tale of double revenge featuring some of the most brutal fighting you've ever seen, only one man, Chai Sing - holds the key to stopping this relentless evil.
After a ranch in Texas is befallen to a mysterious, demonic presence, it is up to an eccentric, wandering priest to find answers and dispel the darkness. As he digs deeper he soon finds that he may be in over his head and out of time.
Mercedes and Pedro, Cuban producers and screenwriters, travel to Spain to close an agreement with Alberto, a Spanish producer. Together, they try to make a film about Cuban reality. A movie about those who leave the island, those who return, but also those who still want to leave but cannot. A simple idea that will slowly become more complicated because Spaniards and Cubans have a very different point of view on this reality.
What happens when you accidentally seem to have summoned the spirit of your late wife who now haunts you while you live with your NEW wife…? Lots of laughter, that’s what.
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.
Joe the Burglar explains how he goes about his job for the benefit of the audience, providing a lesson in how to avoid being broken into.
A skateboarding film featuring the Lakai team filmed over the course of 4 years.
A timid, directionless man is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.
Mexico, 1928. Santiago lives with his mother Alejandra and his stepfather Arturo. The apparent peace in which they live in is interrupted by the presence of some madness that only Santiago feels. David, Alejandra's husband, who disappeared and was believed dead, seems to have come back.
Sung-Ae movie about the story of the hero who watched videos of husband and wife
An extraordinary group of artists and musicians, in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, creates an underground arts movement and transform a community.
Jade Chloros is suffering a great loss; the loss of her father. A coping mechanism for Jade and her mother are their strong religious beliefs; however, Jade has felt too much pain to believe that God will help her. Jade begins to rebel against herself and her religion. One night, after a bath, Jade finds herself in an empty grass field with the only thing in sight being a 24 hour diner: The Green Hat Diner. After Jade enters the diner to use their phone to call her mother, Ariel, the diner’s outgoing waitress, tries everything she can to convince Jade to not go home. As the night goes on, the diner becomes more eerie, and Ariel becomes more sinister. It is clear to Jade that this is not a typical 24/7 diner. Jade tries everything she can to escape, but she comes to realize that it may not be possible.
Reflection is a short film that reflects how others see us in relation to who we actually are, and that nobody is or ever will be perfect in others' eyes. As Lamis closes her eyes she realizes that everything that happens in her head isn't true, and that she shouldn't compare herself to other people, and not everything we see is the truth.
Chloe fell in love with Damian at first sight during a nursing job. Later, in order to save her seriously ill father, she married Damian, who was accidentally blind, at the suggestion of Damian's grandmother. After the wedding night, Damian misunderstood Chloe and drove her away. Eight months later, Chloe was alone with twins and had to deliver food because of lack of money.
Yasuo (Hiroshi Abe) grew up as an orphan. He married a woman he loved and they had a son Akira (later played by Takumi Kitamura). Yasuo's life seemed great at the time, but his life totally changed after his wife died in accident. Since that time, Yasuo, who never experienced parents' love himself, has to raise his son Akira alone.
