"In Re-entry he successfully synthesizes the Yogic and the cosmological elements in his art for the first time by forcefully abstracting and playing down both of them..." P. Adams Sitney
Social & External
For five grueling years, Li Ning documents his struggle to achieve success as an avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li's chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen. Tape shatters documentary conventions, utilizing a variety of approaches, including guerilla documentary, experimental street video, even CGI. Tape captures a decade's worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.
Hand painted directly onto film stock by Margaret Tait, this film features animated dancing figures, accompanied by authentic calypso music.
This film is shot to point out the flood of commercial messages in television program, on billboards and megaboards, messages that take over our subconscious mind. We Love Belgrade is a log-line that justifies huge investments. This shining out of advertisement messages is just a curtain that hides carelessness towards the environment and human lives. The whole Belgrade became a commercial to sell itself, by constantly sending ads to its citizens. Could a commercial have any influence on a young mother of two whose only source of money comes from trash cans?
Conceptual-structural film by Branko Karabatić exploring media and television.
Experimental 8mm film by Karpo Godina.
An animation mixing hand-drawn and cut-out techniques depicting the daily rituals of weekday morning that is occasionally interrupted by flights of fantasy delivered in stroboscopic flashes. Showing scenes of brushing teeth and face washing, Tanaami describes the film to be like a self-portrait on his favorite day of the week.
An early video work by Ivan Ladislav Galeta that underlines the perceptual presumptions of video-media.
fractal art
The surreal film Newscaster/Dragon/Maggots is a transmission of what lurks in between the channels. This is a rotoscoped piece of animation created from three randomly selected pieces of found footage. The foundation of this piece is based in mathematics, chance and montage editing measured in increments of triangular numbers. After the Formalist groundwork was laid, elements of Surrealism were employed to take the film beyond the initial framework of the metric and rhythmic editing process. The pixels were playfully manipulated and melded together into an entirely new form, backed by a noise composition set into place without regard for pacing, only duration. Music by legendary noise musician Merzbow.
Filmed in Rome in the 1980s, the work draws on Borromini’s Baroque architecture and Il Sassetta’s St. Martin and the Beggar. Beavers contrasts winter’s subdued light with the verdant growth of spring, constructing a precise montage in which image and sound form a poetic dialogue.
Interweaving stonework and filmmaking, Beavers evokes memory through hammer strokes and chisel sounds that shape both image and rhythm. In this dialogue of repetition and variation, the film carves out a space where emptiness itself gains form, allowing vision beyond sight.
In his book "1984", George Orwell saw the television of the future as a control instrument in the hands of Big Brother. Right at the start of the much-anticipated Orwellian year, Paik and Co. were keen to demonstrate satellite TV's ability to serve positive ends-- Namely, the intercontinental exchange of culture, combining both highbrow and entertainment elements. A live broadcast shared between WNET TV in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, linked up with broadcasters in Germany and South Korea, reached a worldwide audience of over 10 or even 25 million (including the later repeat transmissions).
The film juxtaposes/compares two museums: The Museum of Art, Ein Harod, Israel, which Samuel Bickels (1909-1975) built there in 1948, and The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, built by Renzo Piano (b. 1937) 1986 . The method of natural lighting in Bickels‘s construction was the direct model for Piano, who adopted for his construction at the request of its patroness Dominique de Menil.
From a small cabin in the mountains of New York, Nina Breeder and Massimilian Breeder begin a journey across the United States. California is just the initial destination, but just as the edge of the surrounding landscape expands, so does their ultimate destination. A contemplation of nature and time along a raw journey in the American landscape.
Abstract video short about a nameless "Diver"
A splice-less, text soliloquy acknowledging an unknown, random audience of one I'm sharing this film with. Originally shot in b&w, the digital version has gone pink. Super-8, silent. - Joseph Bernard
The Weavers of Nishijin captures the process of traditional textile manufacture in Nishijin.
Lupita Nyong'o narrates a documentary about Peanuts and its creator, Charles M. Schulz. Famous fans—including Drew Barrymore, Kevin Smith, and Al Roker—share its influence on them, and a new animated story finds Charlie Brown on a quest.
The Making-of James Cameron's Avatar. It shows interesting parts of the work on the set.
Explore the evolution of Buzz Lightyear from toy to human in the making of Pixar’s Lightyear. Dive into the origin and cultural impact of everyone’s favorite Space Ranger, the art of designing a new “human Buzz,” and the challenges faced by the Lightyear crew along the way.
A musical study of Los Angeles in the late 90s, where homeless teens roam the streets and profess to live a punk lifestyle of music, drugs, and flouting authority.
A series of interviews featuring linguist, philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky done in hand-drawn animation.
Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creators of the hit television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, reflect on the creation of the masterful series.
Over four decades, Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister has registered an immeasurable impact on music history. Nearly 65, he remains the living embodiment of the rock and roll lifestyle, and this feature-length documentary tells his story, one of a hard-living rock icon who continues to enjoy the life of a man half his age.
Martin Scorsese's documentary intertwines footage from The Band's incredible farewell tour with probing backstage interviews and featured performances by Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and other rock legends.
John Shepherd spent 30 years trying to contact extraterrestrials by broadcasting music millions of miles into space. After giving up the search, he makes a different connection here on earth.
A documentary chronicling Queen and Lambert's incredible journey since they first shared the stage together on "American Idol" in 2009.
Part jazz history, part true-crime tale, Kasper Collin’s new documentary employs extensive archival footage and new interviews to tell the tragic story of the magnificently talented trumpeter Lee Morgan and his common-law wife Helen, who murdered him in a New York bar in 1972.
Daft Punk Unchained is the first film about the pop culture phenomenon that is Daft Punk, the duo with 12 million albums sold worldwide and seven Grammy Awards. Throughout their career Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have always resisted compromise and the established codes of show business. They have remained determined to maintain control of every link in the chain of their creative process. In the era of globalisation and social networks, they rarely speak in public and neither do they show their faces on TV. This documentary explores this unprecedented cultural revolution revealing a duo of artists on a permanent quest for creativity, independence and freedom.
An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life - from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame - and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public, and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood.
Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country.
Film telling the untold story of John Lennon's 1971 album Imagine, exploring the creative collaboration between Lennon and Yoko Ono and featuring interviews and never-seen-before footage.
A documentary special that explores the power of identity behind the iconic superheroes we know and love today. These legendary Marvel creations and stories have not only reflected the world outside our window – they have become a reflection of our own identities and who we truly are.
Alex Gibney explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage.
A chronological account of the influential late 1970s English rock band.
RETURN tells the story of a retired Green Beret who embarks on a healing journey from Montana to Vietnam. There he retraces his steps, shares his wartime experiences with his son, treats his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and seeks out the mountain tribespeople he once lived with and fought alongside as a Special Forces officer.
