How does music measure time if time is stretched like a rubber band? Irregular time signatures are ways of describing an uneven beat. The arrhythmic pulse of this film is music lesson, math puzzle, and spot-the-difference game.
Social & External
The people behind it
The passing time is displayed as a series of still frames, or a rapid sequence of moments, ever flowing like the waves that break on the shore, like a repeated chant with no beginning, middle or end.
It started with filming the tree. Something was released in that manner of filming seemingly farthest removed from the procedure of the early films. I first thought a simple ordering of this rich material might be enough, something related to BARN RUSHES [...] But the film only came into its form-life with the idea of linking this deep-rooted and far-outreaching tree material with that film on paranoia that had fascinated me for many years. –L. G.
"With characteristic wit and rigor, experimental filmmaker Larry Gottheim here applies his impressionistic editing style to footage collected during his travels in the Dominican Republic. Gottheim’s formal emphasis on repetition and fissures between sound and image resonates here as a mode of sociological reflection (with the fragmentary montage mirroring elements of ritual while also destabilizing the ethnographic gaze). A largely overlooked antecedent to the contemporary blending of avant-garde and ethnographic filmmaking, MACHETTE GILLETTE… MAMA still poses a potent challenge to documentary convention." - Max Goldberg
Ostensibly searching for an emotional connection with her aging father, the woman contemplates her own inherited culture and familial touchstones. Her North American pop culture sensibility fuses with a distorted Japanese perspective to create a surreal interpretation of a “Japan of the imagination.” This fictional landscape is peppered with invented Japanese myths, ruminations on memory loss, the temporal space of digital photography and the ghosts of inherited imagination.
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.
Rather than writing a simple letter to explain his absence from the press conference for his latest Cannes entry, "Goodbye to Language," at the Cannes Film Festival, instead, legendary filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard created a video "Letter in motion to (Cannes president) Gilles Jacob and (artistic director) Thierry Fremaux." The video intercuts from Godard speaking cryptically about his "path" to key scenes from Godard classics such as "Alphaville" and "King Lear" with Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald, and quotes poet Jacques Prevert and philosopher Hannah Arendt.
Sytratigraphies is a hyper kinetic masterpiece of a travelogue offering glimpses of scenes shot in your native Columbia, New York, Toronto and beyond. A female fantastic (Alexandra Gelis) knitting on the fly (subways, bankomats, beaches) and making audio recordings provides a throughline of sorts, as queer marriages give way to videogame palm trees, warm gatherings of friends are interwoven with public noticings, workers mostly, street hawkers and construction zones of the self. These lyrical interludes (in this movie the in-between is at the heart of the matter) are punctuated by rescanned YouTube interviews with authors/philosophers/scientists Jorge Luis Borges, Francisco Varela, Julio Cortazar, Beatriz Preciado and Gilles Deleuze. They muse briefly on creativity, exile, the biopolitics of the birth control pill, and the necessity of making mistakes in philosophy.
VORTEX TEMPORUM sinks into the temporality of an image, the one from an American university campus filmed by a webcam. These images from the University of Oregon were collected between August 2009 and June 2010.
Frame by frame, letter by letter, this film aligns riddles/answers from 6 rolls of Super-8, with the structure, poetry and imagery posed by Ugandan crossword puzzles. Across & Down is a study of simultaneous simplicity and complexity and the resulting serendipity and chaos.
Writing late becomes usual, we are always too late. Boris was my alter ego and I was his alter ego. Now that he is no longer here, I can be honest.
Chilean experimental film.
This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of falling away from conscious thought. The film can only be said to describe or be emblematic of this state because I cannot imagine symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness itself. Thus the actors in the film, Jane Brakhage, Tom and Gloria Bartek, Williams Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Olovsky and Phillip Whalen are figments of this 'Thought-Fallen Process', as are their images in the film to find themselves being photographed."
"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
Two screens of film about - and sometimes shot by - Claes Oldenburg, detailing his inspiration, his methods and his relationship with his partner Hannah Wilke.
Anne Bean, John McKeon, Stuart Brisley, Rita Donagh, Jamie Reid and Jimmy Boyle are interviewed about their artistic practice and the legacy of Surrealism on their work.
At various points in its history, tiny St. John's Island was where Singapore's colonial founder Sir Stamford Raffles docked his ship upon arrival, a quarantine centre for immigrants and pilgrims returning from Mecca, a penal colony for political detainees and secret society leaders, and a sleepy holiday resort. Unlike its neighbouring islands, however, St. John's was never fully developed. It occupies an in-between space, the vestiges of its history scattered around the land. Its indeterminacy stands in sharp contrast to Singapore, where land use is meticulously planned to fulfil economic and social functions. In this film, St. John's Island - otherwise known as 'Bukit Orang Salah', a nickname coined by the people who were quarantined there - becomes a site of and for reflection, prompting questions about our history, heritage and identity.
Experimental short film from Yugoslavia.
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.
Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake is a participatory video shot by people around the world who are invited to record images interpreting the original script of Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera and upload them to this site. Software developed specifically for this project archives, sequences and streams the submissions as a film. Anyone can upload footage. When the work streams your contribution becomes part of a worldwide montage, in Vertov’s terms the “decoding of life as it is”.
Made on a wind-up Bolex camera, The Sound of Seeing announced the arrival of 21-year-old filmmaker Tony Williams. Based around a painter and a composer wandering the city (and beyond), the film meshes music and imagery to show the duo taking inspiration from their surroundings.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
After another 7 year wait, director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born children from Seven Up! and 7 Plus Seven. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. The filmmakers plan to re-interview them at 7 year intervals to track how their lives and attitudes change as they age.
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
The incomparable Bruce Springsteen performs his critically acclaimed latest album and muses on life, rock, and the American dream, in this intimate and personal concert film co-directed by Thom Zimny and Springsteen himself.
After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
This raucous journey into the heart of democracy captures an unusual rite of passage: 1,100 teenage boys from across Texas coming together to build a representative government from the ground up.
A backstage and on-stage look at Justin Bieber during his rise to super stardom.
A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.
A celebration of the legendary band that revolutionized pop music, and the iconic, harmonious sound they created that personified the California dream, captivating fans for generations and generations to come.
Part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream, this film captures the troubled spirit of America in 1975 and the joyous music that Dylan performed during the fall of that year.
Captured during Billie Eilish's sold-out world tour, a concert experience from one of the most celebrated and successful artists of her generation, presented in immersive 3D.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
The elite pilots of the Air Force Thunderbirds display exceptional skill, trust and courage during a high-stakes training season.