part 2 in the "LA in Lockdown" trilogy
Social & External
The people behind it
Scenes from a found roll of martial arts movie footage is unspooled past a video camera on a light table, stopping and starting to pick out parts of the narrative. The archly formal play of fights, betrayal, dishonour and ruined friendships is accompanied by ambient sounds of a city going about its routine business outside.
In Swole I continue to document my commitment to an intensive and transformative gym and diet regimen, as well as the communities that form around such activities, sustaining themselves through texting and sharing videos and photos on social media. I learn the vocabulary of my new community.
A companion piece to Pelourinho: They Don’t Really Care About Us (NYFF57), King of Sanwi continues Akosua Adoma Owusu’s exploration of Michael Jackson as a global pop icon. Here, Michael’s long affinity with the African continent—from the Jackson 5’s arrival in Senegal in 1974 to Michael’s coronation as an Ivorian king in 1992—is captured in vibrant, fuzzy archival video, made visceral by Owusu’s funky audiovisual collage and richly material direct animation effects.
Grappling with the burden of loss, a drifter becomes engulfed in the reckless lifestyle of a group of bohemians. Through a series of events, he is forced to confront his trauma as his haunted past and unconventional present collide.
Spectrum and prism divide the screen; whites and light, etc. "Out of this purity comes all colors. I've always been attracted to refracted light and prismatic phenomena" says Bernard. For Richard Devereaux. Super 8, silent, non-narrative.
Lance and Spenser, 10 years after ending the Adam Driver Fan Cast, have to discover the lost tape to save the world. Across their journey they get robbed, stopped by a cop, and trip in a world of legos
A collage of Derek Jarman's super 8 footage spanning over 20 years.
The Vietnam War during the JFK years and beyond. Made in 1972 in the filmmaker's apartment, without documentary footage of the war, metaphors are created through the animation of images and objects, and through guerrilla skits. By rejecting the authority of traditional documentary footage, the anarchist spirit of individual responsibility is established. This is history from one person's point of view, rather than a definitive proclamation.
An atmospheric essay, which is an alternative version of Count Dracula, a film directed by Jess Franco in 1970; a ghostly narration between fiction and reality.
A cri de coeur against Iraq War I from writer-director John Gianvito (Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind).
Grand Opera marks a stock-taking of Benning's work and his life, presenting a personal and artistic autobiography woven together with a series of events dealing with the historical development of the number pi, Benning's travels, and homages to Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, George Landow (Owen Land), and Yvonne Rainer.
A reworking of the myth of Hippolytus, in which a chaste youth rejects the incestuous advances of his mother and is saved from death by a caring physician.
We see a film negative of a nude couple embracing in bed. Then, back in regular black and white images, we see them alone and together, clothed, at home. It's night, she sees his reflection in the window, she closes the drapes. After sex, again in a black and white negative, they sit, smoke, have coffee. They kiss, she smiles. They light candles. The images are often quick, the camera angles occasionally are off kilter; the room is sometimes dark and sometimes lit, as if lit by the rotating of a searchlight. The images again appear in negative when they return to bed.
At a morgue, forensic pathologists conduct autopsies of the corpses assigned. "S. Brakhage, entering, WITH HIS CAMERA, one of the forbidden, terrific locations of our culture, the autopsy room. It is a place wherein, inversely, life is cherished, for it exists to affirm that no one of us may die without our knowing exactly why. All of us, in the person of the coroner, must see that, for ourselves, with our own eyes. It is a room full of appalling particular intimacies, the last ditch of individuation. Here our vague nightmare of mortality acquires the names and faces of OTHERS. This last is a process that requires a WITNESS; and what 'idea' may finally have inserted itself into the sensible world we can still scarcely guess, for the CAMERA would seem the perfect Eidetic Witness, staring with perfect compassion where we can scarcely bear to glance." – Hollis Frampton
A profound and powerful experimental, personal film of one woman's despair, rage and exhibitionism; a baroque fugue of identity chanting growing from women's pain to a holistic, self-healing naming ritual.
Filmmaker Barbara Hammer recounts how she got her scars as well as her "pleasure wrinkles."
Time-lapse photography of books, paintings, reflections, and light falling on textures, shot entirely through a glass ashtray. "'All that is is light.' – Dun Scotus Erigena. 'To see the world in a grain of sand.' – William Blake. These are the primary impulses while working on this film. It is dedicated to Jim Davis who showed me the first spark of refracted film light." - S.B.
A slow-burning prairie grotesque. On the grounds of a rural sanitarium, three young women search for wellness, as a cult leader seeks to control their bodies through labor and daily rituals.
Bass takes over the upstairs Kanter-McCormick Gallery at the Art Center, expanding the territory of her gothic world in a new work The Latest Sun is Sinking Fast, an immersive, multi-channel installation incorporating 16mm film/video, sound, architecture, and featuring performances by Sarah Stambaugh, Bryan Saner, and Matthew Goulish. The solo exhibition features a spatial narrative installation that delves, through movement, texture, sound, and gesture, into the psychology of a recurring figure in Bass' previous films; while also introducing two new characters, blending the past into the present. Bass has designed the installation by altering the gallery, leading the viewer through a evocative memory of place, embedding us in a timeless society of lost souls in a haunted landscape. -Allison Peters Quinn, Exhibition Director, Hyde Park Art Center
A series of eight moments captured over a single day in the Sussex village of Mayfield. From first light until night Daniel & Clara engage in a process of psychological orientation, their state of mind inexplicably linked to the countryside and shifting weather conditions.
LAPD officer Jake Rosser endeavors to lead a peaceful life with his family and retired K-9 officer, Socks. However, tranquility dissolves into chaos when a gang targets them in a brutal attack. Alongside his new K-9 partner Argos, Jake launches into a relentless pursuit of justice, determined to protect his loved ones.
Lara Jean and Peter have just taken their romance from pretend to officially real when another recipient of one of her love letters enters the picture.
A Halloween-hating dad reluctantly teams up with his teenage daughter when an evil spirit wreaks havoc by making their town's decorations come to life.
As a filmmaker and his girlfriend return home from his movie premiere, smoldering tensions and painful revelations push them toward a romantic reckoning.
On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, Oliver and Emily make a connection, only to decide that they are poorly suited to be together. Over the next seven years, however, they are reunited time and time again, they go from being acquaintances to close friends to... lovers?
In honor of his birthday, San Francisco banker Nicholas Van Orton, a financial genius and a cold-hearted loner, receives an unusual present from his younger brother, Conrad: a gift certificate to play a unique kind of game. In nary a nanosecond, Nicholas finds himself consumed by a dangerous set of ever-changing rules, unable to distinguish where the charade ends and reality begins.
From its distinctive neighborhoods to its architectural homes, Los Angeles has been the backdrop to countless movies. In this dazzling work, Andersen takes viewers on a whirlwind tour through the metropolis' real and cinematic history, investigating the myriad stories and legends that have come to define it, and meticulously, judiciously revealing the real city that lives beneath.
A young woman's hilariously confessional voicemails to her late sister are unknowingly redirected to a stranger, who begins to fall in love from afar.
An aspiring musician agrees to a marriage of convenience with a soon-to-deploy Marine, but a tragedy soon turns their fake relationship all too real.
A family takes refuge in a fallout shelter to avoid a dangerous outbreak.
Marty and Doc are at it again as the time-traveling duo head to 2015 to nip some McFly family woes in the bud. But things go awry thanks to bully Biff Tannen and a pesky sports almanac. In a last-ditch attempt to set things straight, Marty finds himself bound for 1955 and face to face with his teenage parents -- again.
Young Cole Carter dreams of hitting the big time as a Hollywood disc jockey, spending his days and nights hanging with buddies and working on the one track that will set the world on fire. Opportunity comes knocking when he meets James Reed, a charismatic DJ who takes the 23-year-old under his wing. Soon, his seemingly clear path to success gets complicated when he starts falling for his mentor's girlfriend, jeopardizing his new friendship and the future he seems destined to fulfill.
During a pandemic lockdown, Nico, a young man with rare immunity, must overcome martial law, murderous vigilantes and a powerful family to reunite with his love, Sara.
Weekend trips, office parties, late night conversations, drinking on the job, marriage pressure, biological clocks, holding eye contact a second too long… you know what makes the line between “friends” and “more than friends” really blurry? Beer.
Life for a single mom in Los Angeles takes an unexpected turn when she allows three young guys to move in with her.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
The life of a teenage boy is forever altered by a chance encounter with cutting edge military technology.
Between personal obligations and training for his next big fight against an opponent with ties to his family's past, Adonis Creed is up against the challenge of his life.
Fa Mulan gets the surprise of her young life when her love, Captain Li Shang asks for her hand in marriage. Before the two can have their happily ever after, the Emperor assigns them a secret mission, to escort three princesses to Chang'an, China. Mushu is determined to drive a wedge between the couple after he learns that he will lose his guardian job if Mulan marries into the Li family.
A selfish postman and a reclusive toymaker form an unlikely friendship, delivering joy to a cold, dark town that desperately needs it.
