Somewhere between the 1930s and now, the cameras start turning and Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich gather on one film set. The floor gleams, the spotlights are burning, the narration starts. Born out of a fascination for the construction that is Hollywood, and by extension ‘the perfect Hollywood home’, the maker embodies three actresses from Hollywood’s golden era and their so-called private lives. Their smallest personality traits are performed so precise and characteristically that it becomes artificial. The home isn’t homely. It plays “house” and the inhabitants are speaking Hollywoodian. In this setting, the maker of the film recalls memories of growing up in her childhood home.
A dramatisation of the workers' protests in June 1976 in Radom, seen from the perspective of the local Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party. [Produced in 1981, but not commercially released until 1996.]
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.
From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.
An Appropriated Self-portrait is an autobiographical piece conceived through the articulation of appropriated and recycled film fragments from over 180 movies and found footage. It was assembled as a fragmentary structure that relies on a non-linear narrative.
Sunspring is a short film about three people living in a weird future, possibly on a space station, probably in a love triangle. You know it's the future because H (played with neurotic gravity by Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch) is wearing a shiny gold jacket, H2 (Elisabeth Gray) is playing with computers, and C (Humphrey Ker) announces that he has to "go to the skull" before sticking his face into a bunch of green lights. It sounds like your typical sci-fi B-movie, complete with an incoherent plot. Except Sunspring isn't the product of Hollywood hacks—it was written entirely by an AI. To be specific, it was authored by a recurrent neural network called long short-term memory, or LSTM for short. At least, that's what we'd call it. The AI named itself Benjamin.
Dementia draws a woman into a world of memory loops, losing her love her spirit, her present her past.
“Meet Me by the Magnolia Tree” is a student documentary on the history of Richmond’s gay community and the role cruising for sex played in places like Byrd Park, the Block, and Battle Abbey.
The crusades come to life in Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s beautiful Cabaret Crusades. Inspired by the writings of Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, Shawky’s film trilogy explores the horrors of the medieval holy wars in the Middle-East – from an Arab perspective. With a cast made up entirely of puppets, the third part, The Secrets of Karbala (2014), centres on the period between the 7th and 12th centuries, covering the crusades as well as a dispute between two Islamic sects. Beautifully made of handblown Murano glass, the puppets have amazing expressive power, making the scenes full of violence, repression and torture all the more awe-inspiring.
Multi-faceted artist Phil Niblock captures a brief moment of an interstellar communication by the Arkestra in their prime. Black turns white in a so-called negative post-process, while Niblock's camera focuses on microscopic details of hands, bodies and instruments. A brilliant tribute to the Sun King by another brilliant supra-planetary sovereign. (Eye of Sound)
Legendary western swing band leader Bob Wills rose up in the Great Depression to fame in Oklahoma and Texas that soon swept the entire nation. The documentary FIDDLIN MAN offers a full biography of Wills, using a vast array of on camera interviews with his friends, family, and fellow musicians. The film also draws on a wealth of rare archival footage.
In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
A biographical film about cinematic illusionist Georges Méliès featuring Méliès’s widow, Jeanne d’Alcy, as herself, and their son André as his own father.
This time around it's 1987, and new high school graduates Romy and Michele are desperate to get away from their hometown of Tucson. Their goal is to leave their square town behind and be amongst the beautiful, hip people of Hollywood.
St. Joseph Fort: Principality of Pontinha, the diamond that illuminates the Atlantic Pearl.
This is the only feature directed by the famed French painter and sculptor Martial Raysse. In keeping with the revolutionary spirit of the time, the movie has no plot to speak of and appears to have been largely made up on the spot. We follow the cat man into a bizarre fantasy universe presented in negative exposure that reverses color values (black is white and vice versa) and written words. The cat man steals a car and then picks up a young girl he promises to take to “Heaven.” Heaven turns out to be a country chateau inhabited by several more animal mask wearing weirdoes...
Enigma is something of a more glamorous version of White Hole, with a wide variety of elaborate textures (often composed of iconographic and religious symbols) converging towards the centre of the screen.
While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War II, the majority used their talents to rally the American public through bond sales, morale-boosting USO tours, patriotic war dramas and escapist film fare. Comedian David Steinberg plays host for this star-studded, 90-minute documentary, which looks at the way Tinseltown helped the United States' war effort.
Eddie is an old rock'n'roller who lives tormented by his memories, which make him unable to live in the present.
This documentary captures the sounds and images of a nearly forgotten era in film history when African American filmmakers and studios created “race movies” exclusively for black audiences. The best of these films attempted to counter the demeaning stereotypes of black Americans prevalent in the popular culture of the day. About 500 films were produced, yet only about 100 still exist. Filmmaking pioneers like Oscar Micheaux, the Noble brothers, and Spencer Williams, Jr. left a lasting influence on black filmmakers, and inspired generations of audiences who finally saw their own lives reflected on the silver screen.