The Unexpected Destruction of Elaborately Engineered Artifacts(1998)

Almost Human(en)

The filmmaker Jeppe Rønde has invited 10 of the world's foremost researchers - and a robot! - to rethink our relationship with technology and its dilemmas from the outside. Philosophers, anthropologists, archaeologists and programmers show us through their thought experiments that our relationship with technology is just as much about our relationship with ourselves.

Enhanced(en)

How far are you willing to go to enhance your body and your life? Testing a diverse cocktail of illegal performance enhancing drugs throughout his life - bodybuilder an entrepreneur Tony Hughes, also known as Dr. Tony Huge, aims to prove that steroids are the next logical step to further human evolution. Chronicling a civil and criminal case against his controversial supplement company Enhanced Athlete, Enhanced is a documentary that explores the immense psychological depths of a man who believes that the government has a conspiracy against him and other like-minded individuals. Individuals who are fighting to prove that steroids are not only healthy, but essential if used correctly, and should be legal in the United States to improve our quality of life.

El Cuerpo del Escándalo - Un film acerca de Natacha Voliakovsky(es)

Discovering Hamlet(en)

IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi, two intelligent and passionate men, found new depths in Shakespeare’s classic drama, Hamlet. Filmmakers Mark Olshaker and Larry Klein follow the company through four weeks of rehearsals, from the first read-throughs to opening night.

Bots High(en)

Bots High is an exciting documentary following the adventures of three high school robotics teams battling for first place at a national robotics competition in Miami, Florida. It's a no-holds-barred fight to the death with robot carnage everywhere you look. Genius inventor Will builds robots so powerful they're unstoppable...if only they don't destroy themselves first. The Mechanical Misfits are an all girls team stumbling through their first foray into combat robotics and Elizabeth and Danielle are a formidable pair looking to reign supreme during their last year of high school. Bots High follows these students as they design, build and compete at Nationals - all while surviving high school, first love and teenager procrastination. A FilmBuff Presentation.

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control(en)

Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals. There’s a lion tamer who shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.

Salvador Dalí at Work(en)

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.

Meat Joy(en)

"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."

RoboCup99(en)

I'm Too Sad to Tell You(en)

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.

Broken Fall (Geometric)(en)

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.

Nightfall(en)

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.

Fall 2(en)

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

Blue Man Group: The Complex Rock Tour Live(en)

Offbeat performance artists The Blue Man Group have finally been captured live on this disc that features concert footage, three full-length music videos and three songs from Blue Man Group's album, "The Complex." The live footage was filmed during Blue Man Group's successful and widely acclaimed August 2003 rock tour, where they wowed 9,000 fans in two sold-out concerts.

Marina Abramović & Ulay: No Predicted End(en)

Thirty years after their separation, performance artists Marina Abramović and Frank Uwe 'Ulay' Laysiepen (1943-2020) agree to meet, for the first time on camera, for a raw and honest conversation about their life, art and legacy.

Breakpoint: A Counter History of Progress(fr)

An account of the last two centuries of the Anthropocene, the Age of Man. How human beings have progressed so much in such a short time through war and the selfish interests of a few, belligerent politicians and captains of industry, damaging the welfare of the majority of mankind, impoverishing the weakest, greedily devouring the limited resources of the Earth.

Pussy Versus Putin(en)

In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.

Sandra Bernhard: Confessions of a Pretty Lady(en)

Bernhard, an actress-comedienne whose brassy humor attracts a cult-like following, here offers a semiconfessional view of her life's landscape. Childhood memories of her father, a doctor, and her mother, an artist, are warmly rendered in scenes of the Jewish family amiably accommodating itself to the Christmas season, and of the obligatory communal vacations joined by colorful relatives. The abrupt transition to a flamboyant denizen of "downtowns," Los Angeles or New York, to an existence as a character in the lives of marginal people, is evoked in sharply satirical terms, in a melange of humorous fact and fiction, monologues akin to those that make Bernhard an icon of pop culture.

Plena Rondo(en)

Marcel Duchamp: The Art of the Possible(en)

A remarkable walk through the life and work of the French artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), one of the most important creators of the 20th century, revolutionary of arts, aesthetics and pop culture.