An Asian Ghost Story

The Birds Changed Names And The World Turned Into Ice(es)

Migrant families experience violence, but they also keep beautiful memories when they arrive in new lands. Fantastic and intimate stories, recalled from childhood, travel across time and space, magically intermingling with the help of the four elements and breaking the boundaries of cinema.

Pico Sacro [The Holy Mountain](gl)

In a leafy forest, a Galician sovereign who longs to attain wisdom meets a sorcerer, who tells him: “Go back to your country and study the Earth and the Stars in the sky; anywhere in the world reflects an image of it. You will ride on this arrow, which you must keep for a hundred years and a day. After this time, stick it in the widest valley of all those you possess, with the tip facing the sky. Then the Moon will come and, just as it exerts its action on the waters of the sea, it will act on the arrow, turning it into a holy mountain." - Legend about the Pico Sacro Inspired by Hokusai's views of Mount Fuji and Cézanne's paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, "Pico Sacro [The Holy Mountain]" aims to reveal the mystery and the magic that underlie reality.

Under the Weight of a Waking Dream(en)

‘Under the Weight of a Waking Dream’ is Zefier's debut swan song to the ending year. Comprised of poetry and endless enumerations is a diaristic film chronicling the lessons and contradictions found throughout the human experience.

Ottimismo democratico(it)

Ghost Adventures(en)

In 2007, The Sci-Fi Channel premiered "Ghost Adventures," a raw documentary in which 3 men go to Virginia City, NV and Goldfield, NV on a ghost hunting expedition. Virginia City is rife with macabre lore and reputed to be one of the most haunted cities in America. Ghost Adventures has won a Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary that was given by the New York International Film & Video Festival.

Feet in Water, Head on Fire(en)

Date palms imported and cultivated decades ago flourish in the Coachella Valley in Southern California. A cacophony of voices from across generations reflect on the shifting landscape of the region; some remember the first few acres that were planted, while others enjoy the luxuries of new golf courses. Feet in Water, Head on Fire is a sensorially vibrant 16mm experience that takes us on a journey of past, present, and future. Director Terra Long hand-processed the footage utilizing leftover dates and native plants intertwining the environment into the fabric of the film. Through complex and nuanced scenes, non-sync interviews blossom into a wonderfully gentle but memorable portrait of a community in flux.

Animot(cs)

The experimental documentary filmed at rescue centres in Prague and Vlašim refuses the anthropocentric perspective and views the world through the eyes of wounded animals. The term Animot was taken over from Jacque Derrida. While the French philosopher and deconstructivist uses the term to refer to everything animalistic and non-human, the film, on the other hand, uses intimate details to point out the proximity between human beings and animals. They are connected by their vulnerability, helplessness and mortality.

The Red Gate: Magellan at the Gates of Death, Part I(en)

"In the final format for MAGELLAN, Frampton had planned to disassemble these two films into twenty-four 'encounters with death' that were to be shown in five-minute segments twice a month. In their present state, seen together and roughly the length of an average feature film, the two parts of MAGELLAN: AT THE GATES OF DEATH constitute perhaps the most gripping, monumental, and wrenching work ever executed on film...Frampton in 1971 began his filming of cedavers at the Gross Anatomy Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. He returned to the lab four times over the course of the next two years and then spent nine months assembling his 'forbidden imagery' into an extraordinary meditation upon death."–Bruce Jenkins

The Allegory of The Bla Bla Bla (Video Edition)(id)

This work is an attempt to overcome alienation amidst the fragmented construction reality of everyday narrative. Rethinking the meaning of reflections and shadows, framed subjects, body movements, screen, as well as sounds that are constructed by connecting the expression of their existence with the history of representation in modern art.

My Throat, My Air(de)

Set in Munich's petty-bourgeois Westend, film documents life at home with former Fassbinder actor, Warhol collaborator, and horror movie director Ulli Lommel. Rather than a straight documentary portrait of this bohemian household, the camera prefers to follow the narrative impulses of the family members. Lost in serious play, the kids improvise hypnotic death scenes while their mother claims to come from a planet where everything is "ethereal and incorporeal." As parent-child relations are unscripted and re-scripted on the fly, the dilated time of a collective daydream is punctuated by the ordinary sounds of an electric toothbrush, vacuum cleaner, and piano.

In The Pines(id)

This work re-examines the relationship between the elements that make up the quality of space, namely: "subject" and "object", "organic" and "mechanical", "reality" and "representation", "wholeness" and "partiality", " determinacy” and “indeterminacy”, “visibility” and “invisibility”, “natural” and “non-natural”.

Mikha'El(en)

First feature-length documentary about the Archangel Michael in the annals of cinema, with large ensemble cast and multiple story lines in five languages. Filmed on location in eight countries.

to boyhood, i never knew him(en)

Archive footage from 2006 - 2010 of a young girl growing up during the ages of four to eight. Only fragments of what is remembered exists. Words from a transgender man float to the surface as fleeting memories go on.

Looking Back Before You Leap(en)

A collection of memories from a tumultuous time at University.

Layering(en)

This short experimental diary film reveals my struggles with mental illness in my adolescence and queer adulthood while simultaneously reflecting upon my joyous childhood experiences. I investigate when and how my depression began and explain that my relationships with the people I love have supported me through my harder times. The film incorporates footage shot over May and June 2023 and archival home videos. Overall, I aim to resolve my "growing pains" through the medium of diary film and by reconnecting with my younger self.

FUCK TV(en)

After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.

The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt(en)

A lifelong believer in the paranormal invites a hardwired sceptic on a road trip of the UK’s most famous haunted locations, in an attempt to convince him of the existence of ghosts. A journey of true discovery, shocks, emotional turmoil, hilarious conflict and a bewildering climax.

The Song of the Years to Come(es)

On the island of La Gomera, children imagine stories while they examine archeological remains. An ethno-fictional journey in which past and present coalesce, creating resonances between the volcanic landscape and Silbo, the whistled language of the island.

The Psychedelic Experience(en)

Experimental movie, where a man comes home and experiences LSD. His kaleidoscopic visions follow, with readings inspired by the Tibethan Book of the Dead.

Vietnam Story(en)

A cinematic impression of Vietnam, told through the eyes of Vietnamese immigrants.