Cathodic Works

Wild Grass(fr)

Marguerite loses her wallet, and it's found by Georges, a seemingly happy head of family. As he looks through the wallet and examines the photos of Marguerite, he finds he's fascinated with her and her life, and soon his curiosity about her becomes an obsession.

Heartbeat(en)

Dreams That Money Can Buy(en)

An attempt to bring the work of surrealist artists to a wider public. The plot is that of an average Joe who can conjure up dreams that will improve his customer's lives. This frame story serves as a link between several avant-garde sequences created by leading visual artists of their day, most of whom were emigres to the US during WWII.

The Weir-Falcon Saga(en)

The term "The Weir-Falcon Saga" appeared to me, night after night, at the end of a series of dreams: I was "true" to the feeling, tho not the images, of those dreams in the editing of this and the following two films. The three films "go" very directly together, in the order of their making (as listed); yet each seems to be a clear film in itself. At this time, I tend to think they constitute a "Chapter No. 2" of The Book of Film I've had in mind these last five years (considering SCENES FROM UNDER CHILDHOOD as Chapter No. 1); and yet these "Weir-Falcon" films occur to me as distinct from any filmmaking I have done before. (Stan Brakhage)

About Buenos Aires(es)

Eleven young film-makers got together to collaborate in this atypical project. Atypical not only because of its technical specs, but because of its narrative structure. There are several scenes with only the city in common, and more as a conceptual presence at that than as a precise geography. None of those scenes contains a single "story": Each one of them is part of a larger situation that we cannot see, as though the beginning and end of each "story" had to be filled in by the audience.

Then a Year(en)

An audio collage of snippets of narration culled from true crime TV shows, juxtaposed against serene Super-8 nature footage.

Confession(ja)

A filmmaker recalls his youth in the town of Onomichi. In the present, he shoots a film in Onomichi alongside his cast, crew and family.

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box(en)

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

Chinese Viola(pt)

The rare short film presents a curious dialogue between filmmaker Julio Bressane and actor Grande Otelo, where, in a mixture of decorated and improvised text, we discover a little manifesto to the Brazilian experimental cinema. Also called "Belair's last film," Chinese Viola reveals the first partnership between photographer Walter Carvalho and Bressane.

-YAMASE-(ja)

Film by Kenji Onishi. With friends. Mr. Yamase as main character, Sasakubo and Shinojima. And the girls having a good time. The camera is all you need. Looking still at the Mt. Buko which is disappearing.

The Five Obstructions(da)

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.

I...(en)

By painting and scratching directly on celluloid strips and then duplicating each image for two or more frames, Brakhage produced a flickering cycle of abstract shapes that bespeak the restlessness of his own character and sensibility; the titles of the segments (which Brakhage also intended to function as freestanding films) further emphasize his rejection of collective thinking in favor of personal vision. I..., proposes an unstable image of the self with its centerless collisions of diverse imagery. Small black shapes are superimposed over diffuse colors, and each moment seems to consume and obliterate the last in an emotionally charged rush that suggests a consciousness terrified of stasis and perpetually seeking renewal.

Moonwalker(en)

Moonwalker is a 1988 American experimental anthology musical film starring Michael Jackson. Rather than featuring one continuous narrative, the film expresses the influence of fandom and innocence through a collection of short films about Jackson, some of which are long-form music videos from Jackson's 1987 album Bad. The film is named after his famous dance, "the moonwalk", which he originally learned as "the backslide" but perfected the dance into something no one had seen before. The movie's introduction is a type of music video for Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" but is not the official video for the song. The film then expresses a montage of Michael's career, which leads into a parody of his Bad video titled "Badder", followed by sections "Speed Demon" and "Leave Me Alone". What follows is the biggest section where Michael plays a hero with magical powers and saves three children from Mr. Big. This section is "Smooth Criminal" which leads into a performance of "Come Together".

23rd Psalm Branch: Part II(en)

The second part: Brakhage’s layering of images spends less time with images of war, and begins filtering in scenes of Vienna and his home in Colorado. He sets up a comparison between “Kubelka’s Vienna” and his own.

Crash!(en)

Short film produced by the BBC about JG Ballard's Crash. “The film was a product of the most experimental, darkest phase of Ballard’s career. It was an era of psychological blowback from the sudden, shocking death of his wife in 1964, an era that had produced the cut-up ‘condensed novels’ of Atrocity plus a series of strange collages and ‘advertisers’ announcements. After Freud’s exploration within the psyche it is now the outer world of reality which must be quantified and eroticised. Later there were further literary experiments, concrete poems and ‘impressionistic’ film reviews, and an aborted multimedia theatrical play based around car crashes. After that came an actual gallery exhibition of crashed cars, replete with strippers and the drunken destruction of the ‘exhibits’ by an enraged audience.” (from: http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.blogspot.de/2013/01/short-film-adaptation-of-jg-ballards.html)

Islands(fr)

A sexual reverie unfolds over the course of one ethereal night. Characters wander through an erotic maze of love and lust, blurring the lines between wet dream and lucid nightmare as a macabre, erotic stage performance sends a ripple of lustful desires through its audience and performers.

Every Wall is a Door(fr)

Drawing on VHS tapes of a programme hosted by her mother on Bulgaria’s national television, the filmmaker gives a pop-style and in-depth chronicle of the gentle – even “over-gentle” – 1989 revolution.

Remember to Forget(en)

A bohemian painter named Artist and a guitarist named James meet at a concert and have an instant connection. They start a philosophical discussion at her apartment, but they are interrupted by strange occurrences which reveal they are no longer in reality but an ominous dream world. Both Artist and James are confronted by characters and situations from their past, and they must work together to put the memory pieces together and escape to reality, if they can.

Nocturne(es)

After ending a very close relationship, Manuel falls into melancholy and begins to rethink his way of loving. Within his thoughts are the social problems that surround him. He realizes that with these comes a rethinking of what love is. An idea that we have been carrying for a long time: the idea that to love is to possess.

The Sarah Vaccine(en)

The Sarah Vaccine is a technicolor COVID nightmare from the deranged mind of Sarah Squirm. Your government has failed you...but SARAH never will! CW: excessive gore, poop, vomit, blood

Return(hy)

Eyüp decides to cross mount Ararat looking for his aunt in Yerevan after following a madman's words. His aunt has also been expecting someone to come from behind this mount for many years. Eyüp cannot be sure about the woman he finds behind the blue door, whether it is his aunt or not because they can't understand each other.

Return(en)

After reading an article about hypnotic regression, a woman whose maternal grandfather died when she was only three years old contacts the hypnotic subject named in the article believing that he is the reincarnation of her grandfather, and hoping that she can learn the truth about how he died.

Return(es)

Return(en)

A tale of terror. Cathy Reed has been institutionalized most of her life because of Schizophrenia, as a child her parents thought she was possessed by demons and had her exercised by priests. Medical science saw different. Now decades later Cathy is freed, relocated to her own flat and given a chance to be independent. Once alone things are not what they all seem and when her nightmares turn real she questions her state of mind before she is left to face her demons.

Return(fr)

Return(pl)

Polish animator Anna Błaszczyk’s humorous short—a collage of drawing, cut-out, and computer animation—was inspired by Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel Return from the Stars, a time-paradox tale of an astronaut who returns to Earth after many years away.

Return(en)

RETURN tells the story of a retired Green Beret who embarks on a healing journey from Montana to Vietnam. There he retraces his steps, shares his wartime experiences with his son, treats his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and seeks out the mountain tribespeople he once lived with and fought alongside as a Special Forces officer.

Return to Space(en)

The inspirational rise of SpaceX as well as Elon Musk's two-decade effort to resurrect America’s space travel ambitions.

Return(en)

A young woman was buried alive with the intention of killing, but she survived by chance. hears the cries of her little girl and fights to stay alive for her daughter. But this incident will enlighten a new worldview for her.

RETURN(ja)

8mm work directed by Norihiko Morinaga.

Return(xx)

An old man is isolated in his home. Haunted by the loss of his beloved, he embarks upon a journey to return to her.

Return(en)

Owen, a young man is dissatisfied with his life. He heads into the forest to escape and learns a lot during his time there.

Return(en)

A single man has worked most of his life in a supermarket. One night, he unexpectedly meets with his father, and the two are faced with the question of the reasons for their separation.

Return of Special Forces 5(zh)

After Long Wei and his men finished their operation in Fuji, they received a distress message from his ex-wife, Leng Yun. Long Wei immediately rushes to Southeast Asia alone to look for his ex-wife. With his excellent ability to fight alone, Long Wei and his daughter break through all the dangers they encounter one by one, will they be able to rescue his ex-wife successfully?

Darkland: The Return(da)

Seven years ago, Zaid went to war against the Copenhagen underworld to avenge his dead brother. His identity as a respected doctor of cardiology and life as a family man is but a fading dream, and in prison Zaid suffers the loss of his son Noah, whom he barely knows. When a police agent approaches Zaid and offers him a deal to be released in exchange for infiltrating the Copenhagen underworld, he sees his chance to reclaim the remnants of the family life he left behind. But everything has a price, and Zaid realizes that he has now seriously endangered his son's life. After all, once you become part of the underworld, is there any way out?

Kamen Rider W Returns: Kamen Rider Accel(ja)

While settling into married life with Akiko, Ryu is brought into a case involving a woman named Katsuragi Aoi, a member of a pickpocketing ring with most of her teammates murdered from unknown masked vigilantes that Ryu fought as Accel. As the details of the case begin to unravel, Ryu is framed and Akiko believes that he may not be faithful to her. As the clock ticks down, Ryu must solve the case, clear his name, and save his marriage before everything comes to an explosive end!

Return(en)

Static images of an old country house are combined with voices of the past to evocative effect. Haunting and nostalgic, 'Return' conveys the life that exists in old, abandoned places.

Return(hy)

The main character of the film is an outstanding physicist who was invited to Armenia from Russia to head a lab. He comes across many troubles in his homeland, but nevertheless finds his true love there.

Return(en)

A girl is at school. Suddenly it's as if she can't breathe. As she runs down the stairs we follow her into her mind. It takes us deep into dark woods.

Fantastic Return to Oz(ru)

A year to the day after Dorothy and the people of the Emerald City defeated Urfin Jus, the villain is trying to exact his revenge. To command the army of Carraci, however, Urfin needs not only the magic book, but also Dorothy’s silver slippers. The slippers are safely hidden away in Dorothy’s house. Unfortunately, Dorothy’s guest, Tim, is overcome by curiosity and picks up the shoes, accidentally transporting himself, Dorothy and the slippers to the Land of Oz. The Emerald City and its citizens are in danger once again.