Prelude 12

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat(fr)

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Instinct(en)

A psycho-sexual thriller about Isabelle, a lonely gallery owner who meets a dangerously seductive performance artist and discovers they have more in common than expected. Will Isabelle allow herself to let Camila in without giving in to her true nature?

Heavy-Light(en)

This is one of those abstract animated films in which colored, richly textured light moves in a black, three-dimensional space. The pictures and the electronic score are unified in a strict structure made of three main sections which progressively develop three subsections. This film may look like it was made using computers or video to the uninitiated, but only animation and much optical printing are to be seen herein. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.

In sieben Tagen(de)

It’s 50 euros(ca)

Two men meet for a coffee in a bar. As they talk, one explains to the other that he found 50 euros on the street that same morning. Then the other gives the most unwelcome answer: he has lost them.

Boy waits(xx)

A boy waits in the same street every day with his bags packed. What is he waiting for?

Let’s Just Get It Started(ja)

When you feel it, get it started / Even if you don’t, just somehow get it started / Whatever it may be, however it may be but / Anyhow let's just get it started.

Something Blue(en)

A lonely wedding photographer falls for a wedding crasher, who disappears under untold circumstances.

Emergence Collapse(en)

Emergence Collapse, the collaborative project of Berlin-based artist and filmmaker Rainer Kohlberger and Viennese electronic music producer Jung An Tagen is nearly beyond description (and perception): An assault on the senses that is at once euphoric and harrowing, at once completely alien and uncannily evocative, their work is perhaps the perfect artistic manifestation of existential angst. Jung An Tagens frighteningly frenetic and earsplitting dissonance is complimented perfectly by Rainer Kohlbergers constantly evolving, neon-tinged visual freak-out. The result is relentless and painfully overwhelming, but like a horror movie, Emergence Collapse demands – and ultimately rewards – your attention.

Consultation Room(ja)

In Kei Oyama's grim Consultation Room, a medical diagnosis triggers a wave of traumatic fantasies, portrayed in greyish pencil drawings that waver as if left out for too long in the rain.

The Thaw(ja)

A young boy becomes interested in the bodies of living things and starts to develop phobias after seeing a dog's corpse. Before long all manner of things begin to appear grotesque to him.

Two Ex-Lovers Cross Paths in a Corridor(en)

Two ex-lovers cross paths in a college corridor, triggering memories of their shared past.

Adorkable Shimei x Shijie(zh)

She who plays all day long, either being lazy or stealing food, it is impossible to practice well... And then she who seems to be strict, but is, in fact, gentle and pampered. Together, these two live a happy life.

Boomerang(en)

A man, a woman, and some first date nerves - sometimes just being human is embarrassing!

Two Nights(en)

Over two nights, a young Chinese immigrant has sexual encounters with two very different men. Consequently, he has to choose between the one he wants or the who wants him.

Electronics in the World of Tomorrow(fi)

Erkki Kurenniemi was arguably one of the first artists to propose or fantasise about a complete cultural surrender to cyber existence, and his entire career, covering such diverse fields as artificial intelligence, music, engineering, film, dance or rhetorics, testifies to this desire to escape the limits of the human body and transgress into a different dimension, bordering on techno-fetishism. In his 1964 short Electronics in the World of Tomorrow, Kurenniemi presents a slideshow of the most aseptic signs of technological imagination: diagrams, chips, machines, cold surfaces. But footage of human warmth also comes up - mostly in black and white, as if to give humans the status of a memory. Originally silent, the film was in this version endowed with a electronic music piece by Kurenneimi himself: a cold, aggressive soundtrack that could be said to present technology as a potentially menacing affair, although this is a reading that the director would certainly refute.

Burger Boys(tl)

Four high school friends hatch a plan for a farcical heist that sends them spiraling into a series of surreal events littered with clowns, fast food, and ‘rakenrol’, in an even more absurd nation of squalor and entertainment.

Omega(en)

An epic experimental film by Donald Fox. Prints circulated widely in the 1970s, with and without soundtrack.

Crazy Town(ru)

Incredible phantasmagoria of merry-go-round people, who are usually called the dregs of society .

The Next Karate Kid(en)

Mr. Miyagi decides to take Julie, a troubled teenager, under his wing after he learns that she blames herself for her parents' demise and struggles to adjust with her grandmother and fellow pupils.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2(en)

Batman has stopped the reign of terror that The Mutants had cast upon his city. Now an old foe wants a reunion and the government wants The Man of Steel to put a stop to Batman.

The Hunt for Red October(en)

A new technologically-superior Soviet nuclear sub, the Red October, is heading for the U.S. coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius. The American government thinks Ramius is planning to attack. Lone CIA analyst Jack Ryan has a different idea: he thinks Ramius is planning to defect, but he has only a few hours to find him and prove it - because the entire Russian naval and air commands are trying to find Ramius, too. The hunt is on!

Black Swan(en)

A journey through the psyche of a young ballerina whose starring role as the duplicitous swan queen turns out to be a part for which she becomes frighteningly perfect.

Child 44(en)

Set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, a disgraced MGB agent is dispatched to investigate a series of child murders -- a case that begins to connect with the very top of party leadership.

Gilbert(en)

The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.

Manhattan(en)

Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.

Goal! II: Living the Dream(en)

Tempted away from Newcastle United to join Real Madrid, rising star Santiago Munez finds this latest change of fortune the greatest challenge yet - personally as well as professionally. He is reunited with Gavin Harris, though they must compete to be on the team, and estranged from fiancee Roz, whose nursing career keeps her back home.

I Am Wrath(en)

A man is out for justice after a group of corrupt police officers are unable to catch his wife's killer.

Strike(ru)

Workers in a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia go on strike and are met by violent suppression.

Psycho IV: The Beginning(en)

When he hears talk radio host Fran Ambrose discussing the topic of matricide, Norman calls in under a false name to tell his story.

L.I.E.(en)

With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.

Alone(fr)

Five kids wake up in a world where everybody has disappeared.

Rocky III(en)

Now the world champion, Rocky Balboa is living in luxury and only fighting opponents who pose no threat to him in the ring, until Clubber Lang challenges him to a bout. After taking a pounding from Lang, the humbled champ turns to former bitter rival Apollo Creed for a rematch with Lang.

Wall Street(en)

A young and impatient stockbroker is willing to do anything to get to the top, including trading on illegal inside information taken through a ruthless and greedy corporate raider whom takes the youth under his wing.

Loro 1(it)

"Loro", in two parts, is a period movie that chronicles, as a fiction story, events likely happened in Italy (or even made up) between 2006 and 2010. "Loro" wants to suggest in portraits and glimps, through a composite constellation of characters, a moment in history, now definitively ended, which can be described in a very summary picture of the events as amoral, decadent but extraordinarily alive. Additionally, "Loro" wishes to tell the story of some Italians, fresh and ancient people at the same time: souls from a modern imaginary Purgatory who, moved by heterogeneous intents like ambition, admiration, affection, curiosity, personal interests, establish to try and orbit around the walking Paradise that is the man named Silvio Berlusconi.

The Hidden Fortress(ja)

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

The Breaker Upperers(en)

Two women run a business breaking up couples for cash but when one develops a conscience their friendship unravels.

Six Days of Sistine(en)

Two souls lost in a world of modernisation find each other in a moment's need for clarity and appreciation.

Rear Window(en)

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.