Metropoles

Film II(en)

To mark his ninetieth birthday, EYE has restored Zwartjes’ very first film, originally shot on Super-8 and long thought lost. Zwartjes started his career as a violinist and visual artist. He took photographs, made music and built instruments – but only really broke through with his equally craftsmanlike films.

Words Are Limited, Feelings Are Not(en)

A man reads a letter from his away girlfriend while he contemplates on some memorable places in Jakarta, where they had spent time together.

A 25 Year Old Gay Man Loses His Virginity to a Woman(en)

"This tape is an exploration of my latent heterosexuality with porn star / performance artist Annie Sprinkle as instructor and sage. After assuaging my fears that I can have sex with a woman & still maintain my gay identity, Annie warms me up with some playful, sensual wrestling. She then instructs in the use of a tampon while relating men's need to make war with their inability to menstruate. For the rest of the tape, she guides me through the specifics of sexual exploration, positions of coital congress as well as post- coital ritual."

log 2(xx)

From Winnipeg to Paris, from Montreal to the Philippines, the dash between "Filipino-Canadian" becomes a minus.

Filmphilia - A Fax to Godard(pt)

Originality in a time of poorly made copies, a filmic inventory of a strange time, a kaleidoscope of images, in a constant game of ruptures and continuities. All this from 365 videos published on an Instagram page in 2018, added to an original soundtrack and a text adapted from Dürrenmatt's play Dialogue of a Vile Man, a text that synthesizes our time well.

Wk=mMv2/2(en)

The abstruse title "Wk=mMv2/2" is the physical equation for a molecule's kinetic energy, and it refers to the images shown in the film: They were created by zooming at coincidentally photographed individuals on postcards. As a result of the extreme enlargement, the grid of the cards' printing is made clearly visible and the figures, many of which are only a few millimeters high in the original, are greatly abstracted.

Ashden's Walk on Møn(en)

Experimental short overlays footage of buildings and fields with that of a spiral galaxy.

All this Roughness(es)

An unnamed passer-by is forced to trace a circular route inside an abandoned tram station, facing loss and time. The broken walls act as a channel, transmitting fragmentary, blurred and analogical memories. 

Veil of Years(xx)

Slow disintegration and aging of artists head, revealing underlying bone structure. Created using old picture-phone technology. New music added in 2013.

Grey & War(es)

Haemocyanin(en)

Soft arms and rigid tunnels, bendable limbs and transparent shapes, words that speak and languages that dance. In his visually striking video Haemocyanin, artist Tuomas A. Laitinen observes how an octopus interacts with a glass structure, entering its folds, exploring its interstices, inhabiting its transparent mass while having its body traversed by dynamic flows of letters and hieroglyphs.

C-Film(en)

Two women in a living room: smoking, playing cards, listening to the radio. As often in Dwoskin’s films, the use of masks, make-up and costumes allows the characters to playfully transform themselves. Shot in colour film, C-film exuberates swinging London energy. In the second part of the film, the women appear to be watching the rushes of the film on an editing table. ”We are making a movie” we hear them say. As Dwoskin points out, “C-film asks how much is acting acted”, an ongoing question in Dwoskin’s cinema. Produced by Alan Power, with Esther Anderson & Sally Geeson.

Jours de mes années(xx)

An experimental short film that evokes moments in the life of a man recreated through the magic of memory. Made from documents from various sources, this film is composed of several scenes: the stages of the day and of life between joy and carefree youth, the cruelty of the working world, the horror of war. The final result is put into perspective with the birth of a child, perpetuating the cycle of life.

Calypso(en)

Hand painted directly onto film stock by Margaret Tait, this film features animated dancing figures, accompanied by authentic calypso music.

The Age of Silence(es)

Very hard radiography of repression, torture and the unstoppable desire to achieve freedom. The untold protest drawn by OPS, with a mouth that screams in a face that has literally sewn other parts, becomes one of the most political and adult works of Spanish animation.

The Emblazoned Apparitions(en)

An alchemically treated lullaby to the end of cinema, featuring Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Cremaster 5(hu)

Cremaster 5 is a five-act opera (sung in Hungarian) set in late-ninteenth century Budapest. The last film in the series, Cremaster 5 represents the moment when the testicles are finally released and sexual differentiation is fully attained. The lamenting tone of the opera suggests that Barney invisions this as a moment of tragedy and loss. The primary character is the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress). Barney, himself, plays three characters who appear in the mind of the Queen: her Diva, Magician, and Giant. The Magician is a stand-in for Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874 and appears as a recurring character in the Cremaster cycle.

The Last Birthday(en)

An experimental re-telling of the last days of the Romanov sisters.

Marie and Me(en)

color, silent, 8mm film

Mira corpora(fr)

The film appears like a ritual with splendids and crypteds psalms. The Great Master of Order (Marcel Mazé, new fetish actor after Aloual) seduces the young male prey with a running cinema projector which carves Murnau's Nosferatu extracts on their bodies. Metamorphosis, rituals passages, Eros and Thanotos, illusion and reality, film into the film are the themes and images in perpetual osmosis in this Stéphane Marti's opus.