

A spiral design spins. It's replaced by a spinning disk. These two continue in perfect alternation until the end: a spiral design, a disk. Each disk is labelled and can be read as it rotates. The messages, in French, feature puns and whimsical rhymes and alliteration. The final message comments on the spiral motif itself.
1926-01-01
6.16
0.0A BFI collection of 7 short films from the USA, England and Italy scored for Piano, Guitar and String Quartet.
The Last Bohemian (Hungarian: Az Utolsó bohém) is a 1912 Hungarian film directed by Michael Curtiz. It was Curtiz's debut film as a director.
4.0Albertina is a celebrated dancer whose fame is widespread. However, she has overtaxed her strength, is forbidden to appear in public and is obliged to seek quiet and rest. She retires to her Aunt Mary's home, a beautiful and restful country place, where she secures the much-needed seclusion and comfort. Next door to Aunt Mary there lives a very handsome fellow who has often admired Aunt Mary's niece and to tell the truth she admires him. Growing restless under the enforced retirement, Albertina strolls down to the lake where the water-lilies grow. She pulls a number of them into a garland which she holds bewitchingly above her head. They give her an inspiration and involuntarily she pirouettes, bends and swerves her lithe and willowy form like a nymph of ethereal sweetness. The young man who lives next door is rowing upon the lake; He see Albertina dancing on the velvety field of grass, is charmed by her, and rushes toward her.
5.0After Count John Karpathy, belovedly known as the Nabob, falls ill while entertaining the peasants of his estate, his dissolute nephew and sole heir, Count Bela, comes home from Paris to acquire his inheritance. The Nabob recovers and, after hearing Bela's plan to squander the money, resolves not to give Bela anything while he lives.
A film with no protagonist revolving around being trapped inside and going toward the beauty of nature and freedom.
6.0A French violinist saves his beloved princess from the Russian revolution..
Tasos is a young shepherd in love with Golfo and intends to marry her. However, the rich shepherdess Stavroula with the help of her father manages to lure him with the promise of a dowry. Eventually he realises his mistake and returns to Golfo, but she has poisoned herself. Driven by guilt, Tasos commits suicide.
The first feature-length motion picture produced in Europe, running 90 minutes. Directed by Michel Carré, from his own three-act stage pantomime, The Prodigal Son. The film was basically an unmodified filmed record of his play. Filmed at the Gaumont Film Company studios in May 1907.
6.0In Italy during the first half of the 19th century, Arthur, a student at a seminary, joined the revolutionary society “Young Italy.” His sincere faith in God compelled him to reveal the society’s secret during confession to his new confessor. However, the confessor denounced the society, leading to the arrest of its members.
Henry is being blackmailed. When the blackmailer breaks into his house, Henry apprehends him at gunpoint and takes the opportunity to rid himself of the blackmailer's threat.
6.4Timothy and Gay, orphans from the slums of Boston, escape to Maine in search of a home and manage to thaw Avilda's embittered, grief-stricken heart. A charming pastoral about two unwanted children finding acceptance and love.
0.0A lonesome man at the threshold of death finds himself trapped in a place called the Endless.
0.0Based on the novel Marthandavarma, the film recounts the adventures of the crown Prince, Marthandavarma on how he eliminates his arch-rivals one by one, to ascend to the throne of the Kingdom of Travancore.
2.0Audrey Munson (a real-life 'perfect' model for numerous Beaux-Arts sculptors) first appeared artistically nude as a sculptor's model, recreating classic artistic (nude) paintings in George Foster Platt's controversial film from the Mutual Film Corporation. In fact, the film told the story of her own life. This film has generally been regarded as the first non-pornographic American film to feature nudity. This was the first known film in which a leading actress stripped down to be naked, making her the first nude film star. (filmsite.org)
2.0Purity, a simple country girl, comes to the city and is hired as an artist's model. A young poet becomes obsessed with her, and is distraught when he learns she has been posing nude. But his distress is diminished when he finds that she intends to use her income from modelling to publish his poetry.
0.0In this lost film, Theda Bara took the role of spoiled, deceiving nymphomaniac "vixen" Elsie Drummond. She wooed Wall Street businessman Martin Stevens (A. H. Van Buren) away from his interest in her sweet sister Helen (Mary G. Martin). She continued to seek after rich men, eventually marrying young statesman Knowles Murray (Herbert Heyes) (again stolen from Helen) - but still willing to be unfaithful with Stevens who had since regained his fortune. (filmsite.org)
6.8Director of this movie gave an advertisement in many Yugoslav papers calling everybody who wants to act in movie regardless of age, look or profession to reply. From 7000 arrived letters, about 30 heroes were picked up for the movie and its story was made based on what they wished to play.
5.5The Star Prince has fallen to Earth and because of his cruelty towards a beggar, he is turned into a grotesque pauper. He goes on a quest to find his mother, meeting a wicked witch and princess on his way. He falls in love with the princess, but an evil dwarf tries to force the princess to marry him. The Star Prince rescues the princess and is thus turned back into his original form and marries the beautiful princess.
6.5Region of Castilla La Vieja, Spain, early 20th century. In Luján, a village ravaged by drought, Juan, a humble farmer who survives with his wife and son, confronts a local loan shark and is imprisoned as a result.
6.9Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most 'dada' film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and chased by its pallbearers) and a dizzying roller coaster finale. A film of contradictions and agreements.
6.5A pulsing, kaleidoscope of images set to an energetic soundtrack. This is a world in motion, dominated by mechanical and repetitive images, with a few moments of solitude in a garden.
7.0Molly, the eldest child of a group of orphans being used as slaves on a farm hidden deep in a swamp, must rescue the others when their cruel master decides that one of them will be disposed of.
6.6A dance of shapes. A title card tells us this is an experiment in conveying the mental images of music in a visual form. Liszt's "Second Hungarian Rhapsody" is the music. The shapes, all two-dimensional, are circles primarily, with some squares and rectangles, and a few triangles. The shapes move rhythmically to the music: receding from view or moving across the screen. Red circles on a blue background; light blue squares; white rectangles. Then, a red background of many circles with a few in the foreground. Red gives way to blue then to white. Shapes reappear as Liszt's themes re-occur. Then, with a few staccato notes and images, it's over.
5.1One can determine a line in Tscherkassky’s oeuvre which turns around a game with filmic presentation, with degrees of recognisability — with the only-just and the not-any-more. Just to see desire. An example of this is Erotique. One sees swirling pictures, parts of a woman’s face, red lips, eyes in cyclical fragments of movement. Often it is difficult to tell which part of the body one actually sees (whoever wants to can see/imagine/think sexual organs and sexual acts.) The gaze gets hung up on partial objects, no integral, whole body to think about. No body, whose representation was always one of the problems in cinema.
6.4Come take an avant-garde walk in the Montparnasse of the late 1920's. This district of Paris, filmed in a most unusual way, shows how dedicated it is to art. Visit its art galleries and exhibitions, take a glimpse of famous painter Fujita, of Luis Buñuel eyeing the legs of beautiful Parisian passing the terrace of the café where he sits, of Italian futurists Marinetti, Prampolini and Russolo.
7.87362 is concerned with dividing and joining together. It begins with two black circles against a white background, knocking together and gradually moving further apart. The circles fade out, and return as white circles against black inside a square. Images similar to Rorschach blots appear. Gradually the viewer realizes that the images were not originally abstract, but were human forms (dancers, gymnasts, etc.), bridges, and others that have been split down the center of the frame, with their mirror images printed on either side of the split. Red, green, and white tints further abstract the images from their original foundations in the natural world, making dancers appear to be amoebas or dividing cells. The accompanying sound track is a mixture of electronic music and musique concrète ("real" recorded sounds manipulated to sound abstract).
7.4Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.
7.7When a mysterious entity possesses a young girl, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.
7.0The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.
7.9As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so immersed in their own psychic pains that they are unable to offer her the support she needs.
7.4Arriving in Helsinki, a nameless man is beaten within an inch of his life by thugs, miraculously recovering only to find that he has completely lost his memory. Back on the streets, he attempts to begin again from zero, befriending a moody dog and becoming besotted with a Salvation Army volunteer.
7.5Frustrated with the direction of the church, Cardinal Bergoglio requests permission to retire in 2012 from Pope Benedict. Instead, facing scandal and self-doubt, the introspective Pope Benedict summons his harshest critic and future successor to Rome to reveal a secret that would shake the foundations of the Catholic Church.
7.4In the questionable town of Deer Meadow, Washington, FBI Agent Desmond inexplicably disappears while hunting for the man who murdered a teen girl. The killer is never apprehended, and, after experiencing dark visions and supernatural encounters, Agent Dale Cooper chillingly predicts that the culprit will claim another life. Meanwhile, in the more cozy town of Twin Peaks, hedonistic beauty Laura Palmer hangs with lowlifes and seems destined for a grisly fate.
7.1Set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, a series of dramatic, consequential events unfold after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier, who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with a provincial family’s eldest daughter.
8.0Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant.
7.1Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.