From the Point to the Shape

Doorway(en)

A serene winterscape glides, as in a dream, across the screen, from darkness to darkness...Vision shivers, hesitates ever so slightly to savor, to hold still, but inevitably everything passes. Far becomes near, near far. Shadows seed their counterparts in the depths of the viewer's heart.

Notes on a Scandal(en)

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

Alone(ru)

A short tale about nature and isolation. Narrated by Andrei Tarkovsky. Shot on 16mm Fomapan R in spring 2020.

Bob Ross: The Happy Painter(en)

A behind-the-scenes look at the beloved public television personality's journey from humble beginnings to an American pop-culture icon. "The Happy Painter" reveals the public and private sides of Bob Ross through loving accounts from close friends and family, childhood photographs and rare archival footage. Interviewees recount his gentle, mild-mannered demeanor and unwavering dedication to wildlife, and disclose little-known facts about his hair, his fascination with fast cars and more. Film clips feature Bob Ross with mentor William Alexander and the rough-cut of the first "Joy of Painting" episode from 1982. Famous Bob Ross enthusiasts, including talk-show pioneer Phil Donahue, film stars Jane Seymour and Terrence Howard, chef Duff Goldman and country music favorites Brad Paisley and Jerrod Niemann, provide fascinating insights into the man, the artist and his legacy.

A Fan(en)

A man in drag sits on a couch holding a fan. The wallpaper behind him is floral patterned. Although the man does little more than looking around and waving his fan, Zwartjes created enormous tension.

Transformations(en)

A coven of witches gather in Vermont in a feminist collective’s transporting short that shakes off patriarchal scrutiny during the women’s ceremony, where they’re free to remake reality before our eyes. TRANSFORMATIONS creates an intoxicating alchemy from the witches’ interactions with nature: an attempt, as Hirschfeld remembers, to “use the act of filmmaking to heighten experience.”

The Tiny Ventriloquist(en)

"In the first shot of Reinke’s new feature length video, we see the desert landscape of the American Southwest from a car window. Though shaky and handheld, it is an immediately recognizable and iconic image: the great vistas of Hollywood westerns, of American westward expansion, of monumental modernist land art from the late 20th century. On the soundtrack, Reinke’s unmistakable voice apologizes for beginning the film with a shot of a landscape from a moving car, but what is he to do? The camera is already rolling. This moment encapsulates much of what transpires in the scenes that follow: presenting us with an image, dismissing that image and wryly suggesting he is doing nothing here, that the footage is just unreeling. Reinke’s collection and organization of images and sounds seem casual at first, but ultimately reveal themselves to be heavily mediated and orchestrated."

Outline(en)

A grieving artist seeks redemption in an unlikely place, her loved one's crime scene.

solitude(en)

The Infinite Mercy Film(en)

A portrait of Alan Vega as painter, drawer and sculptor of light

Thoughts and Visions of a Severed Head(fr)

The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.

Lemonade(en)

The second "visual album" (a collection of short films) by Beyoncé, this time around she takes a piercing look at racial issues and feminist concepts through a sexualized, satirical, and solemn tone.

Déjà-Vu(en)

A cinematic experience by Douglas Gordon - in which the film D.O.A. is screened simultaneously on three screens beside one another, but at slightly different speeds. The films quickly fall out of synch with one another. Déjà-vu uses footage from D.O.A. 1949-50, a Hollywood thriller directed by Rudolph Mateé. The film has been transferred to video and is projected simultaneously on three parallel screens at normal speed as well as slightly faster and slightly slower - 25, 24 and 23 frames per second (left to right). This has the effect of making the three identical narratives diverge increasingly over time, and inducing in the viewer an experience similar to déjà-vu.

Making Eyes(en)

A cinematic backdrop, created by Douglas Gordon, for Rufus Wainwright, in which the singer's eyes are filmed in slow motion and overlapped. The film is shown here accompanied by Wainwright's Sonnet 10 - but the film was also shown as a video backdrop during the singer's live concerts.

Enrico Caruso: A Voice for the Ages(de)

Born in 1873 in a poor neighbourhood in Naples, Enrico Caruso conquered the world with his singing voice. At the age of 27 he got a contract at the Scala in Milan, and his already considerable popularity skyrocketed thanks to the invention of the gramophone. He sold millions of records, and garnered international acclaim. In 1903 he moved to New York to perform at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera, in the role of Radames. But his riches and fame attracted the attention of the Mafia, who started blackmailing him. He felt trapped by his fame and died at just 48 years old. Biographer Francesco Canessa, the music critic Jürgen Kesting and the composer Micha Hamel explain the ups and downs of the man behind the timeless Italian voice.

Liniers, el trazo simple de las cosas(es)

Winter 2007. Two artists from Argentina receive a grant to develop their work in Montreal (Canada). The only catch? They have to share an apartment. In this way filmmaker Franca González and cartoonist Ricardo Siri Liniers come to know each other. From the moment González becomes the roommate of Liniers, a friendship emerges between them and she makes him the proposal of doing a documentary about him. The film starts with an argument to get Liniers permission to chase him with videocameras and ends up becoming one of the most tender portraits ever done of the artist, reflecting the transcendence that ensues from the simple line of his drawings.

Day of the Dead(sh)

Experimental film by Ivan Martinac.

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Cellular Immune Response(en)

On Inauguration Day 2017, the filmmaker spent all day in a Washington, DC, used bookstore, where he bought a stack of audiotape secret telephone recordings of marital infidelity from 1969. At the Women’s March, he recognized the cosmic resonance of the phone with all that was happening.

Burial Pyramid(en)

Mendieta, Ana: Burial Pyramide, Yagul, Mexico.