Frank Zappa: The Present-Day Composer Refuses To Die(2000)

Six by Sondheim(en)

This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.

The Contact Enigma(en)

Three people become connected through mysterious circumstances involving electronic devices which spontaneously appeared in their world.

The Beginner's Guide to Spinning in Loops(en)

From June 2021 to June 2022, Justin "Jastun" Bland records whatever that is in front of him. He presents an abstract montage of collected videos varying from onscreen recordings to filming special, intimate & mundane in-real-life moments. This short captures our daily routines in life and how we choose to spontaneously record them.

Cole Porter in Hollywood: Begin the Beguine(en)

An overview of Cole Porter’s musical contributions to the film Broadway Melody of 1940.

Kosmische Brocken - Frank Zappa und die Deutschen(de)

Studies in Transfalumination(en)

Modified flashlights and stripped down video projectors explore the visual complexities of the ordinary world: a tunnel, a clump of grass, a discarded table, the underside of a bridge, fog, a piece of rock and a tree. All the images were shot in real time, there is no animation, but through the power of a peculiar form of illumination they become mysterious and evocative.

Cassis(en)

"I was visiting Jerome Hill. Jerome loved France, especially Provence. He spent all his summers in Cassis. My window overlooked the sea. I sat in my little room, reading or writing, and looked at the sea. I decided to place my Bolex exactly at the angle of light as what Signac saw from his studio which was just behind where I was staying, and film the view from morning till after sunset, frame by frame. One day of the Cassis port filmed in one shot." -JM

Women Composers(de)

When Leipzig pianist Kyra Steckeweh realized that her repertoire almost exclusively consisted of music composed by men, she began searching for pieces written by female composers. Her research in archives, libraries, and publishing houses quickly brought to light a variety of remarkable piano pieces that have been buried in history and rarely performed.

Expiration(sh)

Short experimental film.

From Pompeii to Xenia(en)

From Pompeii to Xenia puts in echo times of innocence struck by disaster: the lightning tornado which had beaten down on the American city of Xénia in 1974 answers, at thousands of kilometers in distance and centuries apart, the mythical eruption of Vesuvius in 79. The extended panorama, derived through the crossing of history and from an intimate story and urban sociology, is the cinematic reconstruction of a personal history: of its historical and geographical conditions to its processing.

Second Shift(en)

A correctional officer’s daily routine of gaining access into a correctional facility.

Six Positions(en)

Six Positions (1998) is about task of a funeral home director.

A Week in the Hole(en)

A Week in the Hole chronicles a factory employee’s adjusting to the materials, time, space and personnel during his first day of work.

Orchard Street(en)

This short film documents the daily life of the goings-on on Orchard Street, a commercial street in the Lower East Side New York City.

How to Get Out of the Cage (A year with John Cage)(en)

2012 documentary on John Cage celebrating his 100th birthday in the form of a re-edit of partially unused film material shot for the film 'Time is Music’ in 1987. Includes interviews and recordings of performances with the influential zen composer.

The First Motion of the Immovable(fr)

It all begins with a childhood memory: that day when the father of the future filmmaker Sebastiano d'Ayala Valva forces him to listen to certain music that initially terrifies him; a distant echo from the past that leads him to follow the trail of his mysterious ancestor, the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), who claimed that his music was directly inspired by the gods.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City(de)

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

When Pop Went Epic: The Crazy World of the Concept Album(en)

Rick Wakeman tells the story of the concept album from Woody Guthrie to the present day - a musical format usually based around a structured narrative that developed to become the equivalent of rock 'n' roll theatre.

Till The Clouds Roll By: Real to Reel(en)

A short documentary on Jerome Kern and the making of Till the Clouds Roll By.

Lake(en)

Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”