
Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov traces the course of experimental film in America, taking the very personal point of view of someone who grew up as part of the experimental film community.
Himself / Narrator (voice)
Himself
Himself
Himself

Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov traces the course of experimental film in America, taking the very personal point of view of someone who grew up as part of the experimental film community.
2011-07-24
6.8
7.7A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
6.0From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
6.9A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
7.0A documentary about the making of David Fincher's 2008 film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Virtually every element in the evolution of the Fincher's film is documented here, from the project's attachment to numerous other directors during the 1990s, to its shoot in 2006 and 2007 in New Orleans, to its complex, CGI-intensive postproduction process.
6.1A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
7.5Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
7.9A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.
7.1A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
7.8A documentary on the making of the three Godfather films, with interviews and recollections from the film makers and cast. This feature also includes the original screen tests of some of the actors for "The Godfather" film, and some candid moments on the set of "The Godfather: Part III."
6.9In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.
6.4A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
6.2SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.
6.5A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
7.2An intimate documentary delving into Rian Johnson's process as he comes in as a director new to the Star Wars universe.
8.0Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
8.5After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.
6.7A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.
6.9This essential new documentary pays tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty and shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking.
7.1This documentary focuses on the actors and their journey over two summers to create the remake to the original IT, by Stephen King. The documentary originally released as bonus material, bundled with IT: Chapter Two.
7.8Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
7.8A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
9.0The collective life of the generation born as Jurij Gagarin became the first man in space. Vitaly Mansky has woven together a fictional biography – taken from over 5.000 hours of film material, and 20.000 still pictures made for home use. A moving document of the fictional, but nonetheless true life of the generation who grew up in this time of huge change and upheaval.
6.5A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.
First part of the collaborative project "Brise-Glace" showing the diverse travels on the icebreaker "Frej". Directed by Jean Rouch.
2.0The film is a study of nature and significance of the hands in cinema. Besides review of movements and actions, which creates an independent story, it reveals interactions and interdependence of cinematic traditions of various authors, countries and periods
6.5An experimental sports film made partly during the Scandinavian Open Championships in Halmstad in 1970, partly during the Chinese players' exhibition tour in Denmark immediately after the SOC. First of all, it is a film about their style, about the artistic culmination that is ping-pong at its best, it records China's comeback into the international sports world.
0.0Several Portuguese creators occupy the director's chair in this collective short film shot during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in an unfolding of personal perspectives.
0.0During the Feria of Nîmes, a bullfight is filmed from the perspective of the animal, relegating the matador and public to off-screen spectators. A ritual at the frontiers of mysticism, carried by the sacrificial figure of the bull, revealer of our humanity.
4.3Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.
0.0A 6-year-old Tibetan boy leaves his family and flees to a refugee camp in northern India.
A moving recording of the late writer and renowned jazz singer Abbey Lincoln is captured in this new film from Brooklyn-born director Rodney Passé, who has previously worked with powerhouse music video director Khalil Joseph. Reading from her own works, Lincoln’s voice sets the tone for a film that explores the African American experience through fathers and their sons.
7.3On the island of Tanna, a part of Vanuatu, an archipelago in Melanesia, strange rites are enacted and time passes slowly while the inhabitants await the return of the mysterious John.
Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky, shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve close-up images. Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds, the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building, and these only as fleeting glimpses. The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film. The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave, consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax. The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition. The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself: the grain, the light, the shadow and inconsistencies in the print.
0.0Founded in the second half of the 1990s, the experimental film association L'Etna witnessed the transition from film to digital cinema. Its premises, located in the heart of Paris, were unable to withstand gentrification.
7.0Filmmakers use archival footage and animation to explore the culture surrounding nuclear weapons, the fascination they inspire and the perverse appeal they still exert.
Study of the relationship between observer and landscape in the contemplative experience. The view building the landscape from the necessary distance. The delimitation of its borders against the total continuum of nature. The observer immersed in the path of his gaze across the landscape. Resting the gaze in the details that make the globallity. The view selecting the space included as a landscape.
7.6Works with sound recordings of Dion McGregor, who became famous for talking in his sleep.
6.9In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.
4.5SONG 5: A childbirth song (the Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969).
6.9Rather than writing a simple letter to explain his absence from the press conference for his latest Cannes entry, "Goodbye to Language," at the Cannes Film Festival, instead, legendary filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard created a video "Letter in motion to (Cannes president) Gilles Jacob and (artistic director) Thierry Fremaux." The video intercuts from Godard speaking cryptically about his "path" to key scenes from Godard classics such as "Alphaville" and "King Lear" with Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald, and quotes poet Jacques Prevert and philosopher Hannah Arendt.