Experimental

Quote:
Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the “Institute of Snap!thology,” where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap. The film closes with obituaries for victims of AIDS and archival footage of the civil rights movement placed next to footage of Black men marching in a gay pride parade.Read More »

Synopsis
The recurring theme of dance once again works its way into a Shirley Clarke project, as this short film features a performance that takes place across a multitude of environments. As a primary couple intimately interacts, Clarke tests herself as a filmmaker by enhancing the performance with camera movements and visual additions. Altering the setting and the atmosphere with the use of back-projection, this intriguing piece illustrates Clarke’s willingness to experiment on many levels.Read More »

Quote
“This film by Bruce Baillie, completed in 1966 but unreleased until 2014, is contemporaneous with Castro Street, but is much more formally connected to All My Life or Still Life, also from the same year. In three sections with three different formal strategies, Baillie shares distilled moments of found natural beauty as he encountered them in the North Bay outside San Francisco. The first section features a study of plum blossoms, rendered in rich, multiple superimpositions that allow the white flowers to explode into a blizzard of visual complexity, framed by a panning shot of purple mountains. In the second section, Baillie allows us a furtive glimpse of the titular little girl, waving to cars with her dog on the side of the road, lost in her world and thoughts. Bruce#s framing remains unadorned, feeling no need to add to or take away from a beautiful piece of simple portraiture. The third section, of waterbugs on the surface of a pond, remind us how remarkable and sensitive Baillie’s camerawork can be, as he observes their graceful dances, and the subtle light and water effects they produce by their movements.”
Mark ToscanoRead More »

Carl is having trouble writing. As the film progresses, his novelistic character develops into a real person who intervenes in his life with increasing menace. The lector Roy supports Carl but is marked by a severe illness. To escape his difficulties, Carl accompanies Jon and Liza on an architectural journey. Bela and Fred remain behind with Roy and are confronted with his approaching death. For his friends, his death becomes the motive to reconstruct their life spent together.Read More »

Thirteen static shots of coal-fired power stations across the United States, seen in rural landscapes, urban settings, sun or cloud and at all times of year. Whatever the location or season, there’s always at least one chimney belching out fumes.Read More »

Another recently unearthed Clementi film. Another few reels of footage consisting of Clementi, his friends and his family enjoying the Parisian life.Read More »

Twelve never-told-before vignettes from the life of Hercules which at once dismantle and condense the underlying myth: performances of bodies and machines, inspired by sword-and-sandal films, as a playful analysis of legends and their structures.Read More »

Recording the everyday was always a way of relating to the world. One night the rape happened and everything changed, although the search continued. When revisiting these images, a dialogue arises between light and darkness, while the strangeness remains before the world.Read More »

Quote:
On 21 September 1972, the Philippines were plunged into a dark night lasting sixteen years. On that day, President Marcos announced a state of emergency. Censorship, intimidation and distrust tarnished the days in the oldest democracy in Asia, until the dictator fled the country after the controversial elections of 1986.
Leave it for tomorrow, for night has fallen is the answer Jet Leyco was given as a child when he asked about the old days. He never knew his grandparents, on either side, and the only story he knew about his mother was of her simple wedding. He reconstructs the past; a past of which he has only hazy childhood memories.Read More »