Experimental

  • Anton Bialas – À l’entrée de la nuit AKA At The Entrance Of The Night (2020)

    2011-2020Anton BialasExperimentalFranceShort Film

    Synopsis
    Two Senegalese men walk through a forest in Morocco at night. As they try to find a passageway to the north, they talk about a strange dream. Two officers from the Spanish Civil Guard patrol the Spanish coast in an SUV. The car’s headlights probe the darkness in search of illegal immigrants. In Paris, a young woman performs a symbolic burial in a forest on the edge of the city.Read More »

  • Carmelo Bene – Don Giovanni (1970)

    1961-1970Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtArthouseCarmelo BeneExperimentalItaly

    Synopsis:
    Spectacular Italian comedy-drama directed by Carmelo Bene. The narrative follows how Don Giovanni tries to seduce a young woman who is manically searching for Christian icons. The film is loosely based on Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly’s short story “The Greatest Love of Don Juan”, from the collection Les Diaboliques. The film premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival.Read More »

  • David Elfick – Crystal Voyager (1973)

    1971-1980David ElfickDocumentaryExperimentalUSA

    Quote:
    Outstanding psychadelic surfing documentary with Meddle-era Pink Floyd soundtrack

    In 1975 surfer and sometime director of photography George Greenhough got tired of the overcrowded beaches of Southern California and set of on a journey of discovery. He designed and built his own surfboards, some equipped with underwater camera equipment. With a small group of friends he built a boat and went off the map to find some waves they could truly call their own. This journey of discovery became a breathtaking cinematic trip. Combined with the music of Pink Floyd, an understated first person narrative, and some of the best surfing footage I believe has been ever shot they created one of the most remarkable works of art ever made. At times the photography seems almost impossible. Cameras glide effortlessly through sheets of seething water, bringing the viewer as close to the experience of actually surfing than anything I have seen.Read More »

  • Michael Snow – *Corpus Callosum (2002)

    2001-2010CanadaExperimentalMichael Snow

    The corpus callosum is a central region of tissue in the human brain which passes “messages“ between the two hemispheres. Corpus Callosum, the film (or tape, or projected light work), is constructed of, de-picts, creates, examines, presents, consists of, and is, “betweens.“ Between beginning and ending, between “natural“ and “artificial,“ between fiction and fact, between hearing and seeing, between 1956 and 2002. It’s a tragi-comedy of the cinematic variables. Corpus Callosum juxtaposes or counterpoints a realism of normal metamorphosis (two extreme examples: pregnancy, explosions) in believable, “real“ interior spaces with “impossible“ shape changes (some made possible with digital animation). Read More »

  • Caitlin Ryan – S p a c e l a n d (2020)

    2011-2020Caitlin RyanExperimentalShort FilmUSA

    Long hallways, an orchestrated auction, and acts of disappearance, Spaceland, travels through the mysterious American landscape of storage units. Space that captures the line between necessity and amenity; between an interim life event and the more permanent obscured.Read More »

  • James Benning – Maggie’s Farm (2020)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalJames BenningUSA

    “A portrait of an art institution as a cinematic landscape: in a succession of static shots, James Benning explores the buildings and terrain of the California Institute of the Arts, where he teaches. A series of views of nature filmed in the surrounding park and woods transitions into images of floors, seating areas and other details of a public building not meant for show. In both parts, an uncanny feeling dominates: the geometries of nature, the dark green and brown tones, the rushing of the highway in the background on the one hand and the humming of halogen lamps, the sound of steps in an otherwise seemingly empty school on the other – it all seems to be hiding a secret.Read More »

  • Colin Campbell – Dangling by Their Mouths (1981)

    1981-1990CanadaColin CampbellExperimentalQueer Cinema(s)Video Art

    Quote:
    In Dangling by Their Mouths, Campbell casts himself as the female lead named Anna. At first, the obvious image of the cross-dressing Campbell playing the part of Anna is quite displacing. However, by avoiding the “camp” aspects of gender bending (quite often found in videos from the 1980s), Campbell’s performance allows the viewer to suspend their disbelief until, midway through the tape, Campbell has successfully transformed into Anna.Read More »

  • Philip S. Solomon – Psalm I: The Lateness of the Hour (1999)

    1991-2000ExperimentalPhilip S. SolomonUSA

    Quote:
    A little nachtmusick, a deep blue overture to the series. Breathing in the cool night airs, breathing out a children’s song; then whispering a prayer for a night of easeful sleep.Read More »

  • Jóhann Jóhannsson – Last and First Men (2020)

    2011-2020ExperimentalIcelandJóhann JóhannssonSci-Fi

    Two billion years ahead of us, a future race of humans finds itself on the verge of extinction. Almost all that is left in the world are lone and surreal monuments, beaming their message into the wilderness.

    Based on the cult science fiction novel of the same name by Olaf Stapledon, Jóhann Jóhannsson artfully combines music, film and narrative spoken by Hollywood star Tilda Swinton in his opus Magnum Last and First Men, a poetic meditation on memory and loss.Read More »

Back to top button