Movies: Avant garde

Santamaria and Urtigo are two bandits on the run, one is white, the other black. Santamaria is a mystical visionary and believes in the imminent coming of a purifying angel. Urtiga, his inseparable companion, is a simple-minded and ingenious man who ...

A young adult's first-hand account of "accidentally becoming human again" after, and with, trauma induced depression. Lo-fi, vulnerable, and uniquely youthful, "The Afterlife" is a melancholic affirmation of life after death....

This four-volume boxset released by Image Forum compiles the breadth of Shuji Terayama's experimental short film work into an extensive DVD collection. Originally released by Image Forum on VHS in 1995, this upgraded DVD boxset stands as the definiti...

Number Two’ is an audio visual work which materializes the definite possibilities of sight and the existence of light in space with the drama in between image and sound as a reaction . It treats the surface of the film itself as a digital artefact th...

An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, E...

Images that take the viewer to the sea, before dark....

In 1952, Haanstra made Panta Rhei , another view of Holland through the eyes of a painter and filmmaker. Its poetic images of water, skies and clouds reflect Haanstra's own moods....

The film choreographically covers the distance between two women and their mirroring selves, under Laurie Spiegel's soundscape and with the ambiance of VHS video. Their bodies, sometimes two and others four, are always connected with a rope, influenc...

The first part depicts the heroine's toothache consequent to the loss of a very valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land, in terms of Israel and Montreal. The second pa...

A woman washes up on a beach and embarks on a surreal journey, encountering others and fragmented versions of herself in a quest for identity....

How would a found footage film look if the footage was never found? This conceptual art experiment questions the very nature of film and cinema while serving as an ironic tribute to the found footage horror pop culture. The found footage format provi...

Flares of color break into streams of light, leaves, wood grain and prism-etched vegetation. A moon lifts out of this dark weave to be replaced by autumn leaves against a grainy sky, a fiery sky. A gray cat licks itself. A black cat sits quickly down...

To forget about the end of a relationship, a woman fantasizes about an ideal one. Fantasy and reality begin to melt into one another, but the past finds a way to rear its head again. Films used: Notorious (1946) Gaslight (1944)...

Water for Maya is a hand-painted work which came into being during a film interview with Martina Kudlacek about Maya Deren. There was a sudden recognition of Maya’s intrinsic love of water and thus of all Mayan liquidity in magic conjunction, reflect...

Meet Shavon O'Brien: Her family doesn't understand her, her church ignores her, even Jesus forgets about her. With only the spirit of Sinead O'Connor to guide her, Shavon battles institutional child abuse, narcissistic group think, a talking stomach...

An exploration of the space where femininity and criminality collide. The film collages archival footage clips culled from silent films, original footage and computer-generated imagery with a series of narratives drawn from true crime confessions, ea...

A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression and the versatility of the movement’s directors. Based on stories by the legendary writer Bohumil Hrabal, the shorts range from the surreally ch...

A man meets a woman at a deserted railroad station somewhere in northern New England. It is the middle of winter; snow is falling. The two drive to a remote farmhouse. Two strange children, who never speak, appear at the window; an old woman calls th...

Filmmaker and teacher, Stéphane Marti has been researching experimental cinema as an art form liberated of aesthetic codes and the economics of big budget cinema. His work is primarily focused on the themes of the sacred and the human body. An avid s...

Our place is on fire and we are on fire with it. If that, what we are, is not any longer and an eternal search begins - for who we are, where we stand and where we should go....