A short treatise on the semiotics of capital, happiness, and phenomenology under the flickering neon of global capitalism.
Social & External
The people behind it
Jean-Claude Rousseau's Jeune femme à sa fenêtre lisant une lettre is not only his first medium-length film, but a chance to discover this filmmaker whom Jean-Marie Straub has called, along with Frans Van de Staak and Peter Nestler, the greatest working in Europe. With this newly restored print there is also a possibility to discover the relationship between Rousseau's art of filming and Jan Vermeer's famous painting. As Prosper Hillairet wrote in 1988, four years after Rousseau had finished Jeune femme ... (for the first time as we know today): «Without adopting the usual systematic spirit and form of cinéma structurel, Rousseau presents us with simple images and leaves it at that. Keeps the image in hand. A minimalist and ascetic expression of cinema: a shot that lasts.»
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In this surrealist vignette-based film, a goldfish makes conversation with various objects. A TV becomes a writer, a triangle learns it is not a hexagon, and a goldfish sees themself without an audience. // \ / \ \\ \ / \ / /\/ /// \ / \ \\ \ / \ / /\/ /// \ / \ \\ \ / \ / /\/ /
The quietly insistent and critical DEPOSITIONS attempts to restore some dignity to images of the communities of the Scottish highlands taken from patronizing BBC documentaries and news features from the 70’s and 80’s. DEPOSITIONS repurposes footage from the archives of the BBC and sound from the School of Scottish Studies, it is a film about differences and dichotomies: science and superstition, near and far, community and the individual.
A series of portraits, made for Television, of four diverse individuals brought together through shared residence. These short films were filmed in the tenement where I lived for eight years. The first is shot in our bedroom, which doubled up as my former partner's office, the three others were shot in architecturally identitical spaces owned by my then neighbours. Shot and edited on a single 16mm bolex camera using available light throughout, the films invoke reflections on the four individuals, how they occupy these particular spaces together.
This is a story of love seen from a square, in which a couple gets united, separated and rearranged again. A special kind of puzzle.
There is nothing left to do but complain.
A teenager decides to shut himself off from the world around him after receiving bad news.
Steadily reading while/becomes treading into murky waters.
A short experimental film about a fire hydrant, a busy sidewalk nestled between an electrical post and a building.
In 7 improvisations, clarinet (Bruno Cunha) and guitar (Kino Lopes) are guided by the tendency that noise posseses to induce merging. In an eighth track, Bruno creates an electronic piece with the 7 improvisations as its materials. "The spider has a fly in its head" was filmed and edited by Xavier Braun and recorded by Pedro Menezes in December 2019 at Estalo Studio. Brasília - DF, Brasil
Identically dressed and with sibling-like resemblance, performance artists Trevor Martin and Kym Olsen shift between spoken word and athletic dance choreography in a collection of 29 scenes. Set in various locations - including a gymnasium, an abandoned hospital, and a trailer park circus - Martin and Olsen slip between a ventriloquist and his dummy, a seducer and his surrogate, a doctor and his patient, and synchronized dance partners. The film examines a complex social psychology - questioning the colonization of the human body for various political, medical and religious agendas.
Alban lives in a castle that he has just inherited in a small village in Charente-Maritime. Inside, the dilapidation has long since taken hold. He meets Jérôme, a young gypsy from the neighbouring town, with whom he has a sexual relationship. In this space that is impossible to rebuild, a strange intimacy is gradually invented, barely disturbed by the interruption of a young woman who has come to spend a few days in this residence.
Within a single space, the director treats the sorrows of two people married to each other.
Heper's 7-minute short "Dawn" follows, in a single space between two windows, a triangular love relationship of three people.
Rather 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.
A documentary about the closure of General Motors' plant at Flint, Michigan, which resulted in the loss of 30,000 jobs. Details the attempts of filmmaker Michael Moore to get an interview with GM CEO Roger Smith.
Vivian is a carefree, streetwise diamond in the rough when she meets sophisticated billionaire Edward in a chance encounter that turns into a week-long business arrangement. But Vivian's energetic spirit challenges Edward's no-nonsense approach to life, and soon they are teaching each other – and falling in love!
An investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.
Working-class Angie, sacked from a recruitment agency for bad public behaviour, teams up with her flatmate to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate for work, the opportunities are considerable, particularly for two girls so in tune with these times.
While attending a retrospect of his work, a filmmaker recalls his life and his loves: the inspirations for his films.
When a former elite sniper is hunted down by the ruthless warlord who once held her captive, she must fight to the death to protect the daughter she has raised in hiding, on a remote Australian farm.
Film from Andrew Morgan. The True Cost is a documentary film exploring the impact of fashion on people and the planet.
Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).
On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, Oliver and Emily make a connection, only to decide that they are poorly suited to be together. Over the next seven years, however, they are reunited time and time again, they go from being acquaintances to close friends to... lovers?
A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.
In the year 2159, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. Secretary Rhodes, a hard line government official, will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve the luxurious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium. That doesn’t stop the people of Earth from trying to get in, by any means they can. When unlucky Max is backed into a corner, he agrees to take on a daunting mission that, if successful, will not only save his life, but could bring equality to these polarized worlds.
Alejandro is an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador, struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast becomes his only hope to stay in the country and realize his dream.
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
When he suddenly finds himself without his long-standing blue-collar job, Larry Crowne enrolls at his local college to start over. There, he becomes part of an eclectic community of students and develops a crush on his teacher.
Jane Goodale has everything going for her. She's a producer on a popular daytime talk show, and is in a hot romance with the show's dashing executive producer Ray. But when the relationship goes terribly awry, Jane begins an extensive study of the male animal, including her womanizing roommate Eddie. Jane puts her studies and romantic misadventure to use as a pseudonymous sex columnist -- and becomes a sensation.
On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a robot, built to protect the life of his dying creator's beloved dog, learns about life, love, friendship, and what it means to be human.
This is the story of the internal struggle between a man's Brain—a pragmatic protector who calculates his every move, and his Heart—a free-spirited adventurer who wants to let loose.
Aurora, a Portuguese migrant, works as an order picker in a warehouse in Edinburgh, Scotland. Caught between the walls of a huge distribution centre and the solitude of her own room, Aurora tries to seize every opportunity to resist the alienation and isolation that threaten her identity.
An ambitious coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures seemingly designed to challenge his naive idealism.
A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.
