Afterimages

A film-poem created for Counterclock Journal's 2023 Patchwork: Film x Poetry fellowship, featuring an original poem by Mackenzie Duan and animation by Evan Bode.

Hedgehog's Home

In a lush and lively forest lives a hedgehog. He is at once admired, respected and envied by the other animals. However, Hedgehog’s unwavering devotion to his home annoys and mystifies a quartet of insatiable beasts: a cunning fox, an angry wolf, a gluttonous bear and a muddy boar. Together, the haughty brutes march off towards Hedgehog’s home to see just what is so precious about this “castle, shiny and huge.” What they find amazes them and sparks a tense and prickly standoff.

A Child's Garden of Poetry

Poems by some of the greatest writers of all time are brought to life through lyrical animation and readings by some of today’s most respected performers.

Pour ne pas oublier l'invisible

The Spring Night

A spring night is a poetic film which is based on the motives of the poem by V. Lugovsky. The film is devoted to the theme of fidelity to the battle traditions of revolutionary past, to the theme of human happiness the sense of it in the battle for high ideals.

Night on the Galactic Railroad

Giovanni currently lives a dreary life of near non-stop work. At school, his peers ridicule him incessantly, and his employer at work is distant and cold. As his isolation from society becomes unbearable, he suddenly finds himself on a train heading far away from his miserable home. Accompanied by Campanella, an acquaintance from school, Giovanni embarks on a journey that will define the rest of his life.

Un spectacle interrompu

A Thousand and One Nights

Five different exploits of Sinbad the sailor where he gets mixed up with the pretty daughters of exotic potentates, with powerful monsters that threaten his existence, and with all sorts of teeming jungle life.

Two Faces

Loose impressionistic brushstrokes sketch a series of portraits of two faces, one male and one female, while the verse on the soundtrack tells the tale of both one and a thousand relationships.

The Blue Years

Rubén tries to describe the color blue as "The color of dreams, of art, of the ocean and of the firmament", thereby unleashing half a century of poetry.

Lines

Six poems written by six young prisoners animated to tell their stories, thoughts, fears and hopes.

Here: A Visual Poem

An experimental visual poem combining film, animation, photography, and archival footage inviting people to occupy the Black Body and examine the lived Black experience for a brief moment.

How the Moon Conquered Pop

Musicians inspired by the Moon. Since the Apollo landings, the Moon has entered popular consciousness like never before. A journey through pop music's lunar obsession.

The Young Lady and the Cellist

A cellist attempts to rescue a woman swept out to sea, only to find he must battle a series of overly possesive sea creatures.

Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H.

In a realm beyond the senses, plants interact with surreal cinematography to chart the course of our character: an entity said to embody the life and work of Felisberto Hernández, Uruguayan father of magical realism. Through this journey, we are confronted with an open-ended experience questioning the nature of musicality versus cinematography, entity versus aberration, and self versus space, in a self-referential, blurry, digital and mystical setting.

The View

A diary of a boy grappling with identity, love and belonging while exploring our fragile journey through a chaotic world.

Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming

Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry. Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.

The Ride to the Abyss

‘La course à l’abîme’ is a depiction of the final ride into hell from ‘La Damnation de Faust’ (1846) by Hector Berlioz.

Luna Tune

A short 1979 sand animation celebrating women's spirituality with 80-year-old lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow reading her work "What If."

Autumn

The third film of the biographical cycle based on Pushkin's drawings and texts.

The Edge of Love

When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his flirtatious wife Caitlin sweep into war-torn London, the last thing they expect is to bump into Dylan's childhood sweetheart Vera. Despite her joy at seeing Dylan after so many years, Vera is swept off her feet by a dashing officer, William Killick, and finds herself torn between the open adoration of her new found beau and the wily charms of the exotic Welshman.

Educating Rita

Rita, a witty 26-year-old hairdresser, wants to 'discover' herself, so she joins the Open University where she meets the disillusioned professor of literature, Dr. Frank Bryant. His marriage has failed, his new girlfriend is having an affair with his best friend and he can't get through the day without downing a bottle or two of whisky. What Frank needs is a challenge... and along comes Rita.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

Stranger Than Fiction

Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.

Tales of Terror

Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe: 1) A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. 2) A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. 3) A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.

Great Expectations

Loosely based on the Charles Dickens' classic novel, "Great Expectations" is a sensual tale of a young man's unforgettable passage into manhood, and the three individuals who will undeniably change his life forever. Through the surprising interactions of these vivid characters, "Great Expectations" takes a unique and contemporary look at life's great coincidences.

High Strung

Thane Furrows, an extremely cynical but unintentionally hilarious children's book writer, wakes up one morning, and, since pretty much everyone and everything annoys him, begins another day of complaining to himself. However, the day proves to be much different than normal when Thane begins to recieve strange phone calls, letters, and voices in his head, all indicating that something will happen at 8 o'clock. As the day goes on, Thane rants and raves about the things that annoy him, as the clock slowly ticks closer and closer to his destiny.

Gilbert

The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.

Black Widow

Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.

Neverwas

Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.

Happythankyoumoreplease

Captures a generational moment - young people on the cusp of truly growing up, tiring of their reflexive cynicism, each in their own ways struggling to connect and define what it means to love and be loved. Six New Yorkers juggle love, friendship, and the keenly challenging specter of adulthood. Sam Wexler is a struggling writer who's having a particularly bad day. When a young boy gets separated from his family on the subway, Sam makes the questionable decision to bring the child back to his apartment and thus begins a rewarding, yet complicated, friendship. Sam's life revolves around his friends — Annie, whose self-image keeps her from commitment; Charlie and Mary Catherine, a couple whose possible move to Los Angeles tests their relationship; and Mississippi, a cabaret singer who catches Sam's eye.

When Nietzsche Wept

Viennese doctor Josef Bruer meets with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to help him deal with his despair.

Dear Basketball

An animated telling of Kobe Bryant's titular poem, signaling his retirement from the sport that made his name.

Anomalisa

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.

I Am Heath Ledger

The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter; together the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa's words will incite rebellion.

The Fearless Vampire Killers

A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress.

Paterson

A week in the life of Paterson, a poet bus driver, and his wife Laura, a very creative artist, who live in Paterson, New Jersey, hometown of many famous poets and artists.

The House

Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.

Beau Is Afraid

Following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic odyssey back home.