A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
Opening of the Kiel Canal (1895)
The opening of the Kiel Canal in Germany by Kaiser Wilhelm II on 20 June 1895.
Silent Shakespeare (2000)
A BFI collection of 7 short films from the USA, England and Italy scored for Piano, Guitar and String Quartet.
Untitled (Pink Dot) (2007)
In Untitled (Pink Dot), Murata transforms footage from the Sylvester Stallone film First Blood (1982) into a morass of seething electronic abstraction. Subjected to Murata's meticulous digital reprocessing, the action scenes decompose and are subsumed into an almost palpable, cascading digital sludge, presided over by a hypnotically pulsating pink dot.
Ascension (2009)
Definitively proving that all the "B" Science Fiction of the 1950s and 1960s do not hold a candle to the 'real thing,' Pavel Medvedev's surreal 45 minute documentary Ascension is certainly one to look for. Composed entirely out of archival footage, much of it from the Soviet science and space archives, delicately scored and building to an undeniable mood of surreal (perhaps even ominous) energy, it charts (and re-purposed) the progress of man into to the unknown area of space exploration with a flair for creating art out film that was shot by scientists and engineers as a mundane record.
El mar se mueve en una espiral (2018)
Photographic and sound story, through the encounter of characters with their stories of a time without end.
Atlal (Remnants) (NaN)
'Atlal (Remnants)' is a fictional documentary that follows Bassam, a Palestinian man in his fifties, on a journey between the past and present. An abandoned school, the remains of a beach club, and a dusty cinema hold Bassam's cherished memories from his life in Qatar. Through personal archives and interviews with Bassam and his wife, Laila, we get a deeper look into their stories—slowly revealing the dismaying thoughts behind Bassam's nostalgia.
Swole (2017)
In Swole I continue to document my commitment to an intensive and transformative gym and diet regimen, as well as the communities that form around such activities, sustaining themselves through texting and sharing videos and photos on social media. I learn the vocabulary of my new community.
Something New to Die for (1993)
Portrait of The Church of the SubGenius in scratch, which means high speed cutting, media manipulation. Contains clips from the Arise, the Church's own film about itself (recrutment video), the SubGenius MTV productions, and TV interviews with sacred scribe Rev. Ivan Stang, intercut with a barrage of weird clips from movies and television.
Beyond the mall (2010)
Is there an audience for Latin American movies? These are some of the questions posed by an Ecuadorian filmmaker whose latest movie was a commercial flop. He embarks on a query to find answers to his questions and relief for his despair. His research leads him to a giant contraband market in the port city of Guayaquil, where pirated movies from all over the world are sold for one dollar each. Here, he discovers a number of Ecuadorian low budget movies produced by amateurs, with titles he had never heard of before: from action packed productions to evangelical melodramas.
Nanook of the North (1922)
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
The Day When... (1997)
Chantal Akerman reads a script detailing the woes that befell her on the day she thought about "The Future of Cinema". The camera continuously rotates 360 degrees around her apartment as she rereads the script at an exponentially increasing speed. At its heart, an homage to Godard.
MIGNOR (1990)
Showing Sergei Parajanov at the end of his life, the film depicts the suffering of a genius against the backdrop of general anxiety and carelessness.
Animals Under Anaesthesia: Speculations on the Dreamlife of Beasts (2018)
Part lyrical document, part farce, Animals Under Anaesthesia: Speculations On the Dreamlife of Beasts explores the imaginary unconscious minds of animals. Images of sex, death and the natural world are made manifest in the murky and disquieting dreams of a dog, a cat, a pig and a rabbit.
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
Thoughts and Visions of a Severed Head (1991)
The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.