African American Express (2024)

Orbit

The sun’s energy circulates throughout the earth, feeding the cycle of life. Everything is connected in a natural loop, which repeats, like the circular discs of magical optical toys. This perfectly balanced rhythm is disrupted by human excess, throwing the cycle out of orbit and temporarily stopping the circulation of energy in nature.

The Lorax

A 12-year-old boy searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.

Dam$els of Luxury

Amanda's stoner slumber party is put to a halt when one of her guests is nowhere to be found.

Neo New Jersey

A night in the life of two blacklight gossip queens in the year 2999.

Mothlight

Seemingly at random, the wings and other bits of moths and insects move rapidly across the screen. Most are brown or sepia; up close, we can see patterns within wings, similar to the veins in a leaf. Sometimes the images look like paper cutouts, like Matisse. Green objects occasionally appear. Most wings are translucent. The technique makes them appear to be stuck directly to the film.

Eye Myth

After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Bunnyhood

What could possibly be more important than feeding your daughter?

Gemini

Sarah and her two cats go about their separate lives. The cats have strange dreams about their desires, and Sarah develops an unshakable paranoia that something is wrong with them. Sarah's paranoia bleeds into her social life, and her two cats have their dreams come true.

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People

An animated satire on the question of self-image for African American women living in a society where beautiful hair is viewed as hair that blows in the wind and lets you be free. Lively tunes and witty narration accompany a quick-paced inventory of relaxers, gels, and curlers. This short film has become essential for discussions of racism, African American cinema, and empowerment.

sfumato

Derived from an installation, an asymmetrical orchestration of "motion paintings" pushing the limits of abstraction in the digital age.

Adventures of Christopher Bosh in the Multiverse

A true story behind the notorious Miami face-eating cannibal and how the Miami Heat won the NBA title in 2012 despite one of their star players being an interstellar prince who was called away to do battle with evil foes bent on finally making the Internet completely useless.

House

An experimental short film by Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica.

ASTRAKAN

Plot unavailable

Demi-Goddesses

The second essay about still dominant dark aspects of our modern society. It is conceived as a surreal anti-patriarchal thought experiment and raises important questions about gender, power, and social change, prompting us to reflect on how historical patterns of discrimination and oppression might be either repeated or overcome in a reversed gendered world. It challenges the viewer to confront their own assumptions and biases, and to consider the possibilities of a more equitable society.

Hair Love

When dad has to unexpectedly step in for mom to do his daughter Zuri’s hair before a big event, what seems like a simple task is anything but as these locks have a mind of their own!

A Paw Over Dark

A washed up actor performs night after night in a grimy theater to a nearly empty audience. However, everything changes when a clueless dog jumps on stage.

Colours

Cores (Colours) is an experimental and independent animation by Clint Bones. Using Stop-Motion Animation, this film is about Palestine and their long combat with Israel. All that following a 60´s Psychedelia inspired visual.

Liquid Love

A critique of liquid love through sarcasm and crude humor. With the desire that the viewer empathize with the protagonists and reflect on the ephemerality of sexual-affective relationships in modern society. At the end of the short film, the transformation of people into mere consumer goods will be clear, which, once they have been used, are discarded

TV Insomnia

A lysergic nightmare where forgotten characters star in stories that never existed.

The Bronswik Affair

This funny yet serious short film demonstrates the effectiveness of advertising and the marketing machine. Its comic appeal lies in the characters and the absurd situations they find themselves in, but it also shines a harsh light on our tendency towards needless consumerism prompted by a steady flow of commercials.

Me + Her

Creating a universe between two small pieces of Cardboard. When Jack and Jill of Cardboard City are separated by Jill's torrid illness, Jack must think outside the box to assure they will be together again.

She Who Measures

Are we truly free? Are our desires truly our own or merely imposed products of the society we live in? The question this film is asking is this: are we slaves to the culture and society we were born in or is there a way to escape after all?

The Outsider

Machinima-adaptation of Albert Camus book "L'étranger", done in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

behind the scenes

An experimental documentary/animation hybrid exploring likeness scanning, AI, and what that means for identity.

Trade Tattoo

Trade Tattoo went even further than Rainbow Dance in its manipulation of the Gasparcolor process. The original black and white footage consisted of outtakes from GPO Film Unit documentaries such as Night Mail. Lye transformed this footage in what has been described as the most intricate job of film printing and color grading ever attempted. Animated words and patterns combine with the live-action footage to create images as complex and multi-layered as a Cubist painting. Music was provided by the Cuban Lecuona Band. With its dynamic rhythms, the film seeks (in Lye’s words) to convey “a romanticism about the work of the everyday in all walks of life."

By Winds and Tides

Exploring the conscious, the unconscious and the self, By Winds and Tides takes a deep experimental dive into the birth of an idea—how it takes shape, how it is released. An allegorical quest, the film combines images and words into a singular sigh.

Zero One

Zero One is a code-based generative video commissioned by Zero One Technology Festival 2018 in Shenzhen, PR China. This project consists of multiple interlinked generative systems, each of which has its customized features, but collectively share the core concept of an evolving elementary cellular automaton.

Atman

ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set up an increasingly rapid circular motion. ĀTMAN is an early Buddhist deity often connected with destruction; the Japanese aspect is stressed by the devil mask of Hangan, from the Noh, and by using both Noh music and the general principle of acceleration often associated with Noh drama.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Shot on 16mm film in New York and composed in Berlin, the work explores polarizing themes of the metropolis. Audibly and visually, the viewer is put in a flicker between serenity and intensity; harrowing ambience cut with sharp beeps, vulnerable steps mashed in high velocity.

Fluids

16mm color work by Stan Vanderbeek that takes his work away from the cutups and the commentary and lands him in the psychedelic and abstract. Opticals, repetitions, camera moves and zooms are what make up the bulk of this exploration into fluids. The results bridge that realm between hangout art piece and intersteller stoner trip.

Stellar

This is a hand-painted film which has been photographically step-printed to achieve various effects of brief fades and fluidity-of-motion, and makes partial use of painted frames in repetition (for "close-up" of textures). The tone of the film is primarily dark blue, and the paint is composed (and rephotographed microscopically) to suggest galactic forms in a space of stars.

Generation

A brief journey through the human experience as seen by the eyes of an Artificial Intelligence.

Macabre Metrics

A young, wannabe streetwear influencer dying to make an impact on the world gets a lot more than he bargained for when a shy but obsessive fan decides to help him become a star for his own gain at the expense of everyone else involved. Macabre Metrics is an almost feature-length, visually experimental exploration into the world of image culture set in Seoul. Shot entirely on iPhone with animated sequences.

The Man Who Wrote About His Past

An experimental, non-sensical comedy about bringing a stone age man back to our time, made with the app “Plotagon”.

Graphic Variations on Telidon

"In an effort to explore the flexibility of Telidon, Canada's videotex system, Pierre Moretti, animation artist from the National Film Board, used, in the graphic mode, the geometric figures which form the basis for Telidon's picture description instructions. Thus he created this short animated film."