Universes (2024)

Agent Jayne: A Woman with a Mission

Synopsis: Agent Jayne: A Woman with a Mission” introduces audiences to the unfortunate reality of the youth drug trade, exposing the harrowing consequences of addiction and exploitation. As the story unfolds, viewers are plunged into a world of greed, danger, and moral ambiguity.   Written and directed by Waqar Peter Gill, the concept of Agent Jayne is based on real events and personal visual experiences. The film aims to emphasize a prudent issue of substance abuse amongst teens, which portrays the use of candy-like opioids. The film is a blend of social awareness amongst the youth and woman empowerment. Director’s Quote: Agent Jayne is a film designed to raise the profile of local upcoming talent, as wella s create an awareness of drug abuse amongst the youth.  As a result of the release of Agent Jayne, we can recognize the contributions of all individuals involved in this project.

Caterpillar

A half-hour experimental film that shows Fukui moving towards cyberpunk imagery in a manner similar to Tsukamoto, featuring industrial locations, a malfunctioning cyborg/android and a hulking metallic ‘caterpillar’ that stalks characters.

The Shining

Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.

Labyrinth Ion

One evening under the light of a streetlamp in an unsuspecting neighborhood, events of both microscopic and cosmic proportions take place.

Pi

A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.

Black Box Investigations

Cracking open the human-camera body.

Electroma

Two robots embark on a quest to become human.

Grid

A ritual of grids, reflections and chasms; a complete state of entropy; a space that devours itself; a vertigo that destroys the gravity of the Earth; a trap that captures us inside the voids of the screen of light: «That blank arena wherein converge at once the hundred spaces» (Hollis Frampton).

Anhell69

A funeral car cruises the streets of Medellín, while a young director tells the story of his past in this violent and conservative city. He remembers the pre-production of his first film, a Class-B movie with ghosts. The young queer scene of Medellín is casted for the film, but the main protagonist dies of a heroin overdose at the age of 21, just like many friends of the director. Anhell69 explores the dreams, doubts and fears of an annihilated generation, and the struggle to carry on making cinema.

Godard Cinema

Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era's progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time.

Echo

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?

Dream of the Wild Horses

The horses in Denys Colomb Daunant’s dream poem are the white beasts of the marshlands of the Camargue in South West France. Daunant was haunted by these creatures. His obsession was first visualized when he wrote the autobiographical script for Albert Lamorisse’s award-winning 1953 film White Mane. In this short the beauty of the horses is captured with a variety of film techniques and by Jacques Lasry’s beautiful electronic score.

House

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip to the countryside to visit her aunt at their ancestral house. She invites her six friends, Prof, Melody, Mac, Fantasy, Kung Fu, and Sweet, to join her. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

Paprika

When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient's dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop it and recover it before damage is done: Paprika.

Inland Empire

As a Hollywood actress begins to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world becomes nightmarish and surreal.

Begotten

Begotten is the creation myth brought to life, the story of no less than the violent death of God and the (re)birth of nature on a barren earth.

Metamorfosi

Metamorfosi is a veritable dance ballet on the rocks, performed by a great climber, Patrick Berhault, set on the picturesque French Riviera and the Lingurian coast. Berhault's movements, in the sea, in caves, on rocks and precipices, are extremely difficult but are above all executed to give the movement an aesthetic value. Matemorfosi is the story of a cycle without words, told with gestures and music. Climber Monica Dalmasso also participates in the film.

Tríptico elemental de España

The Spanish experimental filmmaker José Val de Omar turns three of his short films into a unitary work, full of meaning: Acariño Galaico; Fuego en Castilla; and Aguaespejo Granadino; creating a total journey through the world of the senses.

Angel's Egg

In a desolate and dark world full of shadows, lives one little girl who seems to do nothing but collect water in jars and protect a large egg she carries everywhere. A mysterious man enters her life... and they discuss the world around them.

Here We Are

A housekeeper received a film made by her daughter. It's a film that combines found footages of Thailand during the Cold War with the present days images of Bangkok. Through these images she tells a story of the house owner and her own story of coming to the capital.

Totally F***ed Up

Gay, alienated Los Angeles teens have a hard time as their parents kick them out of their homes, they don’t have money, their lovers cheat, and they are harassed by gay-bashers.

Perfect Blue

Encouraged by her managers, rising pop star Mima takes on a recurring role on a popular TV show, when suddenly her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered.

Universal Language

Winter. Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen deep within the sidewalk ice and try to find a way to get it out. Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists upon an increasingly-strange walking tour of Winnipeg historic sites. Matthew leaves his job at the Québec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his estranged mother.

Chantal Akerman: Her First Look Behind the Camera

Filmed as part of Akerman’s film school entrance exam, these raw and playful 8mm miniatures capture life at a Brussels fairground and the courtyard of a hotel, alongside an oblique, two-part fiction set in the seaside shops of Knokke.

The Brown Bunny

Bud Clay races motorcycles in the 250cc Formula II class of road racing. After a race in New Hampshire, he has five days to get to his next race in California. During his road trip, he is haunted by memories of the last time he saw Daisy, his true love.

The Beaches of Agnès

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

The Bek Show: End of Civilization

The versatile artist, BEK Hyunjin ventures into theater direction, leaving the actors in a state of confusion. His unconventional direction unfolds into strange scenes on stage. Scenes of people howling, a woman's monologue, another woman lip-syncing a song appear in random order, and BEK Hyunjin himself appears on stage as a primitive man, a singer and a narrator.

Amelia 2.0

After his wife Amelia suffers an aneurysm that leaves her bedridden and slowly dying, police officer Carter Summerland searches for a way to revive her. He's approached by Wesley Enterprises pioneering a new program to extend life through robotics, they get caught in a public debate over human’s relationship with technology and her right to exist.

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray

An immersion into the surreal and dreamlike world of painter, photographer and filmmaker Man Ray (1890-1976), one of the most prolific American visual artists, through four of his short films, brought to life by the atmospheric music of SQÜRL.

A Day In LC

A person living in Liberty City goes to work, have some food & gets back home.

The Grass Dwellers

Juan Méndez Bernal leaves his house on the 9th of april of 1936 to fight in the imminent Spanish Civil War. 83 years later, his body is still one of the Grass Dwellers. The only thing that he leaves from those years on the front is a collection of 28 letters in his own writing.

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An unknown girl breaks out of her daily grind by undergoing an intense audio-visual trip.

Escargots

An adaptation of a children's poem called Chanson des escargots qui vont à l'enterrement by Jacques Prévert, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Filmed in Paris, France and Los Angeles, California.

GRIS

Plot unavailable

Experiments in the Dark

A mysterious figure explores the uncanny and terrifying space between light and darkness.

Yo, Diablo

Joey works as a waiter for a hedonistic community of summer holiday makers in a small Mediterranean paradise. It is unclear if their exaggerated behaviors are due to the fact that the summer is coming to an end or if its just the last of their summers.

Nickel Boys

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.

Rampo Noir

An anthology film consisting of four segments based on literary works by Edogawa Ranpo.

sissi's mixtape (a guide to love, loss & desperation)

fragments from song lyrics of different artists have given life to this story about love, loss and desperation.

Flaming Creatures

Filmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.” Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and participating in a mock advertisement for an indelible, heart-shaped brand of lipstick. However, things take a dark, nightmarish turn when a transvestite chases, catches and begins molesting a woman. Soon, all of the titular “creatures” participate in a (mostly clothed) orgy that causes a massive earthquake. After the creatures are killed in the resulting chaos, a vampire dressed like an old Hollywood starlet rises from her coffin to resurrect the dead. All ends happily enough when the now undead creatures dance with each other, even though another orgy and earthquake loom over the end title card.

Generation

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

1/2 Man

A visual documentary of Einstürzende Neubauten, the German underground band, by Japanese cult director Sogo Ishii, made during their 1985 tour of Japan. The band makes an elaborate and remarkably choreographed appearance in the ruins of an old ironworks which was scheduled for demolition; footage of same was incorporated into the movie and a brief appearance on stage.