Universes (2024)

Pi

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

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.

Triumph and Ruins

History as immersion and dispersion in the fragments of the past, a visionary journey accompanied by the voice of Patty Pravo. Presented at the Taormina Festival '97.

In Bloom | A Ghost Story

In Bloom is an abstract Gothic Romance short film by writer-director Christopher Rosica, blending experimental cinema with the timeless themes of love, loss, and memory. Crafted with a meticulous attention to atmosphere, the film offers a haunting exploration of the boundaries between the living and the dead. Shot in evocative black-and-white on a Fujifilm XT-30 by up-and-coming cinematographer, Xuepei Hou, In Bloom pays homage to the aesthetic traditions of visionary filmmakers such as Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Fellini, while drawing narrative inspiration from literary icons like Mary Shelley and Henry James.

The Window

A drifter spends the night in an abandoned house and encounters a Window of Consciousness. This award-winning film combines elements of art house, avant-garde, surrealism, and experimental horror.

Elements of Nothing

For this film, Takashi Makino allowed himself to be inspired by the earth. In a never-ending stream of images, we recognize elements from the forest that he then reduces to an abstraction. The film came about as a classical composition in which the picture and the musical contribution of Jim O’Rourke link up seamlessly and lead the mood in turn. A sense of freedom is what predominates.

Perfect Blue

Rising pop star Mima quits singing to pursue a career as an actress. After she takes up a role on a popular detective show, her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima's reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia.

13 figures de Sarah Beauchesne au 71, rue Blanche

Plot unavailable

Jesus Is King

Filmed during summer 2019, Jesus Is King brings Kanye West’s famed Sunday Service to life in the Roden Crater, visionary artist James Turrell’s never-before-seen installation in Arizona’s Painted Desert. This one-of-a-kind experience features songs arranged by West in the gospel tradition along with new music from his forthcoming album.

Chimera

Lost in the woods, a panicked Griff desperately tries to find his way home, but as he moves deeper into the depths of the woods he faces more nauseating uncertainties. Bewildered and disoriented, he must leave the woods.

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.

Woman in the Dunes

A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.

Mello, Judd, & Tooth Floss

Mello, Judd, & Tooth Floss is a slice of life short about two friends who sit in their car by the ocean on their lunch break as they make up stories about passersby.

Nickel Boys

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

Three Mirrors Creature's Flashes of Flesh

In the aftermath of an emotional shock, a ruthless high-class manager faces her own abyss, becomes pervaded by a sensory spirit and undertakes a purifying voyage.

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.

Paranoid Park

A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".

Inland Empire

An actress’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.

The Scary Movie

Martina and Sonja, cross-dress in vampire capes and werewolf claws, re-enacting familiar horror tropes. A corresponding soundtrack of stock screams and "scary" music suggests that the girls' toying with gender roles and power dynamics may have dire consequences.

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.

chaos

Plot unavailable

La Chinoise

A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.

Mind Game

Nishi is a loser who has a crush on his childhood girlfriend. After an encounter with the Japanese mafia, he journeys to heaven and back, and ends up trapped in an even more unlikely place.

Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever

In this documentary, wealthy entrepreneur Bryan Johnson puts his body and fortune on the line to defy aging and extend his life beyond all known limits.

Guisado on Sunset

Missed connection regret at that one late-night spot—the kind you keep playing back in your head but not quite ever remembering right, until it starts to look like something else.

A Little Love

Through interspersed conversation and prose, this experimental documentary follows a poet and a neuroscientist as they explore the definition of love, what it means, and why it matters.

A Woman Is a Woman

Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.

Liminality

Snow falls. Eyes gaze out the window, crossing with the moon, while another eye, capturing that gaze, trembles. At the crossroads of glances that can never meet, the film moves on its own. The camera faces the window, and the projector casts its light onto the screen. Between misaligned eyes and light, we imagine a scene we can never truly see.

Money, Fascism, and Some Sort of Acid

A collection of five short films tackling the military industrial complex, the rise of fascism, political polarization and various issues in modern society.

Vibrant Matter

A silent city symphony, projected from gorgeous black and white 16mm film. Materia vibrante lets the resonating frequencies of the urban environment create the inaudible hum that keeps the engines of society running, absent of the inhabitants running around like little ants toiling away.

Puffer Rhapsody

By fabricating her biography, Luo Su, a young Chinese white-collar worker from a low-income family, hopes to wed Mr. Win, an alluring bachelor. But when her mother's shocking TV interview exposes her deceit, she loses everything and ends her own life. Left in limbo, she is mystically given one last opportunity to alter her fate within 72 hours - albeit within the body of a man.

Duration-Difference

Inspired by Lois Patiño's short movies project called "Paisaje-Duración" (Duration-Landscape) and Hiroshi Sugimoto's photo series "Seascapes", "Duração-Diferença" (Duration-Difference) reveals the difference through duration, through time; this short experimental movie seeks to capture, as Patiño and Sugimoto achived, the immanence as the entrance for something more - or something in between.

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.

Fair Use Vol 1. (All This Trouble)

A compilation of TV news about black culture.

The Yellow Shark

This live recording was culled from seven September 1992 concerts given in Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt by the Ensemble Modern, a Frankfurt-based chamber orchestra that performs only contemporary music. Composed and conducted by Frank Zappa.

Lux Æterna: The Art of Filmmaking

An experimental shortfilm in line with "Lux Æterna", showcasing the footage from Cecil B. DeMille's "King of the Kings". A voiceover pronunces word "Relax" in a hypnotic tone, which was Lux Æterna's working title. It was shown only once in Paris at L'Étrange Festival, at the opening of "Lux Æterna".

Kshya Tra Ghya

A stream of mysterious rituals and symbols are encountered as a young boy journeys to school in the fantastical world of Kshya Tra Ghya.

Rectangle & Rectangles

This is a didactic film in disguise. A progression of brilliant geometric shapes bombard the screen to the insistent beat of drums. The filmmaker programmed a computer to coordinate a highly complex operation involving an electronic beam of light, colour filters and a camera. This animation film, without words, is designed to expose the power of the cinematic medium, and to illustrate the abstract nature of time.

House

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

The Colour Wheel Session

The Fantasia-inspired session features live performances of Life Is Yours, 2001 (Summer Sky), 2AM & Looking High from FOALS' 2022 album 'Life Is Yours'.

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.

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.

Black Kettle

A student moves into their accomodation, only to find their room already decorated, a strange, inhuman flatmate, and a kettle that won't stop boiling.

Electroma

Two robots embark on a quest to become human.

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 Cranberry Hour

Experimental narrative with comedy and horror made via long-distance collaboration between two artists.

Ground Control

A journey to an unknown star, a children's theatre play, an untalented writer and the fear of becoming the worst version of oneself. A mixture of live-action footage and animated scenes. A stream of (un)conscious stereotypes.

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.

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.

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).

OCCHIO

An important sensory organ, the eye, is damaged. The exhausting healing process takes us on an inner journey full of pain, fragility and mental unrest, in which even superstition and witchcraft seem to have an influence on recovery.

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.