Trials and Initiation (2025)

Alternate Earth

A scientific expedition travels to an alternative Earth in hope of finding a new home for humanity, which has destroyed its own planet. But is it even possible to escape old patterns?

Becoming Air

Breathe deeply: in 3 years, your molecules will circle Earth, as today’s oxygen came from nature.

A Common Sequence

An interconnected look at tradition, colonialism, property, faith, and science, as seen through labor practices that link an endangered salamander, mass-produced apples, and the evolving fields of genomics and machine learning.

One Minute Reharsal

Actors Isabella Lafin and Rafael Grendene reharsing a scene from the movie Marriage Story (2019).

Inspection 01

A closeup examination of a tree in the morning light.

Where Is Amy Pressman

In 2007, a teen girl from a posh L.A. suburb must deal with the grizzly murder of her family while trapped in the company of their killers.

Ten Lives of a Cat: A Film about Chris Marker

Ten years after the death of iconic French filmmaker, Chris Marker. A filmmaker, hoping to rediscover that unique sensibility against the uncertainty of the new century, returns to the places synonymous with those incomparable and unforgettable films-- From the cat cemetery of Sans Soleil, to the mausoleum of The Last Bolshevik; The caves of Level Five to the rooftops of The Case of the Grinning Cat. A biographical portrait of one of the 20th century's greatest and most misunderstood filmmakers.

Dreaming Dogs

A pack of strays – seven dogs and one woman live in the shadows of Moscow. Hidden from the totalitarian authorities, two species share their existence on the verge of disappearance. They are straying in constant restlessness through a savage landscape where the city is cracking. Shot from the animal’s point of view, patterns of mutual dependence and taming begin to blur.

The Pleasure in Pain

A short film that follows key figures of the London kink scene on an exploration into BDSM and the notorious fetish event Klub Verboten. The film touches upon themes of psychology, trauma, LGBTQ+ rights and black representation.

Mother of Fog

In what could be considered a follow up to Al Qasimi’s 2020 work Mother of Fire, she once again invokes the figure of the jinn (spirits in Islamic mythology) to explore the ghosts of British imperialism in the UAE. As its spectre lingers on the horizon, two teenage girls seek to liberate a pirate damned to spend purgatory on a site now being developed into a hotel. Originally commissioned for Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present, Al Qasimi entangles historical narratives with contemporary notions of piracy. In examining how it has been historically and culturally represented, new perspectives of old mythographies come into focus. (Myriam Mouflih)

Fotofinish 2

Documentary filmed on the occasion of the “2003, Odyssey in Space Zero” operation inside the Spazio Zero Theater in Rome. The document, filmed between 21 October and 30 November 2003, recounts the representation of Fotofinish not as a single and continuous work, but as the evolution over time of the moods and movements of the actors who, replica after replica, have developed an awareness of the space and arrived at the joy of staging.

Our Boat

A curious miniature boat sails along the rivers and waterways of Sheffield, observing the people, places, and sights of the Peak District.

A Field of Sheep

A field full of sheep is observed through the camera, preserving that moment in time forever.

bleared eyes of blue glass

The "bleared eyes of blue glass" in the title of this experimental short expand on a verbal image from Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves, considered the most experimental among the 20th-century British writer's literary works, from which the young filmmaker took inspiration for his film, borrowing passages and visions to explain his own understanding of what cinema is. A film that plays with water - precisely - and light, and yet in a very dark b&w lit up by rare flashes of colour, making a journey in the night in which the shadow of a man gradually acquires substance.

Twin City Twist

A silent dance documenting a brief visit to Minneapolis in the fall of 2022. A reflection on the sleeping city's tumultuous recent history through a recollected interaction and a plea for continued disturbance. Twin City Twist was shot on Kodak Tri-X reversal super 8 film with kaleidoscopic lenses. The film was scanned and edited digitally.

Tides

Filmed at Masonboro Island, an undeveloped barrier island in southeastern North Carolina, “Tides” contemplates the liminal space between the modern technological world and that more ecological dimension we label as “nature” or “the environment.”

Happy Life

In this anxious and hectic time, Happy Life explores those unusual outlets that soothe the turmoil of the body and mind. In a meditative journey through these analgesic places, this documentary essay paints a portrait of a society in seek of meaning and relief.

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.

FASCISM(s): A Film in Six Parts

Six sequences about Fascism and its segments throughout history.

Late Anthropocene

Hand processed expired Kodak 7291, Camera: Beaulieu R16, Lens: Angenieux 12-120mm with +3 Diopter, Polarising filter for the clouds. Hand processed in C-41 chem using a Lomo UPB-1A tank. Still haven't mastered removal of the rem-jet anti-halation layer (thats all the white 'static' on the film). The film expired about 40 years ago.

It's A Boy!

Watch out Earth.

Animot

The experimental documentary filmed at rescue centres in Prague and Vlašim refuses the anthropocentric perspective and views the world through the eyes of wounded animals. The term Animot was taken over from Jacque Derrida. While the French philosopher and deconstructivist uses the term to refer to everything animalistic and non-human, the film, on the other hand, uses intimate details to point out the proximity between human beings and animals. They are connected by their vulnerability, helplessness and mortality.

The Tuba Thieves

A spate of robberies in Southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, d/Deaf first-time feature director Alison O’Daniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle. The film unfolds mimicking a game of telephone, where sound’s feeble transmissibility is proven as the story bends and weaves to human interpretation and miscommunication. The result is a stunning contribution to cinematic language. O’Daniel has developed a syntax of deafness that offers a complex, overlaid, surprising new texture, which offers a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way.

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.

Tomatoes

Across the installation's multiple channels, the camera circles a group of artists as they sit together in a field eating, licking, and squeezing ripe tomatoes. Throughout the ever-changing scene, kisses, whispers, and caresses are shared with a casual, gentle intimacy that reflects interconnectivity and abundance. These queer and desirous exchanges constitute a portrait of collectivity wherein individuals come together as distinct parts of a whole.

The Noise of Time

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?

Lake

Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”

Passing Clouds

In rural Scotland, a flock of sheep is sheared to survive the summer while a shepherd finds protection during the winter thanks to the wool. Are the clouds above them simply witnessing the process or do they actually take part in it? Shot on Super 8 with its characteristic unexpected light leaks, Passing Clouds explores a different possibility to the birth of clouds. Throughout the film, the sheep, the shepherd and his dogs guide us towards understanding the mystery of this mythical cycle based on what happens once a fleece is no longer attached to a sheep's body.

Madeleine

A stop motion/collaged based independent short film plays with the recontextualisation of memories and how time distorts them.