Darkness, Light, Darkness (1989)

Animated Self-Portraits

An animated film compiled by David Ehrlich consisting of 27 animators from different countries all explaining themselves through their animation.

The Tell-Tale Heart

One of the most discussed and imaginative cartoons of any era. It tells the famous Edgar Allan Poe story of the deranged boarder who had to kill his landlord, not for greed, but because he possessed an "evil eye." The killer is never seen but his presence is felt by the use light-and-shadow to give the impression of impending disaster.

Uncle Yanco

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never heard of before, Jean Varda, nicknamed "Yanco". This hitherto unknown uncle lives on a boat in Sausalito, is a painter, has adopted a hippie lifestyle and loves life. The meeting is a very happy one.

There Will Come Soft Rains

In this animated short based on a short story from Ray Bradbury, the viewer observes a computer-controlled house in the near future and learns of the fates of its occupants.

Meat Love

The story takes place entirely on a kitchen counter and sees two slices of raw meat as protagonists. The first slice is courted by the second and together they dance to the notes of a recording from the 1920s broadcast on the radio, after which the two slices find themselves playing and flirting on a plate full of flour, but the passion is abruptly interrupted by two skewers who fork the two slices and fry them in a pan.

Skhizein

Having been struck by a 150-ton meteorite, Henry has to adapt to living precisely ninety-one centimeters from himself.

Happily Ever After

The Wicked Queen is dead but her brother, Lord Maliss, seeks for revenge. Using the Magic Mirror to locate Snow White and the Prince, he transforms into a dragon and attacks. Maliss takes the Prince to the Realm of Doom. Snow White, with the aid of the Seven Dwarfesses, cousins of the Sevens Dwarves, must embark on a quest to save her true love.

Lick the Star

A clique of school girls devise a secret plan that they code-name "Lick the Star".

Broken Blossoms

The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.

The Wild Boys

Island of La Réunion, in the beginning of the 20th century. Five teenagers commit a savage crime. As punishment, a Dutch captain takes them to a supernatural island with luxuriant vegetation and bewitching powers.

Resurrection

A woman's carefully constructed life is upended when an unwelcome shadow from her past returns, forcing her to confront the monster she's evaded for two decades.

College Road Trip

When an overachieving high school student decides to travel around the country to choose the perfect college, her overprotective cop father also decides to accompany her in order to keep her on the straight and narrow.

Layer Cake

When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...

Where Is My Friend's House?

An 8 year old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

Boat Trip

Two guys whose love lives are a wreck look forward to finding ladies on the high seas. Unfortunately, they've mistakenly been booked on a gay cruise.

Petite maman

After the death of her beloved grandmother, eight-year-old Nelly meets a strangely familiar girl her own age in the woods. Instantly forming a connection with this mysterious new friend, Nelly embarks on a fantastical journey of discovery which helps her come to terms with this newfound loss.

Johnny Stecchino

Good hearted but not very wordly-wise, Dante is happy driving the school bus for a group of mentally handicapped children, while feeling he is somehow missing out on life and love. So he is very excited when after nearly being knocked down by her car he meets Maria, who seems immediately enamoured of him. He is soon invited to her sumptuous Palermo villa, little suspecting that this is part of a plot. He bears an amazing likeness to Maria's stool-pigeon gangster husband and it would be convenient for them if the mobster, in the shape of Dante, was seen to be dead and buried.

Ran

With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted are high school buddies starting a band. They are also about to fail their history class—which means Ted would be sent to military school—but receive help from Rufus, a traveller from a future where their band is the foundation for a perfect society. With the use of Rufus' time machine, Bill and Ted travel to various points in history, returning with important figures to help them complete their final history presentation.

The Fountain

Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.

North by Northwest

Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Dr. Steven Murphy is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who presides over a spotless household with his wife and two children. Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin, a fatherless teen who insinuates himself into the doctor's life in gradually unsettling ways.

Clash of the Titans

Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus is helpless to save his family from Hades, vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus and unleash hell on earth. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, Perseus and his warriors will only survive if Perseus accepts his power as a god, defies fate and creates his own destiny.

American Psycho

A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.

La La Land

Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.

Tenet

Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.

Junkyard Dog

Dog and Mirales have been friends since childhood, and live in a small village in the south of France. They spend most of the day hanging around in the streets. To kill time, Mirales has got into the habit of teasing Dog, to the extent that he has become a sort of whipping boy. But one summer, Dog meets Elsa, and they fall in love. Eaten away with jealousy, Mirales will have to get over his past to be able to grow and find his place…

Society of the Snow

On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, chartered to take a rugby team to Chile, crashes into a glacier in the heart of the Andes.

Pale Rider

A mysterious preacher protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to encroach on their land.

Poor Things

Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a debauched lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

Leave the World Behind

A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.

The Quiet Girl

A quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one.

Green Book

Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.

Past Lives

Nora and Hae Sung, two childhood friends, are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.

Boston Strangler

Reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole bravely pursue the story of the Boston Strangler at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.

Oppenheimer

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Saltburn

Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family's sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.

La Chimera

Just out of jail, crumpled English archaeologist Arthur reconnects with his wayward crew of tombaroli accomplices – a happy-go-lucky collective of itinerant grave-robbers who survive by looting Etruscan tombs and fencing the ancient treasures they dig up.

I am a Pebble

Bubble a young otter, lives with three mossy stones and thinks of them as her family. Bulle imagines them as real otters, but as she becomes aware of their true nature, she has to face her loneliness.

The Inventor

The insatiably curious and headstrong inventor Leonardo da Vinci leaves Italy to join the French court, where he can experiment freely, inventing flying contraptions, incredible machines, and study the human body. There, joined in his adventure by the audacious princess Marguerite, Leonardo will uncover the answer to the ultimate question – "What is the meaning of it all?"

Weighting

A re-telling of the pre-telling of a story of the end.

Sexteens

This Spanish-language short was made using stop-motion animation and features very simple sets and characters. However, despite the relatively low budget, the film turns out to be a very effective way to teach kids about the dangers of unprotected sex. The film begins with three teenage girl dolls sitting on a bench. Without using actual words but sort of a Sims-type speech ("Bla, bla, bla"), the first girl describes her perfect man. Then, suddenly, he appears---as does a bed...

Labuntina "Halloween"

Plot unavailable

Who's on a Lead

A dachshund on a leash pulls his master forward, despite all the barriers that occur on their way. The dachshund thinks that he pulls not his master but something huge and heavy.

Shapes - Variation III

Excerpt from Dr. Malcom J Backer's Hyperexpiology Companion [revision 2b]: "...the destructive system is self replicating and self propelling . Functioning like a clock . Systematically . Efficiently . Relentlessly . A mindless machine. It will never be enough . The clockmaker eventually loses control . We are dreaming of a new day when a new day isn't coming . "

The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music engages with the deep-rooted sexual and class-based politics of a seemingly arbitrary and violent culture.

The Cub

A couple send their young daughter to be raised by a pack of wolves.

Spook Sport

It's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks appear, then two ghosts. They move to the music's rhythm. Against the black night, they are blue and yellow. Bats appear as does a xylophone of bones. Mist rises, spooks swirl. A bell tolls. The sky turns light blue, the ghosts' dance slows. Then black night returns bringing intimations of frenzy. Bones play snare drums; spooks peek out of square graves. Scary faces appear. Frenetic movement takes over. A rooster crows and all return to earth as the sun's light appears.

It's Not You, It's Me

A young woman's relationship takes a dark turn when every sound her boyfriend makes starts to annoy her. We don't want to spoil the ending for you, but things get a little messy.

Gloria Victoria

Theodore Ushev’s acclaimed 20th century trilogy concludes with this brilliant fusion of 3D and Russian constructivist-styled animation. Recycling elements of surrealism and cubism, this animated short by Theodore Ushev focuses on the relationship between art and war. Propelled by the exalting “invasion” theme from Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (No. 7), the film presents imagery of combat fronts and massacres, leading us from Dresden to Guernica, from the Spanish Civil War to Star Wars. It is at once a symphony that serves the war machine, that stirs the masses, and art that mourns the dead, voices its outrage and calls for peace.

Subconscious Password

In this short animation, Oscar®-winning director Chris Landreth uses a common social gaffe - forgetting somebody's name - as the starting point for a mind-bending romp through the unconscious. Inspired by the classic TV game show Password, the film features a wealth of animated celebrity guests who try (and try, and try) to prompt Charles to remember the name. Finally, he realizes he will simply have to surrender himself to his predicament.

The Exploits of Moominpappa – Adventures of a Young Moomin

A beautiful summer day in Moomin Valley. Suddenly, a wasp stings Moomintroll, who falls ill and has to stay in bed. To cheer him up, Moominpappa recounts his youthful adventures; his misunderstood childhood, escape from an orphanage and his historic meeting with the inventor Hodgkins.

Silent

A duo of street performers learns how sound and picture work together to create amazing cinema experiences.

A Magic Mirror

A jerk husband Sandro and his young wife Giulia have moved into a new apartment. She is unpacking, and he his lounging in the bath. When his brother Walter comes over to deliver a new wall mirror. The brother makes a pass at the young wife, as he has secretly wanted to do for years.

Love Is More Than I Can Handle

Samuel is ten years old and is madly in love with Lucía, who is twelve years old and has a master plan to get rid of the only obstacle left in her life to get what she wants: to be a writer, film critic and rich.

Kernel

When the world has been pushed past breaking point, an aging neurobotanist collects and preserves what little of value remains.

Legacy

Story of an alien arriving on planet Earth, in search of a human specimen.

A Girl, She Is 100%

A man ran into a woman on a street. She was not attractive, but was a perfect girl for him. After missing the chance to talk to her, he contemplates on how he should have approached her.

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon

From Richard Gale, mad maker of CRITICIZED, comes a film that will never have you looking at cutlery the same way again. Set-up as an epic-length trailer for an upcoming release, HORRIBLY SLOW... depicts a man's endless pursuit by what has got to be one of the most determined and patient murderers the screen has ever seen.

100.000 Acres of Pine

Ranger Megan Patel loses her brother, Daniel, under mysterious circumstances. Struggling to understand how he died, she finds herself alone, venturing into the vast pine forest. However, as she follows the trail of her brother into the woods, the trees begin to change and shift around her. Soon Megan arrives in places without any recollection of how she got there. Almost as if something is pulling her deeper into the woods. Something dark and dangerous, that Megan might not be able to escape.

Rocky and Bullwinkle

After receiving the key to the city for their heroic efforts, Rocket J. Squirrel notices that Bullwinkle falls in love with a robotic moose. Unbeknownst to him, inside the moose is Boris Badinov, who, along with Natasha Fatale and Fearless Leader, are carrying out another plan to eliminate Rocky & Bullwinkle.