log 2 (2020)

Filmphilia - A Fax to Godard

Originality in a time of poorly made copies, a filmic inventory of a strange time, a kaleidoscope of images, in a constant game of ruptures and continuities. All this from 365 videos published on an Instagram page in 2018, added to an original soundtrack and a text adapted from Dürrenmatt's play Dialogue of a Vile Man, a text that synthesizes our time well.

Haemocyanin

Soft arms and rigid tunnels, bendable limbs and transparent shapes, words that speak and languages that dance. In his visually striking video Haemocyanin, artist Tuomas A. Laitinen observes how an octopus interacts with a glass structure, entering its folds, exploring its interstices, inhabiting its transparent mass while having its body traversed by dynamic flows of letters and hieroglyphs.

C-Film

Two women in a living room: smoking, playing cards, listening to the radio. As often in Dwoskin’s films, the use of masks, make-up and costumes allows the characters to playfully transform themselves. Shot in colour film, C-film exuberates swinging London energy. In the second part of the film, the women appear to be watching the rushes of the film on an editing table. ”We are making a movie” we hear them say. As Dwoskin points out, “C-film asks how much is acting acted”, an ongoing question in Dwoskin’s cinema. Produced by Alan Power, with Esther Anderson & Sally Geeson.

The Emblazoned Apparitions

An alchemically treated lullaby to the end of cinema, featuring Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Cremaster 5

Cremaster 5 is a five-act opera (sung in Hungarian) set in late-ninteenth century Budapest. The last film in the series, Cremaster 5 represents the moment when the testicles are finally released and sexual differentiation is fully attained. The lamenting tone of the opera suggests that Barney invisions this as a moment of tragedy and loss. The primary character is the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress). Barney, himself, plays three characters who appear in the mind of the Queen: her Diva, Magician, and Giant. The Magician is a stand-in for Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874 and appears as a recurring character in the Cremaster cycle.

The Last Birthday

An experimental re-telling of the last days of the Romanov sisters.

Mira corpora

The film appears like a ritual with splendids and crypteds psalms. The Great Master of Order (Marcel Mazé, new fetish actor after Aloual) seduces the young male prey with a running cinema projector which carves Murnau's Nosferatu extracts on their bodies. Metamorphosis, rituals passages, Eros and Thanotos, illusion and reality, film into the film are the themes and images in perpetual osmosis in this Stéphane Marti's opus.

Beatles Electroniques

Part of a collection of restored early works by Nam June Paik, the haunting Beatles Electronique reveals Paik's engagement with manipulation of pop icons and electronic images. Snippets of footage from A Hard Day's Night are countered with Paik's early electronic processing.

To Pour Milk into a Glass

A simple gesture, introduced in the very title of the work, is repeated with slight variations – the glass is half filled, the content overflows, the glass breaks, the milk spills on the table – and constitutes the film’s only action. Lamelas rejects any type of narration or human presence, and the filmic code – reduced and dissected – comprises the only argument.

An Ode to Solitude

Exploring the duality between friendship and loneliness, this intimate narrative short tells the story of David, a bright young boy struggling with a broken home life, as he tries to reconnect with his childhood best friends as they search for something to do in their small suburban town.

December Hide-and-Go-Seek

"Ryuta is 5 years old. Even though he is my son, I sometimes wonder what this small person is to me. Even though I see his joys and sadnesses and know the feel of his warmth on my skin when I hold him, there are moments when my feelings for him become vague and blank." - Takashi Ito

A Movie Made of

In Vigo, Spain, during Christmas, Ángel, a Spanish filmmaker, walks through the crowded streets while thinking about a possible movie made of…

Stories Told, Storied Gold

Tales of old springing forth underlying dissatisfaction with current states of being.

What Was It Supposed to Be Like?

Rather pointless, rather stilted, fetid; not what we want us going after.

Xenoi

The Greek island of Syros is visited by a series of unexpected guests. Immutable forms, outside of time, aloof observants to human conditions.

No(thing) Staring Back

On the Clickity-clack Express it's clear I'm always under duress, unless I forget.

Firing Flares @ Unnoticed Glares

Shadows frighten what one oughtn't be gripping (that thing before/hind you).

Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls

A gang of women wreak havoc in the city, killing various men who have treated women poorly. And sometimes they do it just for fun.

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero

An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.

Mettle

An experimental film shot with the purpose of trying to create a hostile alien environment using only shots of nature, color correction, and sound design.

The Storm

The Kuwaiti short film العاصفة (The Storm) explores Kuwait's social and economic shifts before and after the discovery of oil. Through the perspectives of an older father and his modernized son, it delves into the challenges of tradition versus rapid modernization.

Defies All Time & Logic

Remembrances past, remind me to pass.

Crash!

Short film produced by the BBC about JG Ballard's Crash. “The film was a product of the most experimental, darkest phase of Ballard’s career. It was an era of psychological blowback from the sudden, shocking death of his wife in 1964, an era that had produced the cut-up ‘condensed novels’ of Atrocity plus a series of strange collages and ‘advertisers’ announcements. After Freud’s exploration within the psyche it is now the outer world of reality which must be quantified and eroticised. Later there were further literary experiments, concrete poems and ‘impressionistic’ film reviews, and an aborted multimedia theatrical play based around car crashes. After that came an actual gallery exhibition of crashed cars, replete with strippers and the drunken destruction of the ‘exhibits’ by an enraged audience.” (from: http://aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.blogspot.de/2013/01/short-film-adaptation-of-jg-ballards.html)

Always on Time, Always Outta Line

Running up that [mountainous-outcropping] because there is none of this that's stopping.

Chinese Viola

The rare short film presents a curious dialogue between filmmaker Julio Bressane and actor Grande Otelo, where, in a mixture of decorated and improvised text, we discover a little manifesto to the Brazilian experimental cinema. Also called "Belair's last film," Chinese Viola reveals the first partnership between photographer Walter Carvalho and Bressane.

Shirking; Shrieking Specter

Still it's really tall. Still it's really floundering/falling/fading.

Questioning, Requesting

Strings together what's strung together (please use yr tether).

Rakka

A story of broken humanity following the invasion of a technologically superior alien species. Bleak, harrowing, and unrelenting, the humans must find enough courage to go on fighting.

Remind Me Why I Came Here

It's time the times met each other over & over.

Above the Lake

Avant-garde homage to pre-revolution Russian silent movies, and to the poet Aleksandr Blok.

Kinda Cool to Expend This Much Drool

Don't ask me why, but I feel we're about to cry trying.

Ruminative Meditations

Say Om as you reach home only to realize you never really left/stopped saying Om.

Leafing You Behind

Abandoning the Abaddon-loathed abandoner opens plenty of reclaimed... everything(s).

Ever Reaching Fairly Preachily

Flitter like tittertatter trying to breathe while working, like a mad hatter; the outofbreath feeling rising from recursive reforgettings (or their resemblances).

Bowl, Garden, Theatre, Marble Game

An animated short consisting of 4 segments: bowl, garden, theatre, marble game. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Harvard Film Archive in 2015.

Blockbuster Where a Giant Monster Destroys a Town

In a village of Cuba devastated after trying to imitate the north american suburb model, a sound recorder tries to tape sounds for an incoming blockbuster about a giant monster that destroys a whole town.

Hiding Under a Copy of the Strokes' Single 'Under Cover of Darkness'

Hiding inside&out, writhing about, taken out&in.