Cameras Pointed Straight into the Sun (2020)

69SEC

This is a story of love seen from a square, in which a couple gets united, separated and rearranged again. A special kind of puzzle.

A Thought of Ecstasy

August 2019. Frank recognizes his own story of twenty years ago in a recently published book. He remembers Marie, with whom he had a relationship before she moved to the United States and disappeared from his life. Frank sets out in search of her and finds himself in a USA petrified by a heat wave and lost in suspicion and political paranoia. He heads into the desert in pursuit of Marie.

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.

Meshes of the Afternoon

A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.

La Maison en Petits Cubes

La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a grandfather's memories as he adds more blocks to his house to stem the flooding waters.

The Bomb

Filmmakers use archival footage and animation to explore the culture surrounding nuclear weapons, the fascination they inspire and the perverse appeal they still exert.

Spree

Seeking fulfillment, a young drifter forgoes isolation to embark on a year-long murder spree.

Toast

After Romaine is kidnapped at the hands of the shadowy Spicers, Detective Alfredo Pasta goes undercover to find his missing friend and root out an evil conspiracy in San Pancrisco.

Dropout

Italian immigrant kidnaps a wealthy British woman, and they fall in love.

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.

Rabbits

A story of a group of humanoid rabbits and their depressive, daily life. The plot includes Suzie ironing, Jane sitting on a couch, Jack walking in and out of the apartment, and the occasional solo singing number by Suzie or Jane. At one point the rabbits also make contact with their “leader”.

Six Men Getting Sick

Lynch's first film project consists of a loop of six people vomiting projected on to a special sculptured screen featuring twisted three-dimensional faces.

The Quandary

Cooper is given a decision that could help him finally make a difference or get him killed.

It's Such a Beautiful Day

Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche.

Prometheus' Garden

Inspired by the Greek myth of Prometheus, a Titan who created the first mortals from clay and stole fire from the gods, Prometheus' Garden immerses viewers in a cinematic universe unlike any other. The dark and magical images of this haunting film unfold in a dreamlike stream of consciousness revealing an unlikely cast of characters engaged in a violent struggle for survival.

Ultraviolet

In Vancouver, British Columbia, two teenagers attempt to create a feature length documentary about their lives. The main character James (played by himself) becomes obsessed with the project and is pushed into a more introverted, lonely existence. His best friend Quinn (played by himself) sets out to help him, but is met with the real answer as to why James is keeping himself inside: the rejection of what he thinks is the love of his life. The two of them go their separate ways, with James going deeper into a depression he’s not sure he can escape from.

Sunstone

Experimental computer animation from pioneering artist Ed Emshwiller.

Decoder

F.M. discovers that different sonic frequencies induce different patterns of behaviour in listeners, first in his own studio but later in the local "H-Burger" restaurant where the passive muzak appears to be wiping people's emotions.

A Fugue

A space occupies it, awaiting to be unlocked by a freeing action or notion. What lies ahead is its determination.

The Oregonian

A girl gets in a car accident and wanders through the woods, encountering all kinds of nightmarish things.

The Dante Quartet

A visual representation, in four parts, of one man's internalization of "The Divine Comedy." Hell is a series of multicolored brush strokes against a white background; the speed of the changing images varies. "Hell Spit Flexion," or springing out of Hell, is on smaller film stock, taking the center of the frame. Montages of color move rapidly with a star and the edge of a lighted moon briefly visible. Purgation is back to full frame; blurs of color occasionally slow down then freeze. From time to time, an image, such as a window or a face, is distinguishable for a moment. In "existence is song," colors swirl then flash in and out of view. Behind the vivid colors are momentary glimpses of volcanic activity.

A Colour Box

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.

Ciervo

An emotionally haunting and visually beautiful experience, ‘Ciervo’ tells the story of a young girl who holds violence, submission, and independence in an uneasy balance as one morphs into the other.

The Tragedy of Man

Jankovics's adaptation of the eponymous play is divided into multiple parts, and depicts the creation and fall of Man throughout history.

Cat's Cradle

Images of two women, two men, and a gray cat form a montage of rapid bits of movement. A woman is in a bedroom, another wears an apron: they work with their hands, occasionally looking up. A man enters a room, a woman smiles. He sits, another man sits and smokes. The cat stretches. There are close-ups of each. The light is dim; a filter accentuates red. A bare foot stands on a satin sheet. A woman disrobes. She pets the cat. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

Mothlight

Seemingly at random, the wings and other bits of moths and insects move rapidly across the screen. Most are brown or sepia; up close, we can see patterns within wings, similar to the veins in a leaf. Sometimes the images look like paper cutouts, like Matisse. Green objects occasionally appear. Most wings are translucent. The technique makes them appear to be stuck directly to the film.

Eye Myth

After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Mourning Run

As a young woman goes on her daily morning runs, an underlying plot is revealed.

My Fat Arse and I

A girl who believes she is too fat is invited to the "Kingdom of Slimbuttlandia".

Tales of a Street Corner

The sad and happy times of a young girl and her bear doll, a young mouse and his family, a sycamore tree, an old lamp post, a hoodlum moth and an alleyway full of posters coming to life.

Endless

A lonesome man at the threshold of death finds himself trapped in a place called the Endless.

Antiporno

Young artist Kyoko wreaks havoc on everyone that she encounters when Japan's oldest major movie studio asks a batch of venerable filmmakers to revive its high-brow soft-core Roman Porno series.

Atman

ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set up an increasingly rapid circular motion. ĀTMAN is an early Buddhist deity often connected with destruction; the Japanese aspect is stressed by the devil mask of Hangan, from the Noh, and by using both Noh music and the general principle of acceleration often associated with Noh drama.

Hinterlands

Through a structuralist and simultaneously ambiguous form, the image's reality treads closer to the abstract, leaving the sunset and trees behind. As we enter the image's gloaming, it reveals its true eye: reality's pure haptic energy, where there is nothing but sonorous light, and the dregs of the Unknown.

Sleep Has Her House

The shadows of screams climb beyond the hills. It has happened before. But this will be the last time. The last few sense it, withdrawing deep into the forest. They cry out into the black, as the shadows pass away, into the ground.

The Zucchini's Smile

Myia and Aristote live from gluglu hunting. These cloud-animals allow them to grow courgettes in the desert. One day, Myia falls in love with one of them …

Light From the Tower

A costume designer is sent to the Catskills for an interactive theatre piece set in the 1920s. When she arrives things seem dark, strange and off. She soon realizes she is part of a student film.

The Birth of the Robot

This experiment was a “prestige advertisement” for Shell Motor Oil. As conventional animation became dominated by Walt Disney, many European filmmakers turned to puppets as an alternative, and Lye enlisted the help of avant-garde friends such as Humphrey Jennings and John Banting to make the amusing puppets. Exploring the still-complex color process, which involved the combination of three separate images, Lye creates such a vivid storm scene that reviewers hailed it as “proof that the color film has entered a new stage.” The music is Holst’s The Planets. - Harvard Film Archive

First Birthday After the Apocalypse

In her autobiographical documentary, the young director uses cartoon impressions, photographic memories, and the various stages of baking a cake to draw the viewer into her own stream of consciousness, and using images full of kindness, tenderness, and playfulness, she deals with the sadness that began during a children's birthday party many years ago.

Finds Itself in Corners

Lines align during acclimated apexes, shadowy vertices, and bright burrows.

Coffin

A man comes home and wants to go to bed. A bunch of noisy roommates. A crowded city in southern China.

Eyes Wide Open

During a very hot summer, Emma (15) is doomed to boredom at her grandparents's house. She's dying for something to happen. At the edge of a pond, she hides to observe The Young Man. She develops a brief but intense obsession for this fantasized stranger.

Gumbasia

A jazzy riff on 'Fantasia' from the creator of Gumby.

Gondora

A short movie about a guy living in his own world.

Begone Dull Care

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Ant Hill

A young worker ant lives dissatisfied with her destiny and dreams of a different existence, outside the community. But a fortuitous event causes her to be expelled from society, and then she begins to long for her days in the anthill.

Number Two

Number Two’ is an audio visual work which materializes the definite possibilities of sight and the existence of light in space with the drama in between image and sound as a reaction . It treats the surface of the film itself as a digital artefact that forms an image with a human intervention .It can be seen as an enlargement of a moment in time where form and space breaks inside an indefinite reality .