Self-defense (2021)

Moments choisis des Histoire(s) du cinéma

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art. (Abridged version of the original collection of eight short films).

By the Lake

Bokanowski returns to the complex - and mind-bending - optical array of pinholes, mirrors, prisms, and refractive substrates of his earlier film, La Plage to create the whimsical and playful Au bord du lac. The film is composed of mundane, everyday scenes of recreation and leisure on an idyllic, sunny day at a park that overlooks a lake - rowing a boat, playing a game of volleyball, rollerskating, bicycling, reading a newspaper, sunbathing, riding on horseback, or strolling on the promenade - shot through optical distortions to create fractured and knotted images that resemble embellished, gothic fairytale illustrations or appear to resolve into morphing, geometric patterns of fluid motion. Evoking the vibrant colors and sun-soaked palette of an invigorated Vincent van Gogh in Arles, Bokanowski transforms the quotidian into an infinitely mesmerizing dynamic kaleidoscope of shape-shifting textures and self-reconstituting objects of organic, abstract art.

Reflections of Nature

Reflections of Nature is an experimental short film, touching on the relationship man has with mother nature, and how they coexist in this ever changing modern world.

The Role of Chance

"The Role of Chance" ("La part du hasard") focuses exclusively on drawing and painting techniques used by the painter Henri Dimier. Shot over several weeks in the same artist's studio, the film shows works in their different phases, processes rarely explained or little known. It also addresses many practical issues (choice of paper, pigment grinding, reports drawings, put the tiles, cliches, etc) as well as broader questions of method and inspiration (use of space, the role of contours, power of suggestion perspectives, use of random processes). Patrick Bokanowski sought with this film to restore the spirit of this teaching, showing how to bend a note or sometimes revealing an essential mystery of creation.

Flammes

Memories split in the space.

Living In a Daydream

A film about a person who is remembering the outside world when he is trapped in restrictions during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Sacred Laptop

A man named Cukik trapped in a paradoxical dream about the man he is watching on his laptop. This madness was contagious even to the mysterious man in his dreams.

The Angel

The climbing of an immense staircase made up of the most varied stairs. Symbolic scenes occur on different levels where characters seem to be prisoners of their deeds and of their own folly. The steep staircase leads little by little towards the zones of great light where human beings and nonhuman beings meet.

The Woman Who Powders Herself

A study of human anxieties about beauty, youth and objectification.

Le Canard à l'orange

A housewife is preparing a duck à l'orange in her kitchen. But the reluctant bird tries to escape from her but the woman manages to recaptures it and plucks it savagely. Once the duck is put in the oven, an alligator unexpectedly appears in the kitchen, threatening the cook.

The Beach

Reworked and colored images of people playing at the seashore.

Hum Drum

A painter in his studio: his pencils, brushes, tubes, table, easel and drawings set themselves in motion in an explosion of colors and flashes of light.

Une visite au musée

Plot unavailable

Breakfast

Relentlessly reworking ‘real’ images, using techniques borrowed from painting and animated film, Patrick Bokanowski is an author of stature, capable of creating an insane and cataclysmic universe of unquestionable beauty.

A Solar Dream

Behold the struggle between light and dark, the two principles that are at the very heart of the cinematic deed. A Solar Dream takes the seventh art’s ability to generate imaginary and phantasmagorical worlds to the limit, multiplied here by Michèle Bokanowski’s enveloping music. A precious plastic and sonic gem.

The Achalunés

Organic forms are beating and resorbing, reflections dance to the rhythm of Henk BADINGS 'music, circles of light flash like disturbing eyes, perpetual metamorphoses evoke a great living and throbbing organism.

Aniquilação

An experiment on language and its inability to contain reality, "Aniquilação" is a collage made with sounds, images and words. From a continuous pulse, noises and sound traces form a cadence that merges with landscapes and details of a world full of things, colors, phenomena and creatures. The language is represented by scraps of word-search magazines, of which words, crosswords and riddles insist on defining and conceptualizing the things, sounds and images, which creates a gradual saturation that leads to the complete abstraction of everything. Concept, images and editing by Xavier Braun, soundtrack and sound design by Victor Rodrigues – as QORPO. Brasil, 2021

Solar Beats

Walking towards the fire. In a ceaseless stream of light, people, landscapes and objects lead us to mysterious regions. French filmmaker Patrick Bokanowski’s work is hard to classify - and all the richer for it. Together with his wife Michèle, whose musique concrète compositions form the basis of the sound design, Bokanowski offers a prolonged, dense and visually visceral experience of the kind that is rare in cinema today. Difficult to define and locate, its strangeness is quite unique.

L'indomptable

2018 short film by Patrick Bokanowski

Un rêve

Experimental film by Patrick Bokanowski.

Janapada

Rudra has come back one morning, has return to his friend Saruar's home. He had disappeared from home leaving no cue, a year ago. Saruar first came to know about Rudra's disappearance in Rudra's mother's call. Then he had gone to Rudra's home and saw how his agitated parents and elder brother were tracing out reasons of his desertion. Rudra do not answer any of these questions of Saruar now. He become immutable and eloquent. He only replies that he is tired and cinema experience Rudra's exhaustion from this world's journey in a non-narrative way. Rudra's consciousness become aware of a bigger crisis. Rudra just express interest to go to sleep for a while.

Soar

Choreography of an imaginary journey.

Vers Syracuse

Dreamlike sea bathing and horse rides. Colors take the plunge, the horizon blazes, breaking waves pound endlessly. A strange journey through depths of sound and vision.

The Dream Machine

A woman experiments with a Dreamachine, hoping to escape trouble. Within the light and dark of the machine, violent emotions awaken.

Attack in the Pacific

Part of a a video series that documents the fighting between the United States and Imperial Japan during and immediately after World War II.

Muxes

Highlighting the unique culture of the Zapotec people of Oaxaca, Mexico, this groundbreaking documentary chronicles the lives of those who identify as muxes, a widely recognized third gender.

The Band

A '60s dad spends a year with his '90s son in the Decatur High School marching band and learns about life, love, and marching in formation.

Moleman

Moleman is a documentary diary about the independent subcultures of a bustling Central European capital, Budapest. Under the cultural surface of the metropolis lies a flourishing art life, and alternative recreational activities are available. There are many who do not follow the mainstream taste, and do not fall for the temptation of the commercial media. The originators of Budapests subcultures and their audience represent hundreds of thousands of people. These subcultures and artists should not be underrated or disregarded. Moleman chooses five characters from this world, and allows us to peek through their eyes into a culture and lifestyle that lie out of the realm of celebrities, that is other than Pop Idol or the soap opera Between Friends or the pop band Hooligans. But it exists, creates works and is taking shape.

The Sounds of Science

The Sounds of the Sounds of Science is a score written by Yo La Tengo for filmmaker Jean Painlevé. It contains 78 minutes of instrumental music to accompany his eight short documentary-style films shot underwater.

Style Wars

Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant's PBS documentary tracks the rise and fall of subway graffiti in New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Children of Winter

Warren Miller's Children of Winter showcases incredible cinematography that will get you craving deep powder, fresh lines, and outrageous adventure! It will take you on a daring escape to electrifying global destinations, including Japan, Austria, Iceland, and more! Don't forget to breathe as snowboarding's Olympic Gold Medalist Seth Westcott charges down the Alaskan backcountry, as surf legend Gerry Lopez shreds the Oregon steeps, and as Chris Anthony takes on Leadville Colorado's legendary Skijoring competition.

Sea Salt

Plot unavailable

Crazy Cat Lady

In the midst of a feral cat crisis in Los Angeles, an eclectic group of residents do their part to trap, spay/neuter, and adopt as many cats as they can.

Guy Martin: The World's Fastest Electric Car?

Join self confessed petrol-head Guy Martin as he learns about the alternative to the internal combustion engine, Electric. In this TV special, Guy learns about the advantages of electric transport and the different varieties that exist from bicycles, cars and vans up to buses. Guy also learns some of the disadvantages from range anxiety and with the help of the Leicestershire Fire Brigade, how to deal with a fire. The ultimate aim is to produce a record breaking electrified retro road car that is suitable for the Drag strip, with Guy behind the steering wheel.

Africa's Super Snake

Plot unavailable