THE MACHINE IN THE SHELL
A light explodes and becomes a snail.
22 Apr 2007
Frank Scheffer's (collage like) documentary on the American composer and rock guitarist Frank Zappa, as broadcast by VPRO in the Netherlands April 22,2007. Most of what’s on here is seen before, particularly in Roelof Kier’s 1971 documentary and/or Scheffer’s own documentary “A present day composer refuses to die”. But there is some new stuff too, particularly interviews with Denny Walley, Haskell Wekler, Elliot Ingber and Bruce Fowler.
17 May 2023
Godard by Godard is an archival self-portrait of Jean-Luc Godard. It retraces the unique and unheard-of path, made up of sudden detours and dramatic returns, of a filmmaker who never looks back on his past, never makes the same film twice, and tirelessly pursues his research, in a truly inexhaustible diversity of inspiration. Through Godard’s words, his gaze and his work, the film tells the story of a life of cinema; that of a man who will always demand a lot of himself and his art, to the point of merging with it.
15 Jul 2005
A portrait of North Kolkata (Calcutta), this film searches the streets for the ebb and flow of humanity and reflects the changing landscape of a city at once medieval and modern. -Mark Toscano. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.
23 Sep 1927
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
30 Nov 2008
Over the course of more than fifteen years, Clémenti films a series of intimate diaries, starting from daily encounters. In La deuxième femme, we see Bulle Ogier and Viva, Nico and Tina Aumont, Philippe Garrel and Udo Kier, a performance by Béjart, a piece by Marc’O, concerts by Bob Marley and Patti Smith (not always recognisable)... It’s like a maelstrom of psychedelic images that are passed through a particle accelerator.
Inside a computer a space-time is revealed in which image and sound become numbers and motion manifests as rhythm, flow and chaos. This tracking and integration experiment removes the superficial identity of video to detect kinetic disturbances in everyday environment.
01 Jun 1960
The horses in Denys Colomb Daunant’s dream poem are the white beasts of the marshlands of the Camargue in South West France. Daunant was haunted by these creatures. His obsession was first visualized when he wrote the autobiographical script for Albert Lamorisse’s award-winning 1953 film White Mane. In this short the beauty of the horses is captured with a variety of film techniques and by Jacques Lasry’s beautiful electronic score.
08 Oct 2021
This programme tells the story behind the conception, recording and release of this groundbreaking album. By use of interviews, musical demonstration, performance, archive footage and returning to the multi tracks with Ahmet Zappa and Joe Travers we discover how Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention created the album with the help of legendary African- American producer Tom Wilson.
13 Mar 2023
This audio-visual tone poem uses the language of filmmaking to offer a first-hand evocation of the turbulent psychological effects one can experience due to prolonged lack of sunlight.
11 Jul 2023
No overview found
11 Nov 2018
After the sunset, a man wonders between the edges of the highways gathering edible roadkill animals.
14 Oct 1985
The creative processes of avant-garde composer Philip Glass and progressive director/designer Robert Wilson are examined in this film. It documents their collaboration on this tradition breaking opera.
17 Oct 2013
A poetic journey from the darkness of dawn into the brightness of the midday sun in the American South. Filmed over the course of six months on one bus route in Durham, North Carolina, this film is a celebration of light and a meditation on leaving.
25 Sep 1969
A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.
05 May 2024
Five inmates recite poetry while time keeps passing by.
08 Sep 2017
As a major storm strikes Texas in 1900, a mysterious televisual device is built and tested. Blake Williams’ experimental 3D sci-fi film immerses us in the aftermath of the Galveston disaster to fashion a haunting treatise on technology, cinema, and the medium’s future.
24 Jul 2024
No overview found
21 Aug 2019
In 1919 an art school opened in Germany that would change the world forever. It was called the Bauhaus. A century later, its radical thinking still shapes our lives today. Bauhaus 100 is the story of Walter Gropius, architect and founder of the Bauhaus, and the teachers and students he gathered to form this influential school. Traumatised by his experiences during the Great War, and determined that technology should never again be used for destruction, Gropius decided to reinvent the way art and design were taught. At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines would come together to create the buildings of the future, and define a new way of living in the modern world.
01 Jan 1967
“Geometric animation made entirely by sculptural methods: cutting, punching, welding colored leader. HETERODYNE is related to some of my other work as RNA to a protein or polypeptide. It was made in abject (if blissful) ignorance of Paul Sharits’ early work.” –Hollis Frampton
08 May 2007
Jeff Wall is one of the most important and influential photographers working today. His work played a key role in establishing photography as a contemporary art form.