07 Nov 2003
The Five Obstructions
Lars von Trier challenges his mentor, filmmaker Jørgen Leth, to remake Leth’s 1967 short film The Perfect Human five times, each with a different set of bizarre and challenging rules.
Hands
Handen (Hands) is an experimental documentary film by Dutch photographer and filmmaker Ed van der Elsken. the film is a moving and poetic observation of how hands play an integral part in human life, from birth to death.
Top Billed Cast
Similar movies
The Five Obstructions The Five Obstructions Brise-glace : Bateau givre Brise-glace : Bateau givre 15 Dec 1987
Brise-glace : Bateau givre
First part of the collaborative project "Brise-Glace" showing the diverse travels on the icebreaker "Frej". Directed by Jean Rouch.
The Bomb 
The Bomb 10 Jun 2017
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.
Decasia: The State of Decay 
Decasia: The State of Decay 24 Jan 2002
Decasia: The State of Decay
A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.
Man with a Movie Camera 
Man with a Movie Camera 12 May 1929
Man with a Movie Camera
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box 
Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box 29 Nov 1991
Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box
This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.
OLO, the Boy from Tibet 
OLO, the Boy from Tibet 30 Jun 2012
OLO, the Boy from Tibet
A 6-year-old Tibetan boy leaves his family and flees to a refugee camp in northern India.
Contágio 
Contágio 29 Jan 2021
Contágio
Several Portuguese creators occupy the director's chair in this collective short film shot during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in an unfolding of personal perspectives.
Where are the African Gods? Where are the African Gods? 26 Mar 2018
Where are the African Gods?
A moving recording of the late writer and renowned jazz singer Abbey Lincoln is captured in this new film from Brooklyn-born director Rodney Passé, who has previously worked with powerhouse music video director Khalil Joseph. Reading from her own works, Lincoln’s voice sets the tone for a film that explores the African American experience through fathers and their sons.
Tiger Balm 
Tiger Balm 13 Jun 1972
Tiger Balm
"After two years of massive didacticism in black-and-white [Hapax Legomena (1971-72)], I am surprised by Tiger Balm, lyrical, in color, a celebration of generative humors and principles, in homage to the green of England, the light of my dooryard… and consecutive matters." - HF
Pas de Trois 
Pas de Trois 20 Oct 1975
Pas de Trois
An analysis of film’s persistent relationship to sexuality, mediated by allusions to early cinema’s flicker, and other aggressive qualities of the cinematic apparatus.
Song 5 
Song 5 20 Mar 1964
Song 5
SONG 5: A childbirth song (the Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969).
Lapses, Regrets and Qualms 
Lapses, Regrets and Qualms 15 Oct 2016
Lapses, Regrets and Qualms
A day in the life of director Boris Lehman: he wanders from cafe to bookshop, cinema to museum, writer to musician, and into the storeroom of the film archive... He celebrates his birthday in an alleyway, with a friend, and finishes his journey with an escapade to Bruges and a stroll by the North Sea. The camera plays dirty tricks and the sound recorder gets carried away, to the point that both are clearly telling Boris to stop filming. Yet he persists…
One Second in Montreal 
One Second in Montreal 25 Sep 1969
One Second in Montreal
A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.
Barn Rushes 
Barn Rushes 01 Jan 1971
Barn Rushes
"…elegant yet rustic in its simplicity of execution; tugged gently toward different sides of the set by hints of color and motion interactions, positive and negative spaces, etc., and the unyielding delivery on one of the great apotheoses of poetic cinema at fade-out time." – Tony Conrad
La deuxième femme 
La deuxième femme 30 Nov 2008
La deuxième femme
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.
Somniloquies 
Somniloquies 12 Feb 2017
Somniloquies
Works with sound recordings of Dion McGregor, who became famous for talking in his sleep.
Private Chronicles: Monologue 
Private Chronicles: Monologue 01 Jan 1999
Private Chronicles: Monologue
The collective life of the generation born as Jurij Gagarin became the first man in space. Vitaly Mansky has woven together a fictional biography – taken from over 5.000 hours of film material, and 20.000 still pictures made for home use. A moving document of the fictional, but nonetheless true life of the generation who grew up in this time of huge change and upheaval.
Clouds Clouds 19 Dec 1969
Clouds
Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky, shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve close-up images. Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds, the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building, and these only as fleeting glimpses. The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film. The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave, consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax. The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition. The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself: the grain, the light, the shadow and inconsistencies in the print.
Sermons and Sacred Pictures 
Sermons and Sacred Pictures 25 Mar 1989
Sermons and Sacred Pictures
"An experimental documentary on Reverend L.O. Taylor, a black Baptist minister from Memphis, Tennessee who was also an inspired filmmaker with an overwhelming interest in preserving the social and cultural fabric of his own community in the 1930′s and 40s. I combine his films and music recordings with my own images of Memphis neighborhoods and religious gatherings" -Sachs