The Making of a Mockumentary
A student creates a mockumentary with his girlfriend for an assignment.
"A memória é uma ilha de edição"
During an audio message sent to his daughter, a father reflects on how the recent discovery of dusty reels and scratchy VHS tapes capturing childhood moments has propelled him on a journey of ancient memories and forgotten dreams . Using a blend of personal, public domain, and freely available footage, the film deconstructs reality and reimagines the past, questioning where memory ends and imagination begins.
A student creates a mockumentary with his girlfriend for an assignment.
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)
In 1950 in the USA ten communist filmmakers were jailed. The same year Frank Hardy faced a long prison sentence in Australia for writing a novel. An experiment in documentary form working in the border region between narrative/fiction and documentary/fact.
Anger discusses his Aleister Crowley-inspired theories of art: How he views his camera like a wand and how he casts his films, preferring to consider his actors, not human beings but as elemental spirits. In fact, he reveals that he goes so far as to use astrology when making these choices. This is as direct an explanation of Anger’s cinemagical modus operandi as I have ever heard him articulate anywhere. It’s a must see for anyone interested in his work and showcases the Magus of cinema at the very height of his artistic powers. Fascinating. (Dangerous Minds)
A found footage / object film: the colorful 1960s in Italy, a joyful time, live-giving coating of born-again found images, re-animated, examined, reviewed in a past time, revisited.
For this behemoth, Bressane took his opera omnia and edited it in an order that first adheres to historical chronology but soon starts to move backwards and forward. The various pasts – the 60s, the 80s, the 2000s – comment on each other in a way that sheds light on Bressane’s themes and obsessions, which become increasingly apparent and finally, a whole idea of cinema reveals itself to the curious and patient viewer. Will Bressane, from now on, rework The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus when he makes another film? Is this his latest beginning? Why not, for the eternally young master maverick seems to embark on a maiden voyage with each and every new film!
"Birth is not a beginning and death is not an ending. They are merely points on a continuum." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Harrison attempts to find a new cameraman in order to document his stand-up special
Niño de Elche leaves the curtain ajar in the moments before the premiere of his show Coplas Mecánicas, with Israel Galván at Sónar Festival 2018.
That Child with AID$ tells the story of Brazilian advocate and artist Lili Nascimento, who was born with HIV in 1990. Lili has worked to expand narratives about living with HIV beyond the limited images and ideologies that permeate the AIDS industry.
Heart Murmurs is a poetic dialogue between the filmmaker and Dean, a young man living in Hong Kong. In reflecting on his experience living with a congenital disability and HIV during the first years of the COVID pandemic, Dean expresses his sense of self in the face of regular medical challenges.
This Bed I Made presents the bed as a place of solace and agency beyond just a site of illness or isolation. Through the shared stories of two Filipino men living with HIV, the video explores modes of care, restoration, and abundance in the midst of pandemic pervasion.
Losing the Light reflects the artist's bitter battle to stay in this world as a long-term survivor of AIDS who has lost his vision to CMV retinitis. An experimental self-portrait, the video evokes the dissolution and fragmentation of the artists body, representing the impact of blindness, long-term HIV infection, and the cumulative effects of decades of antiretroviral medication.
The film poem about pesticides reflects on the return to the natural food chain, in which insect pest serve as food for the higher order. The harmonic cycle of life and death, the temple that is the wildflower field resounding with the inebriating sound of crickets chirping and wheat spikes rustling in the wind, is invaded by the human, the ultimate consumer with no natural predator.
A group of friends come up with the brilliant idea of testing the non-existent drink known as "Tea Coffee".
The filmmaker's mother describes stories of his lustful youth over the phone, causing them to reflect on his current love life at the age of 30.
A compilation of avant-garde artwork and talent of the mid to late 20th century hosted by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
I had the chance to interview a revered independent filmmaker four years after his death.
An alien narrates the story of his dying planet, his and his people's visitations to Earth and Earth's self-made demise, while human astronauts in space are attempting to find an alternate planet for surviving humans to live on.
Rough Cut, the debut feature from London-based artist Jamie Shovlin, explores the re-making of an exploitation film that never was. At its dark heart is Hiker Meat, an archetypal 1970s slasher movie imagined by Shovlin, complete with hitchhiking heroine, charismatic commune leader and a group of teens who disappear one by one. This tantalising film-within-a-film serves to both deconstruct and pay affectionate homage to the often-maligned exploitation style. Having created a full screenplay, score and cut-and-paste prototype for Hiker Meat, Shovlin filmed key sections and a full trailer in an intense shoot in the Lake District in summer 2013. Rough Cut contrasts these re-made sequences with on-set footage and insights into the development of Hiker Meat’s script, soundtrack and design, to create a compelling mash-up of self-referencing processes, behind-the-scenes viewpoints and time-honoured slasher tropes.