• Martina Kudlácek – Im Spiegel der Maya Deren AKA In the mirror of Maya Deren (2002)

    2001-2010ArthouseAustriaDocumentaryMartina KudlácekMaya Deren

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    With IN THE MIRROR OF MAYA DEREN, documentary filmmaker Martina Kudlácek has fashioned not only fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking and influential artist, but a pitch-perfect introduction to her strikingly beautiful and poetic body of work. Crowned “Fellini and Bergman wrapped in one gloriously possessed body” by the L.A. Weekly, Maya Deren is arguably the most important and innovative avant-garde filmmaker in the history of American cinema. Using locations from the Hollywood hills to Haiti, Deren made such mesmerizing films as AT LAND, RITUAL IN TRANSFIGURED TIME and her masterpiece MESHES OF THE AFTERNOONRead More »

  • The Criterion Collection – Criterion Designs (2014)

    2011-2020BooksThe Criterion CollectionUSA

    A lavishly illustrated coffee-table book celebrating thirty years of artwork from the Criterion Collection. The most exciting names in design and illustration today apply their talents to some of the most important and influential films of all time. This volume gathers highlights from designs commissioned by the Criterion Collection, featuring covers, supplemental art, and never-before-seen sketches and concept art plus a gallery of every Criterion cover since the collection’s first laserdisc in 1984. From avant-garde experiments to big-budget blockbusters, cult favorites to the towering classics of world cinema, the depth and breadth of what film can be is on display in these striking images. Whether painstakingly faithful re-creations or bold reimaginings, the diverse designs collected here offer new ways for cinephiles and design aficionados alike to engage with the world’s greatest filmmakers .Read More »

  • Leni Riefenstahl & Béla Balázs – Das blaue Licht AKA The Blue Light (1932)

    Drama1931-1940Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtBéla BalázsClassicsGermanyLeni Riefenstahl

    Synopsis
    Junta is hated by the people in the village where she lives, especially by the women, who suspect her of being a witch. Only she can climb the nearby mountains to a cave high up, whence a mysterious blue light glows when the moon is full. Many young men of the village have died trying to follow her. She is driven out of town, and takes to living in the mountains. Eventually she shares the secret of the blue light with one man, and he betrays it.Read More »

  • Mark Rappaport – The Vanity Tables of Douglas Sirk (2015)

    2011-2020DocumentaryMark RappaportShort FilmUSA

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    A video essay exploring the frequency and meaning of that particular prop in a wide variety of Sirk movies. Is it a device that traps and keeps women in an artificial world with a limited point of view? Or is it a gateway to the past and the future, and a distorted but nevertheless real vision of the roles that woman are forced to play in society? It’s an exploration of the texts and subtexts of commercial films and the subterranean and complicated ways that they affect us and can be read.Read More »

  • Fred L’Epee – Bipolar (2015)

    2011-2020CanadaExperimentalFred L’EpeeShort Film

    Bipolar (2014)
    Film by Fred L’Epee
    In collaboration with Kenneth Gentry and Ed Alvarado.

    “The theme of bipolarity is seen through various means: the natural and the man-made; production and destruction; energy and adynamia; peace and apocalypse; equilibrium and disequilibrium — from the beginning to the end. This emerging view of a complex “bipolar climate machinery” urgently calls for a major research effort in order to decipher and quantify the interplay of atmospheric and social processes. When the world is in no accordance with all the cyclic combinations, a more or less bipolar world cannot be inevitable”Read More »

  • Fred L’Epee & Kenneth Gentry – The White Widow (2015)

    2011-2020ExperimentalFred L'Epee and Kenneth GentryShort Film

    “The White Widow” is a psychotropic visual arts film representing the themes of mythology, mysticism, and the existential struggle. The realm is that of the subconscious, the alterations of perception, in the other-worldly than the worldly. Once upon a time the white widow at the edge of a path.Read More »

  • Ming-liang Tsai – Wu Wu Mian AKA No No Sleep (2015)

    2011-2020ArthouseAsianChinaMing-liang Tsai

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    No No Sleep’ sees Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang revisiting Lee Kang Sheng’s walking monk, this time in Tokyo. But rather than spend all his time on the city streets, Tsai eventually transplants the anonymous monk to a Japanese ‘onsen’ (a public bathhouse), where he’s joined by an equally anonymous Japanese man. Read More »

  • Christian Petzold – Yella (2007)

    2001-2010Christian PetzoldDramaGermanyRomance

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    Christian Petzold’s drama deals with a woman, who leaves her hometown for a promising job and a new life,
    but is haunted by the truths of the past. As her marriage to Ben broke and her professional career has no future
    in her native town in the Eastern part of Germany, Yella has decided to search for a job in the West. When she gets
    to know Philipp, a smart executive at a private equity company in Hanover, she becomes his assistant and gets involved
    into the world of ruthless and big business. Realizing her dreams could come true with Philipp’s help, she starts hearing
    voices and sounds from her past, which menace her new and better life…Read More »

  • Various – Screening the Poor 1888-1914 [compilation] (1888-1914)

    1881-18901901-1910Short FilmSilentVarious

    Quote:
    Around 1900, the issues of poverty and poor relief were the source of heated controversy. This DVD illustrates in seven chapters how examinations of the ‘Social Question’ were presented in magic lantern slide sets and early films. On the screens of auditoriums, Sunday schools, music-halls, cinemas and churches, visitors could witness orphans freezing to death in the snow, drunkards plunging their families into misery and helpless old people begging for a scrap of bread. Audiences experienced poignant moving pictures in performances with music, singing and recitations. The photographic and film industries delivered glass slide sets and films in very large runs on a variety of themes relating to poverty.Read More »

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