Winner of 23 Awards

“…a profoundly disturbing and imaginative work.”
–Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

The Smell of Burning Ants is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness.

Through formative events of a boy’s life, we come to understand the ways in which men can become emotionally disconnected and alienated from their feminine side. The common dismissal that “boys will be boys” evolves into the chilling realization that boys frequently become angry, destructive and emotionally disabled men. The Smell of Burning Ants illustrates how boys are socialized by fear, power and shame. The film is a catalyst for discussion and an opportunity to begin the process of healing the wounds of childhood.Read More »

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” A mesmerizing meditation on the mysterious nature of identity, Lost Highway, David Lynch’s seventh feature film, is one of the filmmaker’s most potent cinematic dreamscapes. Starring Patricia Arquette and Bill Pullman, the film expands the horizons of the medium, taking its audience on a journey through the unknown and the unknowable. As this postmodern noir detours into the realm of science fiction, it becomes apparent that the only certainty is uncertainty.Read More »

Hlynur is the ultimate slacker. He sleeps all day, drinks all night and fails to maintain any kind of sensible relationship with members of the opposite sex – except for his mother whose home he still lives in. Life is pretty simple in a depressing and dull sort of a way until Hlynur sleeps with a beautiful Spanish houseguest (the wonderful Abril) who it then transpires is his mother’s lesbian lover…Read More »

Made as a series of 13 programmes about the influence of Greek culture in our society.

The Owl’s Heritage: Sequence

1. Symposium, or Accepted Ideas
2. Olympics, or Imaginary Greece
3. Democracy, or the City of Dreams
4. Nostalgia, or the Impossible Return
5. Amnesia, or History on the March
6. Mathematics, or the Empire Counts Back
7. Logomachy, or the Dialect of the Tribe
8. Music, or Inner Space
9. Cosmogony, or the Ways of the World
10. Mytholody, or Lies like Truth
11. Mysogyny, or the Snares of Desire
12. Tragedy, or the Illusion of Death
13. Philosophy, or the Triumph of the Owl
Read More »

After breaking parole for self defensive manslaughter, Sailor Ripley and his girlfriend Lula Fortune head down the highway for sunny California. Lula’s mother sends out a private detective and a hitman after them. Sailor and Lula encounter an assortment of extremely bizarre “people” while discovering hidden secrets about one another. Full of lurid imagery and references to The Wizard of Oz. (Written by Jennifer Harrison)
Read More »

Hollywood, A Funhouse Of Fantasy

While watching ”Mulholland Drive,” you might well wonder if any film maker has taken the cliché of Hollywood as ”the dream factory” more profoundly to heart than David Lynch. The newest film from the creator of ”Blue Velvet” and ”Twin Peaks” is a nervy full-scale nightmare of Tinseltown that seizes that concept by the throat and hurls it through the looking glass.

By surrendering any semblance of rationality to create a post-Freudian, pulp-fiction fever dream of a movie, Mr. Lynch ends up shooting the moon with ”Mulholland Drive.” Its frenzied final 45 minutes, in which the story circles back on itself in a succession of kaleidoscopic Chinese boxes, conveys the maniacal thrill of an imagistic brainstorm.Read More »

Quote:
Though art is not my specialty, I do love to wander around a museum. It’s not something I do often, but I get that itch to surround myself with works that have stood the test of time. Gazing at such beautiful art stirs pangs of jealousy that I’m not able to do such things myself. But I know my limitations, and I will simply allow myself an occasional stroll through the controlled environment of my local museums. Shamefully, while I lived just outside of Washington D.C., I spent just one afternoon in its superb Smithsonian Museum of Art; and, on a recent trip to New York City, I nearly ran through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Ohio, where I have spent most of my life, the museums in Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati don’t have the works we’d all like to see. I am actually quite selective in what I like, and that tends toward realism, impressionism, and a touch of surrealism. Contemporary art, cubism, and other abstract forms irritate me and implore me to return to the rooms that showcase works created before the twentieth century.Read More »

From VLN:

A play, written by Dennis Potter, which deals with the turningpoint in science when Charles Darwin released his theories from the point of view of a religious scientist who can’t bare the thought that the Genesis isn’t to be taken literally. Not as famous as his Musical mini-series “The Singing Detective” and “Pennies From Heaven”, not as notorious as his banned play “Brimstone & Treacle” Potter writes a very quiet and heartbreaking play about a boy who watches his father’s life work being destroyed.Read More »

The potent work of two filmmakers from diverse backgrounds are bought together in this book. Correspondence uniquely presents the work of two filmmakers who share a profound and deliberate vision, in spite of their vastly different backgrounds. The work of Spaniard Victor Erice and Iranian Abbas Kiarostami share a common preoccupation with investigating the tension that exists between the individual and society. As filmmakers, they are both intensely independent, determined to advance the expressive potential and capacity of cinema. Working in contemporary cinema, these two quintessential figures often purposely recapture the stark and primal character developed by early cinema pioneers.Read More »