Cygnus OB2#12

I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like

June 1986 •English

"I Do Not Know What It Is that I Am Like" juxtaposes images of animals, both wild and domestic, and natural environments with human activity as it takes place in an apartment, and during a fire walking ceremony in Fiji. Documentary-style footage is combined with staged events. Despite the piece's lack of a traditional narrative, it bears some relationship to nature works. The segment features material from "Il Corpo Scuro (The dark body)" - animals and natural environments are seen up close and at a distance.

The Baby of Mâcon

September 1993 •English

Set halfway through the 17th century, a church play is performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.

Agent Jayne: A Woman with a Mission

July 2024 •English

Synopsis: Agent Jayne: A Woman with a Mission” introduces audiences to the unfortunate reality of the youth drug trade, exposing the harrowing consequences of addiction and exploitation. As the story unfolds, viewers are plunged into a world of greed, danger, and moral ambiguity.   Written and directed by Waqar Peter Gill, the concept of Agent Jayne is based on real events and personal visual experiences. The film aims to emphasize a prudent issue of substance abuse amongst teens, which portrays the use of candy-like opioids. The film is a blend of social awareness amongst the youth and woman empowerment. Director’s Quote: Agent Jayne is a film designed to raise the profile of local upcoming talent, as wella s create an awareness of drug abuse amongst the youth.  As a result of the release of Agent Jayne, we can recognize the contributions of all individuals involved in this project.

The Green Ray

January 2017 •English

A Green Ray that never features. Instead, we sense it, seeing beyond our own eyes, beyond the hills, we sense it for an instant. We are plunged into the unknowable, beyond the horizon, beyond seeing altogether. In a single, virtuoso 11 minute take, Barley takes us from lush sunsets. to beyond the green ray, and into the gloaming, into the heavy night's darkness, where we, transfixed, can do nothing but await the impending storm.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

November 1989 •English

It's Christmastime, and the Griswolds are preparing for a family seasonal celebration. But things never run smoothly for Clark, his wife Ellen, and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious family guests, but he manages to keep going, knowing that his Christmas bonus is due soon.

Assassination

August 1996 •Japanese

"Assassination" - Adaptation of Hermann Hesse's novel "Demian". A young man's detachment from and revolt against the superficial ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into a realization of self. Max Demian is his childhood friend and mentor.

Friend of the World

August 2020 •English

After a catastrophic global war, a young filmmaker awakens in the carnage and seeks refuge in the only other survivor: an eccentric, ideologically opposed figure of the United States military. Together, they brave the toxic landscape in search of safety... and answers.

Flesh in Turmoil

October 2023 •Portuguese

The process of depersonalization maintains a dialogue with the objectification of the body, a sort of thingified flesh, clothed in animosity. In an epiphanic act, the sutures reveal themselves as the reflection of this gaze upon its own spilled fluids and transcend into an internal soup. It is the stream of consciousness in its purest form. It is the raw and the bare. It is the visceral nature of facts. It is the merging of worlds. It is the flesh in turmoil.

Brutalist Couture

July 2024 •English

Hieronymus Rivera (Jonathan Rosado), a strong force in the New York fashion underground, is offered the deal of a lifetime by Cecilia Meadows (Jessica Shepherd), a government official who is the head of a new secret program called DAFTCA. What begins as a simple agreement to design uniforms for the organization, soon finds Hieronymus in the center of a vast web of conspiracy.

.wszechświat

October 2022 •Polish

Nightfall

March 1971 •English

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.

Guaret

July 2024 •Catalan

Pedro is Mallorcan, born to a mother from Burgos and a father from Mallorca. Due to his distant relationship with his father, Pedro doesn't fully master Mallorcan as a language. He turns to the works of Damià Huguet to remember his father, as only his poems can fill the void left by his death. The poet's words transport Pedro to his childhood and his roots, even though many of the words are unknown to him, despite them belonging to his language. This becomes the driving force behind the protagonist's search for his own identity, his origins, what it means to be a man, father-son relationships, collective identity, and "mallorquinness". Pedro constantly questions the emotions stirred by Huguet's poetry, and, most importantly, who he is and where he belongs.

Fajr

April 2019 •Arabic

In the Moroccan desert night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate landscape. From night´s abstraction, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates gaze and duration densify it. The adhan -muslim call to pray- sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolves into the desert.

The Mutability of All Things and the Possibility of Changing Some

December 2011 •French

The Mutability of All Things and the Possibility of Changing Some explores our human adaptability in light of catastrophe by way of seminal literature passages implying a transitory social body.

Caterpillar

January 1988 •Japanese

A half-hour experimental film that shows Fukui moving towards cyberpunk imagery in a manner similar to Tsukamoto, featuring industrial locations, a malfunctioning cyborg/android and a hulking metallic ‘caterpillar’ that stalks characters.

Blow-Up

December 1966 •English

A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.

Mirror

March 1975 •Russian

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Sweet Movie

June 1974 •English

The winner of the Miss World Virginity contest marries, escapes from her masochistic husband and ends up involved in a world of debauchery.

Cloud Film

September 2024 •English

cloud film meditates on the calming effects of watching clouds, while also demanding action to combat our impact on the environment. It calls attention to a loss of control as the clouds turn into a storm, reflecting the momentum of climate change. As clouds float on screen, fluctuating between different frame rates, this film calls attention to its handmade form through the use of cameraless techniques such as ray-o-gramming, optical printing and hand processing.

Cheers,

July 2024 •English

A bartender takes on the physical form of her imagined alter egos.