Still Life

Martian Child

November 2007 •English

A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.

Año cero

November 2016 •Spanish

"Año cero" is about the well-educated, well-to-do middle-class man, Miguel who loses his job. Now he finds himself without direction, credentials or long-term relationships.

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.

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.

Plastic Jesus

January 1971 •

Tom is a young guy from Zagreb, completely without money, trying to make films in Belgrade. He somehow manages to survive with a help of women. He doesn't believe in anybody, respects no one and is in constant conflict with the ruling system and order. After being left by a silly American girl, Tom binds with a woman whose husband is abroad. When she kicks him out, he moves in with her husband's sister, who later kills him in the attack of jealousy. All this is shown in the context of major historical events prior to 1968. with lots of archive footage of world leaders.

You, the Living

September 2007 •Swedish

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

Razor Blades

January 1968 •English

In Razor Blades, Paul SHARITS consciously challenges our eyes, ears and minds to withstand a barrage of high powered and often contradictory stimuli. In a careful juxtaposition and fusion of these elements on different parts of our being, usually occurring simultaneously, we feel at times hypnotised and re-educated by some potent and mysterious force.

River of Fundament

February 2014 •English

Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.

AlieNation

October 2022 •English

A family of immigrants is chased through the woods by border patrol. But they're not alone.

Deserted by the Masses

February 2023 •English

Social media corrupts the mind of a young University student--but can he escape the psychological torment of alienation?

Cremaster 3

May 2002 •English

CREMASTER 3 (2002) is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect ...

The World Is Not a Landscape

June 2005 •English

A quasi-sequel to Michel Houellebecq's novel The Possibility of an Island, Masbedo's short presents a post-apocalyptic landscape overseen by a distant mother nature or perhaps mother of nature portrayed by French icon Juliette Binoche.

Naked

September 1993 •English

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.

Blackboards

September 2000 •Persian

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

The Idol

February 1966 •English

A rebellious student embarks on an affair with the mother of his best friend, leading to disastrous consequences.

The Life of Jesus

June 1997 •French

Twenty-something Freddy is becalmed in a podunk French village where the only sign of life is the local amateur brass band and youth aimlessly roaming around the countryside on scooters. He has an intense sexual connection with his girlfriend but has no joy or passion to give her. When she falls for a handsome Arab youth a tragedy unfolds.

Full Moon in Paris

August 1984 •French

Louise is dissatisfied with her mundane life in a bleak Parisian new-town. She rents a pied-à-terre in the city so she can experience independence.

Kandahar

May 2001 •English

After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.

Silvester Home Run

August 2008 •German

Big Bang Love, Juvenile A

February 2006 •Japanese

An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.