Strokkur

Animal Charm: Golden Digest

January 1996 •English

Animal Charm makes videos from other people's videos. By compositing TV and reducing it to a kind of tic-ridden babble, they force television to not make sense. While this disruption is playful, it also reveals an overall 'essence' of mass culture that would not be apprehended otherwise. Videos such as Stuffing, Ashley, and Lightfoot Fever upset the hypnotic spectacle of TV viewing, revealing how advertising creates anxiety, how culture constructs "nature" and how conventional morality is dictated through seemingly neutral images. By forcing television to convulse like a raving lunatic, we might finally hear what it is actually saying.

Negativland: No Other Possibility

January 1989 •English

In an effort to cure her smoking habit a middle-aged woman discovers that she can communicate with her long lost son while watching a Halloween safety program on TV. After suffering a nervous breakdown, her husband, a used car salesman, is revitalized when he travels back in time to drive the first car he ever sold. Seventeen years later a powerful canned food manufacturer crashes the same car into a toaster truck while endorsing a brand of yams on live TV. At the funeral his clergyman experiences a crisis of faith when he and a lifelike Mexican continue their search for a married couple who have befriended an insect who enjoys drinking lime soda. They later meet a young man whose bizarre murder scheme involves four innocent members of an experimental rock band who have all given up smoking.

Between Science and Garbage

April 2004 •English

A whirlwind of improvisation combines the images of animator Pierre Hébert with the avant-garde sound of techno whiz Bob Ostertag in this singular multimedia experience, a hybrid of live animation and performance art.

March of the Penguins

January 2005 •French

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

Under a Bridge

March 1974 •Japanese

In this tape, Ko Nakajima and Video Earth Tokyo interview a homeless man. The subject is initially angry and frustrated, but gradually opens up and shares stories about his life. Under A Bridge was later broadcast on cable television.

Selva. A Portrait of Parvaneh Navaï

January 1982 •French

Trance dances and out of body projection. In front of the camera, Parvaneh Navaï becomes a mediator who enters in contact with and immerses into the energies of Nature, while her own energy radiates and echos in the forest ("selva"). The camera amplifies and expands her presence, transforming the forest into an imaginary space. The camera becomes a painter's brush.

Blindsight

September 2006 •English

Six blind Tibetan teenagers climb the Lhakpa-Ri peak of Mount Everest, led by seven-summit blind mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer.

Sylvia Kristel – Paris

February 2003 •English

Sylvia Kristel – Paris is a portrait of Sylvia Kristel , best known for her role in the 1970’s erotic cult classic Emmanuelle, as well as a film about the impossibility of memory in relation to biography. Between November 2000 and June 2002 Manon de Boer recorded the stories and memories of Kristel. At each recording session she asked her to speak about a city where Kristel has lived: Paris, Los Angeles, Brussels or Amsterdam; over the two years she spoke on several occasions about the same city. At first glance the collection of stories appears to make up a sort of biography, but over time it shows the impossibility of biography: the impossibility of ‘plotting’ somebody’s life as a coherent narrative.

Broken Fall (Geometric)

February 1971 •English

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.

Picture of Light

June 1994 •English

A documentary of an expedition to Churchill, Manitoba to film the Northern Lights.

Draw

August 2006 •English

Catch the Vapors

September 2007 •English

Standard Films spanned the globe this past winter documenting the best snowboarding in the greatest mountain ranges to catch the vapors. Witness pro snowboarders descend huge mountain peaks, drop endless pillows lines, boost off huge backcountry kickers, hit unique urban features and destroy custom resort parks. Catch the Vapors is the progression of All Terrain, Freestyle, All Mountain and Backcountry Snowboarding!

More

September 2006 •English

Once again Absinthe Films raises the bar to bring you 'More'. This title marks the beginning of a new era for Absinthe Films as they have broadened their scope to include and properly represent urban riding while still keeping the overall blend fresh and un-repetitive.

Suêtes

December 1999 •English

This documentary traces the folklore, stories, and reality of living under the hurricane force winds, that beat down upon the residents of the Acadian region of Western Cape Breton Island, between Margaree Harbour and Cheticamp. The film contains stunning landscapes shot in winds of 130 miles per hour. While there is often serious damage from these Suêtes, roofs blowing off buildings and even homes blowing apart, there is also a good dose of local humour surrounding life under these harsh environmental conditions. Residents from young to more than 90 years old tell their tales of life under these winds.

Calm Beneath Castles

November 2024 •English

Meet the skiers driven by an insatiable thirst for adventure and discovery and explore the essence of being at one with the mountains.

Der Wind - Motor des Klimawandels

May 2022 •German

Steep

April 2007 •English

Steep traces the legacy of extreme skiing from its early pioneers to the daredevils of today.

Exploring The Snow - The Final Volume

October 2017 •Swedish

Urgent ou à quoi bon exécuter des projets puisque le projet est en lui-même une jouissance suffisante

August 1977 •French

Gérard Courant applies the Lettrist editing techniques of Isidore Isou to footage of late 70's pop culture. Courant posits that his cinema offers an aggressive détournement to the French mainstream, reifying a Duchampian view of film: "I believe in impossible movies and works without meaning... I believe in the anti-movie. I believe in the non-movie. I believe in Urgent... My first full length movie that is so anti-everything that I sometimes wonder if it really does exist!"

Black Hole Radio

September 1992 •English

Black Hole Radio is an installation that consists of taped confessions of callers of the New York City Phone Confession Line and video images. The Phone Confession Line is based on anonymous callers ringing to confess on things they had done or thought like adultery, theft, murder or regrets. Thereafter anybody could call and listen to the confessions. Although making a confession was free, listening to a confession costs money. After Cohen got his hands on the confessions, he used them as an audio heartbeat to accompany video-images of every day life in New York City he had taken over the years. This installation is a portrait of the city with its dark secrets, hushed voices and nocturnal images. In this way Cohen tries to bring across an experience to the viewer that relies on absence, waiting and the effort to hear something in the dark.