Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera

Decease

May 2000 •Russian

Spring comes every year and brings us hope for recovery and development. But time is inexorable and fleeting. Not for everyone will come next spring ...

Put More Blood Into the Music

August 1988 •English

PBS produced documentary in two parts: the first is dedicated to saxophonist and composer John Zorn; the second is about Sonic Youth at the height of their powers in 1988.

Mirror of Holland

May 1950 •Dutch

In this short film Bert Haanstra gives his vision - from the water – of a tranquil Holland. During filming he held the camera upside down and afterwards put the images ‘up right’ again in the film. By doing this, we see the ‘usual’ waterfront, but transformed by the rippling of the water. In this way Mirror of Holland became a modern looking experimental film. However this did not devalue the Dutch sentiment regarding waterfronts that are so trusted to so many.

El canto de las manos

Invalid date •Spanish

Night Flight: Born Again

April 2016 •English

Documentary tribute to what VH1 called “the single greatest rock omnibus program ever aired” and Brooklyn Vegan named “the most consistently weird and awesome thing on cable television in the ’80s.” This ‘Best Of’ episode features some of the most memorable moments of Night Flight's near-decade long run including restored interviews and segments from Kate Bush, New Wave Theatre, David Lynch, Prince, Wendy O Williams, Divine, Billy Idol, Johnny Rotten, and much more Night Flight treasures from the archive.

The Minimalists: Less Is Now

January 2021 •English

They've built a movement out of minimalism. Longtime friends Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus share how our lives can be better with less.

The Life of Python

October 2000 •English

Celebrating their 30th anniversary, Monty Python presents exclusive new material and so-called classic bits. Disc : 1 Contains 1:It's The Monty Python Story 2:Pythonland 3:The Last Python Mayday Special 4:From Spam to Sperm:Monty Pythons Greatest Hits An Animated South Park Tribute Disc:2 1 The Last German Episode Fliegender Zirkus #2: Schnapps with Everything

EXPRMNTL

October 2016 •English

Knokke, Belgium. A small mundane coastal town, home to the beau-monde. To compete with Venice and Cannes, the posh casino hosts the second ‘World Festival of Film and the Arts’ in 1949, organised in part by the Royal Cinematheque of Belgium. To celebrate cinema’s 50 year existence, they put together a side program showcasing the medium in all its shapes and forms: surrealist film, absolute film, dadaist films, abstract film,… The side program would soon become a festival in its own right: ‘EXPRMNTL’, dedicated to experimental cinema, and would become a mythical gathering of the avant-garde…

Joe Orton Laid Bare

November 2017 •English

Exploring the wit, work and world of Joe Orton through his own words, and the testimony of those who knew him and worked with him.

Tosca's Kiss

August 1984 •Italian

Memoirs of the Italian Opera by the singers and musicians of the Casa Verdi, Milan, the world’s first nursing home for retired opera singers, founded by composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1896. This documentary, which has achieved cult-like status among opera and music lovers, features former singers who reminisce about their careers and their past operatic roles.

Third Shift Coming Home

March 2023 •English

This audio-visual tone poem uses the language of filmmaking to offer a first-hand evocation of the turbulent psychological effects one can experience due to prolonged lack of sunlight.

Frank Zappa

February 1971 •English

The Documentary centers around Zappa at home, and on Tour. The amazing thing is that Zappa allowed a guy with a camera to film the band at the Fillmore West w/ Flo and Eddie. There are times when the camera man seems to be on the stage. The performance is recorded from only one camera angle. There are only 4-5 songs presented here.....and Zappa referring to the Fillmore West as the ‘Psychedelic Dungeon’ is priceless………..It is a great piece of history.

Cassis

January 1966 •English

"I was visiting Jerome Hill. Jerome loved France, especially Provence. He spent all his summers in Cassis. My window overlooked the sea. I sat in my little room, reading or writing, and looked at the sea. I decided to place my Bolex exactly at the angle of light as what Signac saw from his studio which was just behind where I was staying, and film the view from morning till after sunset, frame by frame. One day of the Cassis port filmed in one shot." -JM

Opera Runs in the Blood

July 2024 •English

Documentary about the life and career of actress Carolina Cataldi-Tassoni with special focus on her work in Dario Argento's "Opera".

PROTOTYPE

September 2017 •English

As a major storm strikes Texas in 1900, a mysterious televisual device is built and tested. Blake Williams’ experimental 3D sci-fi film immerses us in the aftermath of the Galveston disaster to fashion a haunting treatise on technology, cinema, and the medium’s future.

The Sound of Identity

August 2020 •English

In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.

Tea

January 2005 •English

Director Scheffer registered a performance of the Tea Opera by Chinese composer Tan Dun (who won an Oscar in 2001 with his score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Scheffer interlaces the images with interviews with Dun, stage director Pierre Audi and librettist Xu Ying, about the opera and the role tea and oriental philosophy play in this work. Using monochrome, sometimes abstract images (in yellow, blue, red and green), close-ups of plants and flowers and images of the Chinese nature and people (sometimes accelerated or decelerated, sometimes in black-and-white), he mirrors the stylised opera performance and Dun's reflective music.

Arabella

November 1994 •English

Arabella, Op. 79, is a lyric comedy or opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration.

Patrice Chéreau, Pascal Greggory, une autre solitude

January 1996 •French

A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.

Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives

March 2017 •English

Professor Jim Al-Khalili investigates the amazing science of gravity. As well sculpting our universe, gravity also affects our weight, height and even the rate at which we age.