The Experimental Image World of Shuji Terayama

Last Love

June 2017 •Russian

The plot begins with them and ends with humanity. This author wanted to show continuity: the first love and the supposed last is an indivisible whole of one eternal Love.

The Birth of Music

June 2010 •Russian

The film is an allegory in which the attempt is made to show the inner process of movement of the composer's soul at the time of the birth of music.

Údolie večných karaván

February 1968 •Slovak

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.

The Daddy's Meat

November 2004 •Russian

A gloomy tale or a completely innocent family picnic on the open air ...

Smash

August 2014 •English

The model’s feet are uncomfortably squeezed into the heels, and her movements are slippery on slick silver liquid, before she slowly and ominously destroys the glass pane separating the subject from the viewer.

The Granny's Apocrypha

November 2001 •Russian

Saw and imagined in the children's fantasy the story of grandmother of Christ and the Apostles a little girl. Today few people remember that just a few decades ago in the village houses next to the icons you could still see the popular prints on religious themes. They finally disappeared from use only in the 60-ies of the last century. Of course, their creators were not professional painters or connoisseurs of theology. Drew, as best they could, she felt, not knowing neither rules nor laws. Simple uneducated people, nuggets, sought to glorify God with their creativity, that resonates in the hearts of those of peasants or artisans as they are.

The Two

November 2002 •Russian

Two men. Friends? Enemies? Lovers? Brothers? One is nothing, success or failure depends on two.

The Death of an Insect

May 2010 •

In a lifeless urban landscape where time itself has stopped its crawl, a mad ballet is commencing and a newly hatched butterfly is about to die.

The Way

November 1988 •Russian

Three friends meet in a central cheerful pastime. After strolling along the boulevards, they are in nature. The dark side of the forest reveals the subconscious of each. And none of them are unaware of the existence of the world of the forces that awaken in man hidden until the time of the dark side of their personalities. The metaphor of the film is laid bare hidden from direct view the laws of nature to be reckoned with, are unaware of their presence, man.

Cohibeo

January 2025 •English

The wind carries an aspiring healer into a chaotic, virulent parallel world. Paralyzed by a familiar universe that is gradually becoming distorted, she discovers she has the power to stop time.

Tempo Rubato

Invalid date •English

The night before her eighteenth birthday recital, an overworked and undertalented pianist is abducted by three ghouls.

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.

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.

Snake in Home

September 2018 •Chinese

The C-list TV actor Jonnie Zhang decides to change career as an estate agent. While preparing for the interview, he hires a cleaner to tidy up his long non-visited mansion. A cleaner receives a task to a vacant house, and she decides to stay over night realizing that the bus service has been suspended. Out of every clue hidden in the house, she fantasizes its whole family and secrets, along with her own previous life she comes across.

UUFO

September 2018 •English

UUFO consists of 6 short chapters/stories. Each describes a memory. Dealing with conflicting interpretations of China from the 1960s onwards, UUFO contrasts past generations’ stories with contemporary perceptions. UUFO stands for Universal Unidentified Flying Object.

Copy/Paste

May 2025 •Dutch

A man contemplates whether or not it is possible to do something unique.

The Illiac Passion

December 1967 •English

Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.

The Howl

May 1970 •Italian

A young bride escapes her wedding ceremony with a stranger and together they set off on an epic journey though increasingly bizarre lands. They encounter talking animals and mournful exhibitionists, converse with a discoursing rock, journey through a surrealist's psychedelic hotel, instigate a prison riot, escape from naked cannibals living in a tree and battle a wind-up midget dictator!

Lohengrin

April 2024 •English

A short experimental film shot on Super 8, inspired by the music of Richard Wagner.