Velvet Bayou

The Mermaids

January 1994 •English

A video essay by Luiz Rosemberg Filho on the standardization of beauty through mass media.

O malém světě

February 1968 •Czech

Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner

July 2023 •English

Lies can kill. Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner is an exploration of propaganda, lies, and the overwhelming urge to end it all.

Todo Todo Teros

August 2006 •English

Basically an artist is also a terrorist, the protagonist thinks in an unguarded moment. And if he is a terrorist after all, then he might just as well be one. Not an instant product, but an experimental feature in which diary material is brought together to form an intriguing puzzle.

Taon Noong Ako'y Anak sa Labas

August 2008 •Tagalog

Filmmaker John Torres describes his childhood and discusses his father's infidelities.

What Is to Be Done? A Journey from Prague to Ceský Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government

August 1996 •Czech

Quite a few years have passed since November 1989. Czechoslovakia has been divided up and, in the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus’s right-wing government is in power. Karel Vachek follows on from his film New Hyperion, thus continuing his series of comprehensive film documentaries in which he maps out Czech society and its real and imagined elites in his own unique way.

Locations: Looking for Rusty James

August 2013 •Spanish

A personal meditation on Rumble Fish, the legendary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, where it was shot; and its impact on the life of several people from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay related to film industry.

Ôrí

May 1989 •Portuguese

A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.

Los Nadadores

May 2022 •Spanish

History, work, sex, cinema, death and my older brother. An essay on what swimming pools mean in culture and the collective memories we have about them. Inspired by Ed Ruscha's swimming pool photographs.

Visions of Europe

May 2004 •English

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

To Stay Alive: A Method

November 2016 •English

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy)

December 2000 •Czech

A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.

All This Can Happen

January 2013 •English

A flickering dance of intriguing imagery brings to light the possibilities of ordinary movements from the everyday which appear, evolve and freeze before your eyes. Made entirely from archive photographs and footage from the earliest days of moving image, All This Can Happen (2012) follows the footsteps of the protagonist from the short story 'The Walk' by Robert Walser. Juxtapositions, different speeds and split frame techniques convey the walker's state of mind as he encounters a world of hilarity, despair and ceaseless variety.

Desolate Rome

October 1995 •French

Chronicles of a male homosexual drug addict in 1980's in voice-over with long take scenes from Rome, television snippets of news of Gulf War and commercials.

Filmfarsi

July 2019 •English

A found-footage essay, Filmfarsi salvages low budget thrillers and melodramas suppressed following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The Imperial Lullaby

March 2020 •Italian

The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.

Swimming, Dancing

September 2023 •English

Swimming, Dancing examines audiovisual representations of the Yangtze (1934–present), from silent film to video art to the contemporary vlog. Inspired by the city symphonies of the 1920s, Swimming, Dancing pieces together a “river symphony”, evoking the images, sounds and contradictions that make up the river’s turbulent history.

The March on Rome

October 2022 •Italian

The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.

Long Live Hunting!

November 2014 •Czech

El Estado soy Yo

September 1981 •Spanish

The images from the landing of the first expedition of the spaceship Columbia are juxtaposed to a reflection on the function of the visual medium, and artistic creation as a whole.