365 Day Project/Jonas Mekas

WIKI: "Jonas Mekas born December 24, 1922 in the village of Semeniškiai, near Biržai) is a Lithuanian filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema. His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.
Beginning in the fall of 2006, Mekas planned to film 365 short videos for Apple Computer's Video iPod, releasing one a day on his website."

Anemic Cinema/Marcel Duchamp

WIKI/ "Anemic Cinema or Anémic Cinéma (1926) is a Dadaist, surrealist, or experimental film made by Marcel Duchamp. The film depicts whirling animated drawings -- which Duchamp called Rotoreliefs -- alternated with puns in French. Duchamp signed the film with his alter ego name of Rrose Sélavy."

Inferno/Dario Argento

WIKI: "Inferno is a 1980 Italian supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento. The convoluted story concerns a young man's investigation into the disappearance of his sister, who had been living in a New York City apartment building that also served as a home for a powerful, centuries-old witch."

Eros+Massacre/Yoshishige Yoshida

WIKI: "Eros + Massacre (エロス＋虐殺, Erosu purasu Gyakusatsu) is a Japanese black and white film released in 1969. It was directed by Yoshishige Yoshida, who wrote it in cooperation with Masahiro Yamada.

The film is a biography of anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, assassinated by the Japanese military in 1923. The story tells of his relationship with three women."

Celestial Subway Lines/Ken Jacobs

"released on tzadik 2004(www.tzadik.com)
the nervous magic lantern is a late optical invention, technically possible long before film or even photography, for projection of images that move through impossible changes in a vast illusionary depth, visible to even a single eye.
music: john zorn(&ikue mori) "

Looking for Langston/Isaac Julien

WIKI: "Produced in 1989, the film is presented in black and white combining authentic archival newsreel footage of Harlem in the 1920s with scripted scenes to produce a non-linear impressionistic story line celebrating black gay identity and desire during the artistic and cultural period known as the Harlem Renaissance in New York."

Irène/Alain Cavalier

ABOUT: "Small digital camera in hand, Cavalier dives into the memories he set down in his diaries from the early 1970s, in search of the essence of Irène, the love of his life, who was killed in a car crash…
"She's at the door," Alain Cavalier confesses. "For years, I’ve heard her, knocking gently. Why has it taken me so long to open the door to her? Am I afraid of the claims she might make? Afraid of some kind of confession? Am I unwilling to shine a light into the dark corners? One thing I know: she stands there, alive, stands before me, steers my hand. I am trying to go beyond where we left off – only yesterday.."

Vampyr/Carl Theodor Dreyer

WIKI: "Vampyr is a 1932 horror film directed by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. The film was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based on elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly. Vampyr was funded by Nicolas de Gunzburg who starred in the film under the name of Julian West among a mostly non-professional cast. Gunzberg plays the role of Allan Grey, a student of the occult who enters a small village outside of Paris which is cursed by supernatural creatures known as Vampyrs who lure townspeople to suicide so they can become servants for the devil."

Like a virgin, relax/Virginie Marchand

"A little trip to Goa, India, to escape bad stuff and return to the sea, the waves, the sacred cows, under the sun, sometimes the rain."

Sordid/Johnny Terris

ABOUT: "Canadian filmmaker and actor Johnny Terris started out doing short films in the late 80’s and early 90’s in Canada. Starting at the age of 14 and leaving home at 16 years of age his films viciously delved into trailer park comedy that centered on a comedic annihilation of family values and structure.
In 2005, he released Sordid; a grotesque experimental horror journey through death and rebirth which sold out the first 200 copies within a 24 hour period."

Serene Velocity/Ernie Gehr

Imdb: "Ernie Gehr's structuralist masterpiece SERENE VELOCITY is a hypnotic film which is nothing more than a rapidly edited, rhythmic piece consisting of two shots of an office hallway (one long shot, one zoomed-in close up)."

Mr Hayashi/Bruce Baillie

ABOUT: "Bruce Baillie's innovative films grab the viewer with eloquent and rich imagery as well as a heartfelt humanism and concern for his subjects expressed through a lyrical sensibility.
The natural and intimate pictorial handling of Mr. Hayashi is characteristic of all of Baillie's work, especially the deeply moving Mass for the Dakota Sioux (1963-1964)."

Giardini/Steve McQueen

The Guardian's review:
""Turner," said Steve McQueen at yesterday's opening of the Venice Biennale, "does not own sunsets, and he doesn't own Venetian sunsets." And so it is that the London-born artist, who this year represents the UK at the world's most important and unashamedly flamboyant art event, has dared to make a romantic, lyrical, melancholic film that shows Venice hazed through mists and sunsets, dripped in wintry rain.
It ought to be a cliche, but it is not, for the Venice of McQueen's minutely observed 40-minute film is not the Venice of St Mark's Square or humpbacked bridges over picturesque canals. His Venice is the Venice of the Giardini, the city's municipal gardens. In this park stand the pavilions, each devoted to a different nation, that are filled with art every other year during the Biennale – where, in the summer, art world types air-kiss and gossip. But McQueen's film was shot in the dim light of February, after the art from the last Biennale had long gone, the pavilions were boarded up and piles of rubbish lay scattered over the lawns and paths.
The plangent film, called Giardini, is already causing a stir at Venice as one of the most talked about of the 77 national offerings for the festival, which opens to the public on Sunday."

Seele Brennt (Soul is Burning)/Peter Sempel

no sex last night/Sophie Calle

WIKI: "In 1996, Calle released a film titled No Sex Last Night which she created in collaboration with American photographer Gregory Shephard. The film documents their road trip across America, which ends in a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Rather than following the genre conventions of a road trip or a romance, the film is designed to document the result of a man and woman who barely knew each other, embarking on an intimate journey together."

Rythmus 21/Hans Richter

ABOUT: "Rhythmus 21 is Hans Richter’s first film…Richter went on to make Rhythmus 23 (1923)…and Rhythmus 25 (1925). In this first of the series, originally known as Film ist Rhythmus, he experiments with square forms. These forms appear in very simple to very complex compositions-from the beginning shots where the squares with the frame. The effect is a subversion of the cinematic illusion of depth."

Live-taped Video Corridor/Bruce Nauman

"Nauman set two monitors above one another at the end of a corridor almost ten meters long and only 50 cm wide. The lower monitor features a videotape of the corridor. The uppermost monitor shows a closed-circuit tape recording of a camera at the entrance to the corridor, positioned at a height of about three meters. On entering the corridor and approaching the monitors, you quickly come under the area surveyed by the camera. But the closer you get to the monitor, the further you are from the camera, with the result that your image on the monitor becomes increasingly smaller. Another cause of irritation: you see yourself from behind. Moreover, the feeling of alienation induced by walking away from yourself is heightened by your being enclosed in a narrow corridor. Here, rational orientation and emotional insecurity clash with each other. A person thus monitored suddenly slips into the role of someone monitoring their own activities.

(source: Dörte Zbikowski, in: Thomas Y. Levin (ed.), CTRL[SPACE]. rhetorics of surveillance from Bentham to big brother, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe 2001)"

Art of Mirrors/Derek Jarman

WIKI: "Jarman's first films were experimental super 8 mm shorts, a form he never entirely abandoned, and later developed further in his films Imagining October (1984), The Angelic Conversation (1985), The Last of England (1987) and The Garden (1990) as a parallel to his narrative work."

Derek Jarman - Art of Mirrors

Blowjob/Andy Warhol

ABOUT: "The first public screening of BLOW JOB took place at Ruth Kligman's Washington Square Gallery in March 1964.
The person getting the blow job in Andy Warhol's film of the same name was DeVerne Bookwalter who had earlier appeared in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Macbeth in the summer of 1963. "

Pipilotti Rist

WIKI: "Elisabeth Charlotte Rist was born in 1962 in Grabs, Sankt Gallen, in Switzerland. Since her childhood she has been nicknamed Pipilotti. The name refers to the novel Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.

Her works generally last only a few minutes, and contained alterations in their colors, speed, and sound. Her works generally treat issues related to gender, sexuality, and the human body.

In contrast to those of many other conceptual artists, her colorful and musical works transmit a sense of happiness and simplicity. Rist's work is regarded as feminist by some art critics."

Hoist/Matthew Barney

SYNOPSIS: "Hoist was shot in Bahia, Salvador as one facet of a longer film titled DE LAMA LÂMINA. Hoist is the literal underbelly of that project: a non-site through which the history, ritual, mythology, and deities invoked in DE LAMA LÂMINA have been refracted and processed. It is a film about the meeting of chthonic libidinal energy and the destructive forces of technology."

Nathalie Granger/Marguerite Duras

REVIEW: "the camera records the physical appearance of two expressionless women who look a lot like Jeanne Moreau and Lucia Bose. They share a house with their two children, one of whom, Nathalie, is apparently a problem. "She wants to kill everyone," says one of the women, who seem to be interchangeable. "She wants to be an orphan, or a Portuguese maid."

Nathalie, however, remains docile—this being a minimal movie."

Missed/Claude Pérès

ABOUT: "Claude Pérès refuses to give any biographic information, thinking what ought to be known is in his work.
To the question:"What do you do for a living?" He will answer: "I write stuff, I film stuff".
He directed his first feature Unfaithful feat Marcel Schlutt, music by Lydia Lunch."
www.claudeperes.com
imdb

Manqué (Missed)

Wavelength/Michael Snow

WIKI: "Wavelength is a short, forty-five minute film that made the reputation of Canadian and artist Michael Snow. Considered a landmark of avant-garde cinema, it was filmed over one week in December 1966 and edited in 1967"

The House/Šarūnas Bartas

Šarūnas Bartas is a Lithuanian film director. One of the most prominent Lithuanian film directors internationally from the late 20th century.

ABOUT: "A dreamy, silken parable of the fate of late twentieth-century Europe, The House is an almost entirely wordless exploration of a single space: an imposing country manor by a lake that may possibly be the fantasy of one of the many diverse and melancholic inhabitants we encounter there..."

L'enfer/Henri-Georges Clouzot

From the unfinished film "L'ENFER" by Henri-Georges CLOUZOT (1977) - Actress : Romy Schneider

I will die/Yang Zhenzhong

REVIEW: "Yang Zhenzhong’s I Will Die, 2000-2005, is a remarkably simple and effective work of art. It consists of two rows of five large screens in which we see a variety of people from different nations say the words ‘I will die’ in their own language. Zhenzhong filmed people in their own environment in moments that seem snatched from the flow of everyday life. Some are serious, some amused, some indifferent. The constant flux of people and different languages together with the simple profundity of the statement makes Zhenzhong’s I Will Die one of the most powerful works on exhibition in this years Venice Biennale."

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song/Melvin Van Peebles

WIKI: "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a 1971 American independent film, written, produced, scored, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles. It tells the picaresque story of a deprived African American man on his flight from the white authority."

The Embryo Hunts in Secret/Kōji Wakamatsu

WIKI: "The Embryo Hunts In Secret (胎児が密猟する時, taiji ga mitsuryō suru toki), released in July 1966, is the first film made by Japanese director Kōji Wakamatsu independently of any movie studio. "

PLOT: "A man keeps his girlfriend tied up in his small apartment and tortures her. She is undressed, subjected to various types of bondage, whipped, and tortured with a razor blade. He also brushes her hair, applies make-up on her, and breaks down and cries in the fetal position. In the end the girl gets free and has her revenge.

At the time of its release Wakamatsu was quoted as saying "For me, violence, the body and sex are an integral part of life."

Fireworks/Kenneth Anger

REVIEW: "Completed at the tender age of 17, Fireworks – an audacious pre-Stonewall exploration of homosexuality, violence, and American youth – was the breakthrough film for avant-garde film legend Kenneth Anger."

The Encounter/Alain Cavalier

REVIEW: "Arty and steeped with metaphysical insights, this French film contains a running stream of director Alain Cavalier's thoughts as he and an unseen lover reflect upon the world's innate beauty while passing their first year together. Episodes from this filmic diary are illustrated with shots of various objects, body parts, wildlife and views from a window."

Symphonie Diagonal/Viking Eggeling

"In Symphonie Diagonal (1925), Eggeling applies an objectively analyzed movement of forms emphasizing line in a series of contrasts – vertical and horizontal, straight and curved, light and dark, strong and weak, disappearing and emerging..."

Flesh/Paul Morrissey

wiki: "Flesh is the first film of the "Paul Morrissey Trilogy" produced by Andy Warhol. The other films in the trilogy include Trash and Heat. All three have gained a cult following and are noted examples of the ideals and ideology of the time period. The films are also known to have broken boundaries and paved the way for future filmmakers.

The film stars Joe Dallesandro as a hustler working on the streets of New York City. The movie highlights various Warhol superstars, in addition to being the film debuts of both Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling. Also appearing are Geraldine Smith as Joe's wife and Patti D'Arbanville as her lesbian lover."

Flesh

Cocked/Matthew Suib

ABOUT: "Philadelphia-based artist Matthew Suib has exhibited installations, video and audio works and photographs internationally at venues including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kunstwerke Berlin, Mercer Union (Toronto), The Corcoran Gallery of Art (D.C.) and PS1 Contemporary Art Center (NYC)."


Cocked, 2003
Video excerpt

The Brown Bunny/Vincent Gallo

WIKI: "The Brown Bunny is a 2004 American independent film written, produced and directed by Vincent Gallo about a motorcycle racer on a cross-country drive who is haunted by memories of his former lover."

The Brown Bunny 2003

J'interroge et j'invective/Isidore Isou

WIKI: "Isidore Isou (January 31, 1925 – July 28, 2007), born Ioan-Isidor Goldstein, was a Romanian-born French poet, film critic and visual artist. He was the founder of Lettrism, an art and literary movement which owed inspiration to Dada and Surrealism."

J'interroge et j'invective, poem by François Dufrene, excerpt from Isidore Isou's film Traité de bave et d'éternité (1951).

The Raspberry Reich/Bruce LaBruce

REVIEW: "In Bruce LaBruce's The Raspberry Reich, a small band of left-wing terrorists in contemporary Berlin have incorporated the radicalized student generation of the '60s that Godard made movies about, "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola" as he put it, into their romanticized pop politics right alongside Che."

Mothlight/Stan Brakhage

REVIEW: "Mothlight acknowledges the limitations of the screen, the way film traps subject matter in a box, suffocating the life out of it."

The Right Side Of My Brain/Richard Kern

1984, USA, 23 minutes, super 8, black and white written by: Lydia Lunch and Richard Kern produced and directed by: Richard Kern cast: Lydia Lunch, Clint Ruin and Henry Rollins

La Chambre/Chantal Akerman

WIKI: "Chantal Akerman (born June 6, 1950) is a Belgian film director and artist. Her grand-parents and her mother were sent to Auschwitz, but only her mother came back. This is a very important factor in her personal experience and her mother's anxiety is a recurrent theme in her filmography. Renowned for a "hyperrealist" style, Akerman's work seeks to inscribe the "images between the images." Akerman's most famous film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) exemplifies a dedication to the "ellipses of conventional narrative cinema."