Covert Action
1984 · 10m
Covert Action is a stunning melange of rapid-fire retro imagery accomplishing Child’s proclaimed goal to "disarm my movies." "I wanted to examine the erotic behind the social, and remake those gestures into a dance that would confront their conditioning and, as well, relay the multiple fictions the footage suggests (the ‘facts’ forever obscured in the fragments left us). The result is a narrative developed by its periphery, a story like rumor: impossible to trace, disturbing, explosive."
More Like This
True Dreams
2002 · ★ 7
How many movies have you seen where at the end the main character wakes up, causing he and the audience to simultaneously realize that everything they witnessed beforehand was "just a dream?" This film takes that principal but instead of deceiving, the story invites you to watch the main characters dream away. As a result, "True Dreams" takes the dream sequence to a whole new level: it lets its audience in on the joke, while they watch the two main characters run around unaware of the reality/fantasy of their surroundings. This film can be viewed via Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/132642294 (password: truedreams)
More info →
Head Film
1971
An experimental and humorous rainy day romp involving director Wakefield Poole's beloved Warhol Marilyns, his boyfriend Peter Fisk, Julia Child and the kitchen sink (literally and figuratively). The film creates whimsy by incorporating household film footage, pop culture references from TV, and Poole's eclectic and sometimes campy use of music.
More info →
Vittorio
1971
Made as part of a Triton Gallery show to publicize the poster art of Canadian artist Vittorio Fiorucci, filmmaker Wakefield Poole cut apart posters and hand-animated the film using his 8mm camera to create stop-motion. The film was combined with dancers, lighting and projections to create an innovative gallery show.
More info →Roman Chariot
2004
A vehicle of consciousness navigates the vertiginous labyrinths of San Francisco. ROMAN CHARIOT was filmed over several months with a spy camera mounted on filmmaker David Sherman's son's baby carriage.
More info →
Re/cycle
2019 · ★ 7.7
With input from actor and writer Jan Hlobil, director and cinematographer Rene Smaal presents a film in the true surrealist tradition, in the sense that only 'found' elements were used, and that it defies interpretation based on ordinary cause-and-effect time sequence.
More info →
The Big Departure
1972 · ★ 6
This is the only feature directed by the famed French painter and sculptor Martial Raysse. In keeping with the revolutionary spirit of the time, the movie has no plot to speak of and appears to have been largely made up on the spot. We follow the cat man into a bizarre fantasy universe presented in negative exposure that reverses color values (black is white and vice versa) and written words. The cat man steals a car and then picks up a young girl he promises to take to “Heaven.” Heaven turns out to be a country chateau inhabited by several more animal mask wearing weirdoes...
More info →
Mnemosyne Mother of Muses
1987 · ★ 7.3
Christened for the Greek mythological personification of human memory, MNEMOSYNE, MOTHER OF MUSES is Larry Gottheim's facsimile edition of how one reflects on life and experiences (namely, in flashes and excerpts of sound and imagery). Typically known for his avant-garde, single-shot meditations on nature, Gottheim here provides a palindromic quotation of his own memories, including street corners, movie quotes, family members and Johnny Hartman tunes.
More info →
Chinese Ping-Pong
1972 · ★ 6.5
An experimental sports film made partly during the Scandinavian Open Championships in Halmstad in 1970, partly during the Chinese players' exhibition tour in Denmark immediately after the SOC. First of all, it is a film about their style, about the artistic culmination that is ping-pong at its best, it records China's comeback into the international sports world.
More info →
Infatuation
2020
A male artist indulges in his love of the female form. That love is tainted when the female subjects make a choice to admire their own beauty. A short that loudly echoes society's treatment of black beauty. Infatuation is an experimental short film lasting just over four minutes.
More info →Dyketactics
1974 · ★ 5.6
Born in Los Angeles but a New Yorker by choice, Barbara Hammer is a whole genre unto herself. Her pioneering 1974 short film Dyketactics, a four-minute, hippie wonder consisting of frolicking naked women in the countryside, broke new ground for its exploration of lesbian identity, desire and aesthetic.
More info →
Haemophobia
2019
A young office worker is afflicted with a strange mutation that causes her blood to come to life when she bleeds.
More info →
Metastasis
1971 · ★ 5.6
Writes Matsumoto, "I used the Erekutoro Karapurosesu (Electro Color Processor), which is mainly used in the field of medicine and engineering, to create moving image textures Metastasis, I was interested in layering images of a simple object and its electronically processed abstraction. The electronic abstract image is manipulated in a certain rhythm, depicting an organic process."
More info →