Like a Dream that Vanishes

The Dreamer That Remains: A Portrait of Harry Partch

The Dreamer That Remains is a documentary produced by Betty Freeman and directed by Stephen Pouliot in 1972. Here is the director’s original cut along with his commentary. If you’ve never seen Partch or his instruments before, this is the place to start.

bubble skin

A disorienting realm where reality itself flickers and fragments. Through a visceral exploration of digital distortion and failing verification processes, this challenges your perception and dares you to question what lies beneath the surface. Are we truly awake to the genocides and wars raging beyond our privileged bubbles, or are we content to remain ensnared by manipulated realities? This is a personal call to shatter the illusions, to seek deeper truths, and to recognize the profound fortune of our existence amidst global turmoil.

Night Flight: Born Again

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.

Expiration

Short experimental film.

Holiday

Experimental short film.

Orchard Street

This short film documents the daily life of the goings-on on Orchard Street, a commercial street in the Lower East Side New York City.

Je m'appelle Régine et je vous emmerde !

Play Dead: Real Time

An avant-garde film presented as part of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. From MoMA's catalog: "For the monumental installation Play Dead; Real Time, (director Douglas) Gordon arranged for a circus elephant to be transported to Gagosian Gallery, in New York City, where he filmed it obeying a series of commands (repeatedly lying down and then awkwardly struggling to rise). Like many of Gordon's protagonists, the elephant is subject to greater forces, beyond its controL Simultaneously presenting several different versions of the scene, in front and rear projections and on a monitor, the work depicts the event from a range of perspectives rather than from a single static viewpoint."

EXPRMNTL

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…

Vanessa

Vanessa is based on the untimely death of Vanessa Jordan. A work about loss and Michelangelo.

Notes II

A sci-fi filmed in Mount Shasta, CA, Morro Bay, CA and Cape Romain, SC.

and now?

#13, glancing, or avoiding.

Power

Screened in the official competition at the Cannes Festival, this controversial documentary depicts a hypnosis session in which participants, under its influence, inflict pain on themselves and others. The film addresses important themes such as manipulation, abuse of power, and collective obedience.

Liminality & Communitas

After the sunset, a man wonders between the edges of the highways gathering edible roadkill animals.

In A Year With 13 Deaths

Light painting and nature imagery are captured in 13 shots of different points of luminescence, on the 13th anniversary of Schwartz’s mother’s passing, and as a homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s personal 'In a Year with Thirteen Moons' (1978).

Classic Albums: Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - Freak Out!

This programme tells the story behind the conception, recording and release of this groundbreaking album. By use of interviews, musical demonstration, performance, archive footage and returning to the multi tracks with Ahmet Zappa and Joe Travers we discover how Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention created the album with the help of legendary African- American producer Tom Wilson.

Wet

Short avant garde film. Views of rippling water.

John Cale: Fragments of a Rainy Season

Solo live concert recorded in Brussels, April 12, 1992. Tracks: 1) On A Wedding Anniversary 2) Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed 3) Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night 4) The Soul of Carmen Miranda 5) Cordoba 6) Ship Of Fools 7) Leaving It Up To You 8) The Ballad Of Cable Hogue 9) Chinese Envoy 10) Fear Is A Man's Best Friend 11) Dying On The Vine 12) Heartbreak Hotel 13) Paris 1919 14) (I Keep A) Close Watch 15) Hallelujah

Kolkata

A portrait of North Kolkata (Calcutta), this film searches the streets for the ebb and flow of humanity and reflects the changing landscape of a city at once medieval and modern. -Mark Toscano. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

The Glass System

“The Glass System, made from images shot in New York and Calcutta, looks at life as it is played out in the streets. Every corner turned reveals activities both simple and unfamiliar: a knife sharpener on a bicycle; a tiny tightrope walker; a man selling watches in front of a department store on Fifth Avenue; a hauntingly slow portrait of the darting eyes of schoolgirls on their way home; the uncompleted activities of a young contortionist. The sound in the film (which is from a Bengali primer written by British missionaries) is a meditation on how the English language teaches ideas about culture which are often incongruous. The disjunction between what you hear and what you see evokes reflections about the impact of globalization and the hegemony of Western-style capitalism.” - ML