Totem Talk

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

New York Portrait, Chapter III

"[Hutton’s] latest urban film, New York Portrait, Chapter III, takes on a unique tone in relation to Hutton’s ongoing exploration of rural landscape. The very fact that Hutton is dealing with older footage, with archives of memory more than immediacy, gives it a different texture than his earlier New York films. Hutton always found the presence of nature in the city, not only in his many shots of sky and vegetation, but also in the geometry and texture of the city itself, which seemed to project an independence from the human." (Tom Gunning)

Grid

A ritual of grids, reflections and chasms; a complete state of entropy; a space that devours itself; a vertigo that destroys the gravity of the Earth; a trap that captures us inside the voids of the screen of light: «That blank arena wherein converge at once the hundred spaces» (Hollis Frampton).

The Unconditioned Unconcealment

A Small Passage of Time

An experiment with three dimensions in a moment of clarity: the focus of the camera's lens towards the present, the speed of the train and the material world distorted by the movements of the train.

Stoney Nakoda Film Project

Baa Baa Land

An eight-hour contemplative epic, entirely starring sheep.

Labirint

Two halves split by the perseverance of a scorpion. Come on, feet.

Untied

A small portrait of the volatility of intimacy and of breaking free from abusive cycles: made in response to a year of collapsing relationships and violent accidents that left me broken, dislocated and stuck in my apartment.

Essence of Healing: The Journey of American Indian Nurses

Essence of Healing is a documentary exploring the life journeys of 14 American Indian nurses - their experiences growing up, their experiences in nursing school, and their experiences on the job. They are part of a larger story - a historical line of care and compassion that has run through hundreds of indigenous tribes for thousands of years.

Two Times in One Space

One film projected two times with a difference of a couple of seconds.

Motion Pictures are Your Best Entertainment

Television was invented as a result of scientific and technical research. Its power as a medium of news and entertainment altered all preceding media of news and entertainment

Almost Nothing: So Continues the Night

For us, a thought always presupposes a society, a culture and above all the consciousness of time. We are haunted by immortality, human notion par excellence. As if the world was here to fascinate us. And to disappoint us. The film travels around the bulb like the Earth around the Sun. Light makes the film visible. A fragile film, like our existence. In the orbit of the film tragedy and our reality, the image resists the cruelty of the experiment.

Dull Hope

Suppressed memories reach a boiling point. An animated tale of longing. “The Experimental section saw Non Films’ Dull Hope scoop the premier place as category winner. Half animation and half movie footage, this hybrid resonated very much with the judging panel who deemed it to be a sad dirge on personal memories and heartbreak.” – The Guardian Directed & Animated by Brian Ratigan Music & Sound Design by Nick Punch (R.I.P.) Produced by Non Films

Praia da Saudade

A documentary about climate change in Brazil, especially at Atafona Beach (in the Campos de Goytacazes region), which is being swallowed up by the sea. Narrated by Sonia Guajajara and Sidarta Ribeiro, the film deals with the genocide of the native people of Goytacazes.

A Beautiful Forest

The Acadian Forest once spanned across the entirety of modern day New Brunswick and beyond and has been home to a variety of Indigenous peoples, animals, and tree species. This documentary listens to several experts in their fields, all relating to the land and peoples as they discuss the meaning to the forest to Indigenous people, themselves, and the land itself. See what experts say has happened to the former glory of the forest, its use throughout industrialization, modern times, and where things can go into the future.

Broken Rainbow

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?

You Speak of Flins

A group of leftist activists expose the exploitation of immigrant workers by a criminal network with connections to local government officials. The movie was produced by the group SLON (Société pour le Lancement des Oeuvres Nouvelles, also the Russian word for elephant). SLON was a film collective whose objectives were to make films and to encourage industrial workers to create film collectives of their own. Its members included Valerie Mayoux, Jean-Claude Lerner, Alain Adair and John Tooker, and Chris Marker.

Guadalcanal Requiem

One of Paik’s most overtly political and poignant statements, Guadalcanal Requiem is a performance/documentary collage that confronts history, time, cultural memory and mythology on the site of one of World War II’s most devastating battles.