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 Short Film Megathread  What qualifies as a short film? There is no official consensus or definition for the length of a “short.” A short film is any motion picture not long enough to be considered a feature film. Sundance Film Festival defines any film under 50 minutes as a short film. The Academy Awards defines a run-time under 40 minutes as a short film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". For the sake of this thread, we will add a little more wiggle room and say a short film is any film 60 minutes or under. General Rules Please post as much information as you can about the short. This includes length, director, year it was released, and format (animated, documentary, narrative) or any other information you would like to provide. If your short is  or  , it must be labeled. This is not to limit what you post, but to provide fair warning. Use common sense with your discretion. Nudity, graphic violence, or extreme images should come with a warning. Videos posted without a warning will get you reported. Providing at least one screenshot is preferred, but not it’s not mandatory. If your short has multiple sources, post them. Don't be an rear end in a top hat. General CineD rules apply in here.FAQs Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes, Silly Symphonies, and other classic animated shorts can be posted. You may post your own short films. Previous Short Film Megathread Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2019 18:58
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 Short Film Resources: Le CiNéMa Club - New short films present for streaming every Friday. (thanks FancyMike!) Short of the Week - Watch the most innovative stories—Documentary, Comedy, Sci-fi, Horror, Experimental, Animation, Inspiration, Student films, Award winners & more short films Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Mar 27, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2019 18:58
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Limbo: The Organized Mind 1976 | 5 min. | Jim Henson Surreal animation about the processes of our mind, including thoughts, imagination and memory.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc4z9U-5LL0 Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/160660771 Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/limbo-the-organized-mind/ An important note is that Jim Henson made this in collaboration with composer Raymond Scott, but some available versions have incorporated new musical compositions instead of the original. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Mar 4, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2019 20:48
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Fauve 2018 | 17 min. | Jérémy Comte | Canada Two boys playing in an abandoned surface mine take turns outdoing each other.  Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/293033666 Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/fauve/
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Mar 27, 2019 14:47
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 Karel Zeman (3 November 1910 – 5 April 1989) was a Czech film director, artist, production designer and animator, best known for directing fantasy films combining live-action footage with animation. A true successor to Georges Méliès and a wizard of the big screen, as he was often called, Karel Zeman was born in Ostroměř near Nová Paka in northern Bohemia. Since his childhood he had adored puppets and performed with them in a puppet theater. Despite his artistic talent his parents insisted he study business at high school in Kolín. At the age of 17, responding to advertisement in a newspaper, he went to Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, where he studied advertising design. While in France, he frequently visited the cinema, and became especially interested in animated movies. He was to put this knowledge to good use in his own first attempt at animation – an advertisement for soap. He traveled widely in his youth, hiking in Morocco, Egypt, Yugoslavia and Greece. After his military service he returned to work in advertising, and, in 1939, he was about to make an extended trip to Casablanca in Morocco, as a representative of the Báťa shoe company, but failed to get the necessary papers from the then Protectorate authorities in time and in the end he had to stay put. He then began working as head of the advertising section of a department store in Brno. In 1943, the film director Elmar Klos was sent to make a report about a window-dressing competition which Zeman had recently won. Klos was so taken by Zeman's work that he immediately offered him a job at the Bata Film Studios, in the Kudlov suburb of Zlín. Thus began the professional career of this later world famous film director and production designer. Zeman often had to struggle against difficult conditions in the technically ill-equipped Kudlov Studios. Many of the workers with whom he started had no particular experience of filming. They, like Zeman himself, had to learn everything on the job. Gradually a coordinated creative team emerged. Zeman's works were influential to the Czech animator Jan Švankmajer, as well as to the American filmmaker Terry Gilliam, who said of Zeman: "He did what I'm still trying to do, which is to try and combine live action with animation. His Doré-esque backgrounds were wonderful." The American filmmaker Tim Burton described Zeman's creative process as "extremely inspirational" to his own work, and identified Zeman and the American animator Ray Harryhausen as his influences "in terms of doing stop motion and a more handmade quality … Karel Zeman did that amazingly." Harryhausen himself also spoke in interviews of his admiration for Zeman, and the films of the American director Wes Anderson have included homages to Zeman's works. The film historian Georges Sadoul identified Zeman as having "widened the horizons of the eighth art, animation," adding: He is justly considered Méliès's successor. He undoubtedly brings the old master to mind, not only because he is an artisan impassioned by art, creating his "innocent inventions" with infinite patience rather than with large budgets, but also because of his ingenuous and always ingenious fantasies. Less intellectual than Trnka, but nonetheless his equal, he has great zest and a marvelous sense of baroque oddities and poetic gags. On the occasion of an animation exhibition in 2010, curators at the Barbican Centre said of Zeman: "although his influence outweighs his global fame, he is unarguably one of the greatest animators of all time." A brilliant pioneer of special effects in film, he is still one of the few Czech directors to be universally recognized in the world of cinema. Vánocní sen, aka Christmas Dream 1946 | 11 min. | dirs Bořivoj Zeman, Karel Zeman A little girl finds all kinds of toys under the Christmas Tree. She immediately throws her old doll aside and starts playing with her new dolls.  YouTube YouTube Letterboxd Inspirace aka Inspiration 1949 | 10 min. A glass blower imagines that his creations come to life.  YouTube YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd Král Lávra , aka King Lavra 1950 | 28 min. A king hides an embarrassing secret.  YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd dětem 1980 | 17 min.  YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd I will create a follow-up post with Zeman's series of films with character Mr. Prokouk. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Mar 28, 2019 |
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Mar 28, 2019 21:27
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DeimosRising posted:If we can go all the way to an hour, we would be remiss not to mention forum favorite amateur found footage film 15/05/11 ABANDONED GRAIN ELEVATOR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jonTL7R57A (55min) For the sake of this thread, any film that is 60 minutes or less is considered a short film.
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Jun 30, 2019 14:12
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Cross-post from the Horror Thread. Les Escargots , aka The Snails 1966 | dir. René Laloux | 10 minutes
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Aug 5, 2019 15:08
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Asparagus 1979 | dir. Suzan Pitt | 19 minutes Youtube Criterion Channel  https://www.suzanpitt.com posted:I had a garden where I grew Asparagus from seed - it’s a very primitive vegetable going back to the time of the dinosaurs. It comes out of the ground as a phallic stalk, pointy and purple green, the essence of a beautiful masculine form. But then as summer passes it stretches tall and becomes a delicate fern, seen on roadsides tilting in the wind, the essence of the feminine like long strands of tangled hair in the breeze. I thought of it as a beautiful symbol of sexuality. From that I made a visual poem about the creative process, taking the role of the magician/artist as the protagonist who ushers the viewers through her search for the essence of the creative forces which rule and drive our existence. (Continued on Suzan Pitt's website) Wikipedia posted:Her best-known film, Asparagus, took four years to make, and debuted as part of an installation at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1979. The installation included the movie-theater set piece used in the film, which held an audience of 15 people. Criterion Channel posted:Suzan Pitt, an independent animation visionary whose oneiric psychosexual odysseys are direct channels to her dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and inner desires. Straining a diverse array of influences—from Leonora Carrington to Betty Boop to magical realism—through her subconscious, Pitt became an underground-animation legend with her DIY landmark ASPARAGUS, a kaleidoscopic vegetal fantasia that blew minds when it toured the midnight-movie circuit on a double bill with David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD. Criterion Channel currently has 7 of Suzan Pitt's animated short films as well as interviews with her.
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Dec 5, 2019 19:25
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I discovered that short by random, actually. I tend to hop on CriterionChannel and pick a short by random. Had no idea there was a showcase for her shorts. I’m a sucker for hand-drawn animation, so this DIY short is pretty exciting stuff. As abrasive as the sound design is, this is a mesmerizing short. Kept my eyes glued to the screen the whole time. Anyway, I’m gonna watch a few more tonight. And next time I show Eraserhead, this is gonna be the intro short.
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Dec 5, 2019 21:37
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Gonna bring this thread back to life by posting short films I've been holding onto and haven't shared. Carving Magic 1959 | 20 minutes | directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis before his career in gore. quote:A short educational film about all the different techniques of carving meat.    YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOExSiDykHc DailyMotion link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2p7x9n Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/carving-magic/
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Mar 4, 2021 19:19
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Wow, Rebooted didn't get posted in here when that was making the rounds on CineD last year. Rebooted 2019 | 13 minutes | Michael Shanks quote:Phil, once a terrifying villain of the silver-screen, struggles to find work in modern Hollywood due to being an out-of-date special effect. Refusing to succumb to his own irrelevance, Phil takes drastic measures when he learns the film for which he was created is being rebooted without him.    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rkn6rnsgc4 Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/434204826 Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/rebooted/ Behind-the-scenes Making-of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDtfe3vgfmA
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Mar 4, 2021 19:35
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The Sandman 1991 | dir. Paul Berry | 9 minutes quote:The Sandman is a 1991 stop-motion animation film, animated and directed by Paul Berry and nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1993. The storyline is inspired by the E.T.A. Hoffmann's version of the European legend of The Sandman.   YouTube link (480p) Vimeo link (480p) Daily Motion (480p) Letterboxd The art direction feels Burton-esque. The director, Paul Berry, worked as an animator for The Nightmare Before Christmas and animation supervisor on James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone. (So, for hte pedants, the style is more Selick-esque.) While there is a certain charm with the VHS-quality scans that are available for this obscure-ish 1991 stop-motion short film, it's a shame that I can't seem to find an HD version of this anywhere. Even though it was nominated for an Oscar!
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Mar 9, 2021 16:53
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¡Ataque de Pánico! aka Panic Attack! dir. Fede Álvarez | 2009 | 5 minutes. Giant robots appear out of the mist and attack Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Accompanied by a squadron of spacecraft, they fire weapons at the city and destroy key buildings, leading to mass panic. The military fights back to little avail.   YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd Made with only a $300 budget, the entire film was written, directed, edited and animated by Fede Álvarez. The film was premiered on October 31, 2009 at the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre film festival and uploaded to YouTube on November 3, 2009. After being uploaded to YouTube, the film's reputation spread by word of mouth, and received a boost when it was linked from the blog of Kanye West. Fede Álvarez stated in a BBC interview: "I uploaded Panic Attack! on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios." Ghost House Pictures signed with Álvarez for him to develop a new project. Álvarez was offered a 30-million-dollar deal to develop and direct a full-length film. The resulting film was Evil Dead, the fourth film in the Evil Dead franchise, released in the United States on April 5, 2013. The film has been cited as an example of the increasing influence of the Internet in finding new talent for Hollywood studios.
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Mar 17, 2021 16:47
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La Jetée 1962 | dir: Chris Marker | 28 minutes A haunting and heartbreaking time travel story told in still images. A slave in a post-World War III world travels through the past, present and future to find a solution to the world's fate. In his travels, he sees an unknown woman who is somehow familiar to him.    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ (720p) Criterion Channel: https://www.criterionchannel.com/la-jetee Kanopy: https://www.kanopy.com/product/la-jetee Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/la-jetee/ Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. Marker’s LA JETÉE is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel told in still images. (Criterion Channel) La Jetée is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying rhythm. The stills were taken with a Pentax Spotmatic and the motion-picture segment was shot with a 35 mm Arriflex. It contains only one brief shot (of the woman mentioned above sleeping and suddenly waking up) originating on a motion-picture camera, this due to the fact that Marker could only afford to hire one for an afternoon.  Pentax Spotmatic  Arriflex 35mm c. 1960 Jean Ravel's editing of La Jetée adds to the intensity of the film. With the use of cut-ins and fade-outs, it produces the eerie and unsettling nature adding to the theme of the apocalyptic destruction of World War III. As the film plays out as a photomontage, the only continuous variable is the sound. The sound used in this production is minimal, showing up in the form of narration, Orchestral score and sound effect. The rhythmic patterns of the soundtrack act as a framework to add to the intensity of the film. "The dissolve is synchronized with the sound. As the story moves from the past to the present, La Jetee creates mental continuity." The film was directly adapted into elements of Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. Author William Gibson considered it one of his main influences. In 1963, Prix Jean Vigo awarded La Jetée for "Best Short Film." It is regularly included on lists of "Greatest Time Travel Movies" Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Mar 18, 2021 |
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Mar 18, 2021 14:21
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INCUBUS 1985 | dir. Guido Manuli 5 minutes A high-rise apartment dweller suffers through a series of nightmares.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBT_mZj7RmQ (720p) Guido Manuli was an Italian screenwriter, film director and animator. Born in Cervia in 1939, he started his career in Milan as an illustrator. In 1960 he starts his collaboration with Bruno Bozzetto, assuming various roles - from animator, illustrator to film director and art director.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:50
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Backstroke 2017 | dir. Robbie Barclay 11 minutes | for some nudityTwo runaway teens steal a car with dreams of driving down to Florida, but things take a turn when a stranger appears with unknown intentions.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_DQmfFjTlU (1080p) Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/channels/905052/213754792 Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/backstroke/
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Apr 8, 2021 18:55
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Horoscope 1991 | dir. Richard Kern 5 minutes for male & female nudity, overt sexuality An attractive but rather repressed young woman (Holly Adams), checks her horoscope, shambles homeward from her dull office job and promptly falls asleep in front of the TV. Two naked young men appear in her living room and begin dancing around for her pleasure.  Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/118935366 Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/horoscope/ Kern's short films often get removed from YouTube as they censor more content. While the short films are not pornographic, a quick search will yield results that usually lead to porn hosting sites, where it is safe to see penises and vaginas. "Richard Kern, photographer and filmmaker remains, first and foremost, a portraitist. For more than two decades Kern has sought to unravel and illuminate the complex and often darker sides of human nature. Kern makes the psychological space between the sitter, photographer and audience his subject. With his dry, matter of fact approach, he underlines the absurdity of truth and objectivity in photography while playing with our reliance upon taxonomies around sexual representation." from RichardKern.com He first came to prominence as part of the cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic and experimental films like The Right Side of My Brain and Fingered, which featured personalities of the time such as Lydia Lunch, David Wojnarowicz, Sonic Youth, Kembra Pfahler, Karen Finley and Henry Rollins. Like many of the musicians around him, Kern had a deep interest in the aesthetics of extreme sex, violence and perversion and was involved in the Cinema of Transgression movement, a term coined by Nick Zedd. He has a total of 37 director credits, including short films, documentaries and music videos. He is still an active photographer, and you can find his work on his website: http://www.richardkern.com/ Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 19:28
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The Music of Erich Zann 1980 | dir. John Strysik 18 minutes  Charles Dexter Ward, a young student of metaphysics, befriends Erich Zann, an elderly violinist who lives on the floor above him. Ward is fascinated by Zann’s sinister yet wonderful music, which he hears late at night drifting down from above. But he discovers more then he bargains for when he peers at what beckons beyond that strange curtained window in Zann’s room… Inspired by the short story by H.P. Lovecraft. It is an example of the Lovecraft's interest in an "artist connected to the other side", which he explored in multiple short stories. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFnSOfdsblQ (480p) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twrWXd4Es7k (480p) Letterboxd
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Apr 11, 2021 17:30
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The Robbery 2017 | dir. Jim Cummings 10 minutes Meet Crystal. She decides to rob a liquor store. It goes pretty ok.  Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/205973976 Film Shortage: https://filmshortage.com/shorts/the-robbery/ Short of the Week: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2017/03/02/the-robbery/ Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-robbery/
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Apr 12, 2021 14:37
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Scorpio Rising 1963 | dir. Kenneth Anger 28 minutes  A gang of Nazi bikers prepares for a race as sexual, sadistic, and occult images are cut together. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDuu-m0-IjQ (480p) Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/scorpio-rising/ Themes central to the film include the occult, biker subculture, homosexuality, Catholicism, and Nazism. Scorpio Rising also explores the worship of rebel icons of the era, such as James Dean and Marlon Brando (referred to by Anger as Byron's "heroes"). Like many of Anger's films, Scorpio Rising does not contain any dialogue; it instead features a prominent soundtrack consisting of 1960s pop, including songs by Ricky Nelson, the Angels, the Crystals, Bobby Vinton, Elvis Presley, and Ray Charles. The film premiered in October 1963 at the Gramercy Arts Theater in New York City. When the film was screened at an art theater in Los Angeles, it was protested by the American Nazi Party on the basis that it insulted their flag. The police were ultimately called to the site and arrested the theater manager for public obscenity and canceled the film's run. The case went to the California Supreme Court, where the case was settled in Anger's favor. Anger explained in an interview: When Scorpio Rising was – we've forgotten, in a sense, that it was a groundbreaker, legally. Because there are only a few flashes of nudity, genitalia, whatever in the film, I mean, they're very, very short and, if you blink, you won't even see them. At any rate, when it was shown, at the Cinema – it was called the Cinema on Western Avenue in Hollywood – the premiere run, someone denounced it to the Hollywood vice squad and they raided the theater and took the print. And the case had to go to the California Supreme Court to be freed and then it became, like, a landmark case of redeeming social merit. That was the phrase that was used to justify that it wasn't pornography. And, indeed, there's nothing pornographic about it. Somebody had to break the ice and have that kind of case at that time to establish the freedom, because, before then, the police could seize anything they wanted to. What I was doing on the West Coast, Jack Smith was doing on the East Coast with Flaming Creatures. The two films happened at about the same time." "Oddly enough, the references to the nineteen-fifties, which seemed dated and rather ponderous in 1965, don't make the film appear old-fashioned now. Admittedly, one then saw it in an unfortunate context – draped in the mystique of the underground, when a number of inferior films employed some similar imagery, such as the juxtaposition of Christ and hipsters, or close-ups of all-purpose skulls. But after a decade's education in put-ons, one can savor the impudent freshness of "Scorpio" today." -Nora Sayre, New York Times Directors Gaspar Noé and Nicolas Winding Refn cited the film as an influence on their filmmaking. Further Reading: Kenneth Anger & Scorpio Rising: Iconography, Identity & Hollywood Folklore
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Apr 12, 2021 17:04
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Kenneth Anger posted:...What I was doing on the West Coast [with Scorpio Rising], Jack Smith was doing on the East Coast with Flaming Creatures. The two films happened at about the same time." Flaming Creatures 1963 | dir. Jack Smith 45 minutes for nudityFilmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.”  Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and participating in a mock advertisement for an indelible, heart-shaped brand of lipstick. However, things take a dark, nightmarish turn when a transvestite chases, catches and begins molesting a woman. Soon, all of the titular “creatures” participate in a (mostly clothed) orgy that causes a massive earthquake. After the creatures are killed in the resulting chaos, a vampire dressed like an old Hollywood starlet rises from her coffin to resurrect the dead. All ends happily enough when the now undead creatures dance with each other, even though another orgy and earthquake loom over the end title card. Most of the film's characters are sexually ambiguous, including transvestites, intersex, and drag performers. Flaming Creatures is largely non-narrative, and its action is often interrupted by cutaways to close-ups of body parts  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI8SBXiX-1Q (480p) Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/aronaamora_yahoo_Fcr Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/flaming-creatures/ A note on quality: Because of the film stock used (see below), controversial history, and maybe for a myriad of other reasons, there isn't a pristine copy readily available outside of screenings. Praise & Criticism Susan Sontag praised the film in a 1966 essay as a "rare modern work of art: it is about joy and innocence." Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film "one of the greatest and most pleasurable avant-garde movies ever made". (1998) P. Adams Sitney described Flaming Creatures as "a myth of recovered innocence" in which Smith "utterly transforms his sources and uncovers a mythic center from which they had been closed off." (2001) "... faggoty stag-reel ... defiling at once both sex and cinema." -Arthur Knight in his review "New American Cinema?" for The Saturday Review in 1963. Amos Vogel likened it to a film noir that "despite flashes of brilliance and moments of perverse, tortured beauty" was full of "limp genitalia and limp art." (His review for The Village Voice in 1964) "The film's distinctive beauty is due largely to Smith's nimble use of the handheld camera. His unexpected framings yield dense images of fabrics, body parts, and heavily made-up faces." -1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Guy Maddin says his 2009 film The Little White Cloud That Cried is a tribute to Flaming Creatures.  A Brief History on the Production of the Film Jack Smith published The Beautiful Book, a photography series made in collaboration with Marian Zazeela, made while they shared an apartment together in the early 1960's. The aesthetics from this project germinated into the idea for a film with Zazeela as the star. Zazeela began working with composer La Monte Young and moved out. Jack Smith found a new roommate, Tony Conrad, and found a new collaborator for the film, Sheila Black. The film's working title was Pasty Thighs and Moldy Midriffs; Smith also considered using Flaking Moldy Almond Petals, Moldy Rapture, or Horora Femina. Smith made Flaming Creatures as a way to film "all the funniest stuff he could think of" and depict "different ideas of glamour." He filmed Flaming Creatures in mid to late 1962. He held shoots during weekends on the roof of the Windsor Theatre, at 412 Grand Street in the Bronx. Dick Preston offered his loft above the theatre for use as a prop department and dressing room.Smith had observed the effects of using out-of-date film working on Ken Jacobs' Star Spangled to Death and decided to use the technique after seeing Ron Rice's The Flower Thief. He used stolen Army surplus Kodak Plus-X reversal film. The reels were out-of-date, giving parts of the film a foggy or high-contrast texture. He produced the film on a budget of $300. Smith's roommate Tony Conradproduced the film's soundtrack. The two lived in a building on the Lower East Side, where Angus MacLise lived and René Rivera (later known as Mario Montez) moved. They held informal group sessions during the evening which Conrad recorded. The soundtrack incorporates "Siboney" by Ernesto Lecuona, "Amapola" by Joseph Lacalle, and various pasodobles. Smith began screening unfinished versions of Flaming Creatures to friends. Piero Heliczer held a benefit for the film at painter Jerry Joffen's loft. Jonas Mekas discussed a private screening of the film through his column in The Village Voice, and Conrad produced a second version of the soundtrack for the film's theatrical premiere.  A History of the Premiere At midnight on April 29, 1963, the movie screen at New York’s Bleecker Street Cinema lit up with visions of men and women in makeup and dresses; draped white fabric and a tall vase filled with feathery blooms; and disjointed shots of lips, eyes, tangled limbs, and genitalia. These images were a part of Flaming Creatures, an experimental film by Jack Smith, which premiered that night. The police were called, and they seized the film. Soon after, it was banned in 22 U.S. states and four countries. Eventually, it came to the attention of Congress and the Supreme Court, as a part of a censorship battle then being fought in America. Detractors and champions took their sides. And Smith, the pioneering performance artist, actor, filmmaker, and photographer who was largely unknown outside of New York’s underground art scene, suddenly became famous. Smith’s unconventional approach to his films was inspired by the melodrama and excessive glamour of Hollywood and B movies, and by such flamboyant forms of performance as burlesque. In Flaming Creatures, as in all of his works, there is no fixed narrative, the sets and special effects are low-tech and homemade, and non-professional actors populate the cast. Shot from above or from odd angles at close range, Flaming Creatures is composed of loosely connected vignettes full of humor, eroticism, and violence. We see men applying lipstick to their puckering mouths, the set appear to crumble in an earthquake, and a vampire in a blond wig suck the blood of an unconscious victim. Shots of bared body parts and fluttering eyes punctuate these scenes, set to a soundtrack of vintage music. Because of such scenes, and Smith’s DIY, freeform approach to making Flaming Creatures, the film went against the norms of both society and filmmaking—ultimately setting a radical new example that inspired other artists and filmmakers. Adding to its significance is the fact that it foregrounded the fluidity of gender, sexuality, and identity and celebrated their free expression, at a time when they were seen in more rigid terms. -MoMA Learning Flaming Creatures premiered April 29, 1963 as part of a double feature with Blonde Cobra at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Manhattan, New York. Later screenings were held at the Gramercy Theatre. Because the film had not been submitted for licensing, the shows were free and audiences were asked to donate to the "Love and Kisses for Censors Film Society". Film Culture voted in December 1963 to award Smith its Independent Film Award for the film. It rented the Tivoli Theatre, known for showing sexploitation films, and planned a screening of Flaming Creatures, excerpts from Jack Smith's Normal Love, and Andy Warhol's Newsreel. The theatre canceled the event due to the obscene content in Flaming Creatures. Several hundred people gathered at the theatre, and Smith was given his award in an impromptu ceremony. A crowd of several hundred people led by Barbara Rubin occupied the Tivoli until police could clear the building. At the third Knokke Experimental Film Festival, the selection committee rejected Flaming Creatures out of concern that it broke Belgium's obscenity laws. In protest, filmmaker Jonas Mekas resigned from the festival jury, and several American filmmakers threatened to withdraw their films. Mekas smuggled in the film in a canister for Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man and held continuous private screenings out of his hotel. On New Year's Eve, Mekas, Barbara Rubin, and P. Adams Sitney forced their way into a projection booth and screened a portion of the film.  Arrest & Confiscation & History of Censorship, Especially With Public Showings In February 1964, the Film-Makers' Cinematheque successfully showed the films from the Tivoli program at the New Bowery Theater, as a program titled "Our Infamous Surprise Program". During the program's third showing on March 3, police stopped the event while Flaming Creatures was being screened. They arrested Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, Florence Karpf, and Jerry Sims and seized the film reels and projection equipment. (As an aside, Andy Warhol's film about the making of "Normal Love" was confiscated and has never been recovered.) Jonas Mekas held a benefit screening of Un chant d'amour to raise money for a legal defense fund but was arrested again. Civil rights lawyer Emile Zola Berman accepted the case, believing it would potentially reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Jerry Sims, who had been taking tickets, managed to avoid prosecution by claiming he had not seen what was on the screen. On June 12, 1964, People of the State of New York v. Kenneth Jacobs, Florence Karpf and Jonas Mekas was heard. As part of the defense, expert testimony came from filmmaker Shirley Clarke, poet Allen Ginsberg, writer Susan Sontag, filmmaker Willard Van Dyke and film historian Herman G. Weinberger. The defendants were convicted but given suspended sentences. They appealed on the grounds that the trial had excluded the expert testimony provided. The New York Supreme Court heard the appeal and reversed the convictions. It stated in its opinion that "whatever view this Court might hold as to the obscenity of 'Flaming Creatures,' it is manifest that the appellants herein believe in good faith that the film is not obscene." Following the seizure of the film, Randy Wicker, the director of the Homosexual League of New York called Flaming Creatures "long, disturbing and psychologically unpleasant". In April 1965, an off-campus screening by students of the University of New Mexico was raided by police, who seized the print. In November 1966, a screening by the UT Austin chapter of Students for a Democratic Society was broken up. A January 1967 screening at the University of Michigan resulted in the confiscation of the film and the arrest of four students, triggering protests and a sit-in by students. In 1968, Abe Fortas was nominated to be Chief Justice of the United States. Fortas had supported reversing the original convictions for screening Flaming Creatures, so Senator James Eastland, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested that the print seized at the University of Michigan be sent to Washington.[41] James Clancy, representing Citizens for Decent Literature, showed the film among other material, inviting senators to view what Fortas had held in several decisions did not constitute obscenity. Nixon adviser Pat Buchanan credited the effort with ruining Fortas' nomination. A screening at the University of Notre Dame at its Pornography and Censorship Conference in 1969 was canceled. When students attempted to screen prohibited films, police interrupted the event, leading to the school's first known violent conflict between police and students. Eventually Jack Smith and Jonas Mekas had a falling out when Smith accused Mekas of stealing the original print of Flaming Creatures for the Anthology Film Archives. Smith did not believe in a final form for his films, and continued to re-edit them. The original print was lost until 1978, when Jerry Tartaglia found it in a pile of scrap and returned it to Jack Smith. After Jerry Smith's death in 1989, larger institutions started screening Flaming Creatures. Fifty years after the initial seizure and trial, the prosecutor for the case issued an apology to Jonas Mekas, writing, "Although my appreciation of free expression and aversion to censorship developed more fully as I matured, I should have sooner acted more courageously." Most of this information was compiled and edited from Wikipedia and various reviews, so I really can't take much credit for it, other than streamlining the information to make an linear narrative.
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Apr 12, 2021 22:37
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:That was a fantastic write-up, Fran! I definitely need to explore more of Anger's work. I love the almost fetishistic way he lingers upon his subjects, and here you can definitely see the birth of so many iconic images that made things like Querelle and Cry Baby so memorable. Thank you! I can't take too much credit for it. I mostly compiled information and edited it for clarity.
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Apr 12, 2021 22:37
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Yearbook 2014 | dir. Bernardo Britto 5 min.  A man is hired to compile the definitive history of human existence before the planet is blown up by aliens. Criterion Channel: https://www.criterionchannel.com/yearbook YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTV7gNpECW0 ShortoftheWeek: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2014/12/31/yearbook/ Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/yearbook-2014/ It has won seven awards. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Apr 13, 2021 |
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Apr 13, 2021 12:53
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An Extensive But Incomplete Collection of Short Films by Tom Rubnitz Pickle Surprise 1989 | dr. Tom Rubnitz 2 minutes A cooking mantra.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N733Ofj2cVQ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GhN7v5SoGs (60fps version) Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/pickle-surprise/ Chicken Elaine 1983 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 2 minutes A chicken casserole recipe from the kitchen of Elaine Clearfield  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUx2dhlNcgk Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/chicken-elaine/ Made For TV 1984 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 15 minutes Ann Magnuson impersonates the array of female types seen on TV in a typical broadcast day. From glitzy to drab, from friendly housewife to desperate evangelist, Magnuson is a one-woman universe appearing on every channel, the star of every program.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWqwqss7Yto Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/made-for-tv/ Hustle With My Muscle 1986 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 5 minutes A music video for a song by John Sex.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG29ASXCksI Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/hustle-with-my-muscle/ Drag Queen Marathon 1986 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 5 minutes A day in the life of a score of drag queens on the lookout for photo opportunities at Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, Tiffany’s, and in SoHo.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBdnp3arYpo Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/drag-queen-marathon/ Sorry for the poor quality, this is one of the harder ones to find. Wigstock: The Movie 1987 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 20 minutes The original documentary on the Wigstock festival, back in the day when it was a much smaller affair in Thompkins Square Park. A full day of peace, love, and wigs…  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10S4vc4ZIng Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/wigstock-the-movie-1987/ Undercover Me! 1988 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 1 minute A movie trailer for a non-existent Bond-style spy thriller.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWfWo7hJHVE Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/undercover-me/ The Fairies 1989 | dr. Tom Rubnitz 5 minutes Based on a tale by Charles Perrault, Tom Rubnitz’s The Fairies comes complete with frogs, princes, kind fairies, and evil stepsisters  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wDd_Z-pSqk Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-fairies/ The Mother Show 1991 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 4 min. A tribute to mothers everywhere.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCRdgP_G2BE Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-mother-show/ Summer of Love 1990 | dir. Tom Rubnitz 1 minutes  Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/92092402 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg8srLKCD8I Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/summer-of-love-1990/ Strawberry Shortcut 1991 | dr. Tom Rubnitz 1 minute A secret recipe.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEv5ZqkaS54 (60fps) Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/strawberry-shortcut/ Thomas Block Rubnitz (April 2, 1956 – August 12, 1992) was an American video artist most often associated with the New York City East Village drag queen scene of the late 1980s. His video tapes were mainly inspired by pop culture and Las Vegas-style shows. A number of his works featured RuPaul and members of The B-52s. He also worked closely with East Village-associated artists like Club 57 founder Ann Magnuson, David Wojnarowicz, Lady Bunny, Hapi Phace, and John Sex. Rubnitz worked with The B-52s in 1987 to produce a "public service announcement" for the Art Against AIDS organization's "Summer of Love" project, which visually referenced the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles in tableau vivant form, featured the B-52s, Willi Ninja, Allen Ginsberg, Nam Jun Paik, Quentin Crisp, Lady Bunny, David Byrne, and others. He was openly gay. He died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of an AIDS-related illness in August 1992 at the age of 36.  Photo by Barbara Lipp.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:10
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Hackers: Wizards of the Electronic Age 1984 | dir. Fabrice Florin 26 minutes A long weekend at a 1984 hacker conference by the Whole Earth Catalog editors Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelley in Sausalito, California. The hacker conference was inspired by Steven Levy’s classic book “Hackers – Heroes of the Computer Revolution”.   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOP1LNr70aU Includes footage of a hacker conference, and interviews with some of the programmers that created the personal computer revolution, including Bill Atkinson, Bill Budge, Doug Carlston, John Draper, Andrew Fluegelman, Lee Felsenstein, Richard Greenblatt, Andy Hertzfeld, David Hughes, Susan Kare, Richard Stallman, Bob Wallace, Robert Woodhead, Steve Wozniak, and others.
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Apr 19, 2021 15:12
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The Steamroller and the Violin 1961 | dir. Andrei Tarkovsky 46 minutes Seven year old Sasha practices violin every day to satisfy the ambition of his parents. Already withdrawn as a result of his routines, Sasha quickly regains confidence when he accidentally meets and befriends worker Sergei, who works on a steamroller in their upscale Moscow neighborhood.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyLwv33zhTg Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/432002354 Criterion Channel: https://www.criterionchannel.com/the-steamroller-and-the-violin Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-steamroller-and-the-violin/ The film was Tarkovsky's diploma film at the State Institute of Cinematography. Tarkovsky earned the grade of excellent (Russian: отличный), the highest possible distinction. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Apr 20, 2021 |
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Apr 20, 2021 20:38
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Pay Day 1922 | dir. Charlie Chaplin 25 minutes A bricklayer and his wife clash over his end-of-the-week partying.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7NoWDXchA0 (480p) Criterion Channel: https://www.criterionchannel.com/pay-day HBO Max: https://www.hbomax.com/feature/urn:hbo:feature:GXn0XJwYk8oBKRwEAAAEH Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/pay-day/
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Apr 22, 2021 12:59
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Captain Voyeur 1969 | dr. John Carpenter 7 minutes A dull office worker transforms into a costumed peeping tom at night.  YouTube (720p) Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/captain-voyeur/ Captain Voyeur was the first short film by director John Carpenter while a student at USC Cinema. The 8-minute film is about a bored computer worker who becomes fixated on a woman at work and follows her back to her home. The film remained in the USC's Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive until 2011, when it was rediscovered by archivist Dino Everett. The film is notable because it includes several elements that would appear in Carpenter's later horror film, Halloween. Everett says that the similarities include a striking resemblance between the lead actresses. The film was selected in 2011 for preservation by the National Film Preservation Foundation because of its historical significance in showing Carpenter's development as a filmmaker. (Per Wikipedia)
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Aug 4, 2021 16:44
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Spike Jonze Before he became known for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., Her, Where The Wild Things Are, and a producer on Jackass, Spike Jonze built up his filmography with skate videos, documentaries, commercials, and music videos. Here are most of his short films and some of his commercials. World Industries - Rubbish Heap 1989 | 37 min  The first World Industries video, directed by Spike Jonze and featuring riders such as Vallely, Rocco, Mullen and Chris Pastras. YouTube Letterboxd Goldfish 1993 | 32 min  The first video from Girl Skateboards. Goldfish opens with a car chasing a skater down a series of hills. The skater sees a goldfish in a fishbowl in the street and rescues it. GirlSkateboards Archive YouTube Letterboxd Ciao L.A. 1994 | 7 minutes  Three upcoming actors are interviewed on the hit Talk Show, “Ciao LA.” YouTube Letterboxd Chocolate - Las Nueve Vidas De Paco 1995 | 32 min  Set in the post Civil War west, LAS NUEVE VIDAS DE PACO, is the epic tale of six men who have been cheated. Cheated out of their pride. After loosing their horses during the night, Los Banditos set out on foot to seek revenge on their mortal enemy, “The Law”, and save their enslaved companero, Paco. YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd How They Get There 1997 | 3 min  A guy and a girl play copycat with each other from opposite sides of the street. YouTube (480) YouTube (360) Letterboxd Mouse 1997 | 36 min  Girl Skateboard’s video Mouse starred Eric Koston, Tony Ferguson, Jeron Wilson, Mike Carroll, Rick Howard, Rudy Johnson, Guy Mariano, Sean Sheffey, Jovontae Turner and Tim Gavin and co-starred the Chocolate team. GirlSkateboard Archives YouTube Letterboxd Amarillo By Morning 1998 | 29 min  While filming professional bullriders for a commercial at the national rodeo in Houston, Texas, Spike Jonze befriended two suburban teenagers who aspired to be cowboys. The documentary chronicles an afternoon in their lives. YouTube Letterboxd Torrance Rises 1999 | 34 min dir. Spike Jonze, Lance Bangs  A mockumentary chronicling the Torrance Community Dance Group (from Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You” video) on their road to the MTV Video Music Awards. Vimeo Letterboxd Chocolate - The Chocolate Tour 1999 | 40 min  It is the summer of 1999 and what the Chocolate team thinks will be a normal skateboarding tour across the USA, turns into a race against time with a new set of rules… Brushes with the law, forgery and fraud are just a few of the startling mis-adventures the Chocolate Brotherhood have on their way to saving the only other family they’ve ever known – the Girl team. Armed with a healthy respect for their elders, and a strong sense of camaraderie, the Chocolate team faces the overwhelming responsibility of being the last hope for their Girl brothers… or are they? GirlSkateboards archives YouTube SkateVideoSite Letterboxd Untitled Al Gore Documentary 2000 | 13 min  An intimate look at Al Gore and his family during the former Vice President’s 2000 campaign YouTube Letterboxd Lamp 2002 | 1 minute  Director Spike Jonze’s critically and commercially fruitful 60 second advertisement for IKEA. It was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. YouTube Letterboxd What's Up, Fatlip? 2003 | 31 min  During the filming of Fatlip’s debut solo music video for “What’s Up, Fatlip?” Spike Jonze compiled a series of interviews with the rapper and put them together in a documentary. YouTube Letterboxd Pardon Our Dust 2005 | 2 min. A destructive GAP commercial. YouTube We Were Once a Fairytale 2009 | 14 min  We Were Once a Fairytale is a 2009 short film directed by Spike Jonze. It stars hip hop musician Kanye West. YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak 2009 | 39 min dir Spike Jonze, Lance Bangs  A loving look at one of the most cherished and controversial figures in children’s literature, Maurice Sendak. In this deeply moving tribute, spend time with the man who spoke to children through his stories and illustrations in a way no one else could. Alexander Street Apple TV TubiTV Hoopla Kanopy Letterboxd I'm Here 2010 | 32 min  A library assistant plods through an ordinary life in LA until a chance meeting opens his eyes to the power of creativity and ultimately, love. When this new life and love begin to fall apart, he discovers he has a lot to give. YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd The Vampire Attack 2010 | 1 minute  Vimeo Letterboxd Scenes from the Suburbs 2011 | 28 min  A resident of a suburban dystopia tries to reassemble his fragmented memories of life as a teen. Vimeo Letterboxd To Die By Your Side Mourir Auprès de Toi 2011 | 6 min  Designer Olympia Le-Tan’s embroidered clutch-bags spring to life in director Spike Jonze’s tragicomic stop-motion animation. YouTube Vimeo Letterboxd Choose You 2013 | 7 min  Lena Dunham wrote a short film for Sunday night’s YouTube Music Awards about a heartbroken guy (Nick Lashaway) whose ex-girlfriend (Vanessa Hudgens) is hooking up with a daft DJ (Michael Shannon). Things start to look up for the protagonist when he meets an impetuous young woman (Dree Hemingway), but the pleasure is only fleeting thanks to the film’s finale, which was chosen by the viewing audience: “a double tragedy” in the vein of “Romeo & Juliet” set to the beat of Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” and played for laughs. YouTube Letterboxd Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 16:22
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DeimosRising posted:Are you familiar with John Smith at all? This one? Not at all. Please make a post for him sometime so I can check some out!
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Aug 12, 2021 18:21
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Tango 1981 | dir. Zbigniew Rybczyński 8 min. | for brief nudity A static camera observes a room as it slowly fills with thirty-six characters from different stages of life, as they move in loops through an absurd dance of social disconnection. YouTube: 480 Vimeo: 1 . 2 Tango won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 55th Academy Awards. Soup Zupa 1975 | dir. Zbigniew Rybczyński 8 min.  A couple’s relationship develops in a combination of photomontage and animation. YouTube (480) Vimeo Imagine 1987 | dir. Zbigniew Rybczyński 4 min.  A camera tracks through endless rooms while lives unfold. An adaptation for John Lennon's song. YouTube (720) Mubi Imagine won both the "Silver Lion" award for Best Clip at Cannes and the Festival Award at the Rio International Film Festival. The Fourth Dimension 1988 | dir. Zbigniew Rybczyński 27 min. for nudity Shows a couple (Adam and Eve?) and various objects, simultaneously, in time, space and movement. YouTube: 480 , 480 DailyMotion Zbigniew Rybczyński is a Polish filmmaker, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, creator of experimental animated films, and multimedia artist who has won numerous prestigious industry awards both in the United States and internationally. He has taught cinematography and digital cinematography, and has worked as a researcher of blue and greenscreen compositing technology at Ultimatte Corporation. He is renowned for his innovative audiovisual techniques and for his pioneering experimentation in the field of new image technology. He also co-wrote, edited and was director of photography for the 1983 Austrian horror film Angst, directed by Gerald Kargl, which has a strong cult following. In March 2009, Rybczyński returned to Poland, taking up residence in Wrocław, where he has set up the Center for Audiovisual Technologies (CeTA) at the site of the city's historic Feature Film Studio. The center, which officially opened in January 2013, includes a state-of-the-art studio designed by Rybczyński for the production of multi-layer film images, and an institute for research into images and visual technologies. After Rybczyński discovered and published huge corruption in CeTA, they fired him and subsequently he declared the renunciation of his Polish citizenship.  Letterboxd lists 21 films in his filmography, but he also has numerous music videos that he's directed. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Aug 19, 2021 13:25
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I will not let this thread die. Sky Hopinka  Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, California, Portland, Oregon, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Portland he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video, photo, and text work centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape, designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary, and non fiction forms of media. He received his BA from Portland State University in Liberal Arts and his MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and currently teaches at Bard College in Film and Electronic Arts. Hopinka's work deals with personal interpretations of homeland and landscape; the correlation between language and culture in relation to home and land. Hopinka has said: “Deconstructing language [through cinema] is a way for me to be free from the dogma of traditional storytelling and then, from there, to explore or propose more of what Indigenous cinema has the possibility to look like.” I find his work deeply meditative. He mixes the beauty of the natural world, the illusion of light in photography and cinema, and the rich cultural history of indigenous tribes mostly forgotten by their country. You can stream Sky Hopinka's short films on his website, or on the Criterion Channel where they also have a 12 minute interview with him. This is a showcase of four short films. There are more available on his website and CC. Sky Hopinka's films on Letterboxd. Jáaji Approx. Total run time: 07:39 2015  Logging and approximating a relationship between audio recordings of my father and videos gathered of the landscapes we have both separately traversed. The initial distance between the logger and the recordings, of recollections and of songs, new and traditional, narrows while the images become an expanding semblance of filial affect. Jáaji is a near translation for directly addressing a father in the Hočak language. I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become Total run time: 12:32 2016  An elegy to Diane Burns on the shapes of mortality, and being, and the forms the transcendent spirit takes while descending upon landscapes of life and death. A place for new mythologies to syncopate with deterritorialized movement and song, reifying old routes of reincarnation. Where resignation gives hope for another opportunity, another form, for a return to the vicissitudes of the living and all their refractions. “I’m from Oklahoma I ain’t got no one to call my own. If you will be my honey, I will be your sugar pie way hi ya way ya hi ya way ya hi yo” -Diane Burns (1957-2006) Fainting Spells Total run time: 10:45 2018  Told through recollections of youth, learning, lore, and departure, this is an imagined myth for the Xąwįska, or the Indian Pipe Plant - used by the Ho-Chunk to revive those who have fainted. When you’re lost in the rain Total run time: 5:05 2018  In this video, drawing from Bob Dylan's song "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," layers of experiences circling loss and longing are overlaid between images of landscapes and movement. In the song by Dylan, a stranger's listlessness and exhaustion are woven through and around Juarez, Mexico, and so too in this video are these stories woven around colonial discontent and uncertainty as they move through an uneasy negotiation with the strangeness of the American pioneer spirit. Commissioned by Brianna Matzke for The Response Project His film and video work has been featured at Media City Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Walker Art Center, the Tate Modern, the Whitney Biennial, Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Sundance Film Festival, ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, Toronto International Film Festival,Ann Arbor Film Festival, New York Film Festival, among others. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Jan 12, 2022 |
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Jan 12, 2022 14:49
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Kid Safe: The Video 1988 | written and directed by Stuart Gordon In this educational "docudrama", kids learn how to handle emergency situations. From the maker of Triaminic® cough and cold product. Produced in association with the National Kid Safe Project and in cooperation with the American Academy of Pediatrics   YouTube: 480 . 480 Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/3sIg "from a 2005 interview with Stuart Gordon posted:Tell us about “Kid Safe: The Video” (1988). 
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Jan 14, 2022 01:08
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Norman Rockwell’s World… An American Dream 1972 | dir. Robert Deubel 25 minutes With commentary by Rockwell himself, the documentary examines the vision and essence of the artist through still photos, archival film footage and paintings to capture the hopes, dreams and minimalism of the American people.  YouTube: 480 Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/79oa The film won an Oscar at the 45th Academy Awards, held in 1973, for Best Short Subject.
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Jan 18, 2022 15:48
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Curve 2016 | dir. Tim Egan 10 minutes | horror Clinging to a smooth, curved surface high above a sentient abyss, a girl tries to cover the few feet back to safety without losing purchase and falling to her death.  Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/dFF0 YouTube: 1080 Vimeo Winner of ‘Best Short’ awards at both Fantastic Fest and Sitges in 2016
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Jan 24, 2022 15:57
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A Girl's Own Story 1984 | dir. Jane Campion 26 minutes | for sexual contentA look at three young, teenage girls in the era of The Beatles. Pam lives with parents who haven’t spoken directly to each other in two years, using communicating through their daughters. Gloria wants to play games with her brother Graeme but ends up pregnant after a passionless introduction to sex. Stella becomes popular and puts her friendship with Pam on hold. Meanwhile, Pam’s father and other predatory men lurk in the shadows around the girls.   Vimeo Criterion Channel (along with Campion's other short films, "Peel" and "Passionless Moments" and a few of her early full-length films) Letterboxd It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. It won AFI Awards for Best Screenplay in a Short Film and Best Achievement in Direction in a Non-Feature Film Although Campion is from New Zealand, her early short films are Australian, as she was a student at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Here is a supplemental essay written for MUBI by Cristina Álvarez López in 2017. Here is an exerpt: quote:This way of mingling the general ethos, culture, and imaginary of a time and place (Australia in the 1960s) with a deeply personal and unique universe, already unmistakably Campionesque, is one of the most remarkable achievements of A Girl’s Own Story. Moreover, this achievement stands as a critical response to the power figures and structures that ostracize and compartmentalize the girls’ lives—at school, for instance, both the separation of sexes and of ages is heavily enforced—but also to the dominant culture that so often erases, disregards, or trivializes the female experience. In this sense, it’s important to note how Campion builds the film around two traumatic sex episodes, but decides not to show either of them directly. Instead, what we are given to see and feel are their antecedents and aftermath. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 21:43
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Amblin' 1968 | dir. Steven Spielberg 26 minutes Two wanderers, a young man and a young woman, meet in the desert and decide to travel on together. The two travelers walk and hitch-hike their way down the road to their destination, the beach, becoming friends and lovers.    YouTube Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/3mdQ Amblin' became a reality after Spielberg was introduced to aspiring producer Denis C. Hoffman. The movie had a $15,000 budget. In 1968, his friend Hoffman provided financing of approximately $10,000. At the time, Hoffman had no experience in producing, writing or developing motion picture projects. At Hoffman's request, the music of October Country, a band he was managing at the time, was used for the film. In exchange for the financing provided by Hoffman, Hoffman exacted from Spielberg the young filmmaker's agreement to (a) direct Amblin' for no compensation whatsoever and (b) be bound for ten years to direct any script selected by Hoffman if such a script was brought to Spielberg by Hoffman. For this second film, Spielberg was to receive the payment of $25,000 plus 5% of the profits after expenses (the so-called "1968 Amblin Contract"). Amblin' started shooting on July 6, 1968, at Denis Hoffman's Cinefx soundstage. The filming commenced with a complicated tracking shot following a trail of matches leading to a bonfire shot in the studio in order that cinematographer Allen Daviau could control the lighting. After Cinefx and the filming of the final sequence outside Jack Palance's beach house in Malibu, the crew moved on to various desert locations around Pearblossom, California, for the remaining eight days of filming. On rough terrain and under a punishing 105-degree sun, many of Spielberg's unpaid crew left before the shoot was completed. Spielberg confessed to one crew member that he had vomited every day before he went to the set. Anne Spielberg (Steven's sister) also worked with him on this first effort. Jerry Lewis taught a film directing class at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles for a number of years; his students included Spielberg. In 1968, he screened Amblin' and told his students, "That's what filmmaking is all about." In his 1971 book, The Total Film-Maker, Lewis says, "[The film] rocked me back. [Spielberg] displayed an amazing knowledge of film-making as well as creative talent." Opening on December 18, 1968, at Loews Crest Theater in Los Angeles, Amblin' shared a double bill with Otto Preminger's Skidoo. Amblin' won several film festival awards including a showing at the Atlanta film Festival in 1969. This movie, only 26 minutes long, led to Spielberg becoming the youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio (Universal) after Sid Sheinberg, then the vice-president of production for Universal Television saw the film. Spielberg was signed to a 7-year contract with Universal Television. Spielberg wrote, directed and edited the film. Notably the cinematographer is Allen Daviau, who would return to collaborate with Spielberg on E.T., The Twilight Zone, The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun.
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Jan 26, 2022 16:16
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S A W 2003 | 10 min. | cuz violencedir. James Wan written by Leigh Whannell David, an orderly at a hospital, tells his horrific story of being kidnapped and forced to play a vile game of survival.   YouTube: upscaled to 4k Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/7eiG A Brief History of S A W, the short film After finishing film school at RMIT University, in Melbourne, Australian, directors James Wan and Leigh Whannell wanted to write and fund a film. They cite the low-budget independent films The Blair Witch Project and Darren Aronofsky's Pi as their inspiration. Neither had financial standing to make an entire film. They approached their script with every financial limitation in mind. The two thought the cheapest script to shoot would involve two actors in one room. One idea was to have the entire film set with two actors stuck in an elevator and being shot in the point of view of security cameras. Wan then pitched the idea of two men chained to opposite sides of a bathroom with a dead body in the middle of the floor, and the mystery of how and why they are there would propel the plot and story. By the end of the film they would realize the person lying on the floor is not dead, and he is their captor. "I'll never forget that day," says Whannell. "I remember hanging up the phone and started just going over it in my head, and without any sort of long period of pondering, I opened my diary that I had at the time and wrote the word 'Saw'. [...] It was one of those moments that made me aware that some things just really are meant to be. Some things are just waiting there to be discovered." The character of Jigsaw did not come until months later. Whannell began having migraines. He went to a neurologist to have an MRI and while sitting nervously in the waiting room he thought, "What if you were given the news that you had a tumor and you were going to die soon? How would you react to that?" He imagined the character Jigsaw having been given one or two years to live and combined that with the idea of Jigsaw putting others in a literal version of the situation, but only giving them a few minutes to choose their fate. Whannell and Wan initially had financed $30,000 to spend on the film, but as the script developed it was clear that was inadequate. The script had multiple failed attempts to get produced in Australia from 2001 to 2002. Literary agent Ken Greenblat read the script and suggested they travel to Los Angeles, where their chances of finding an interested studio were greater. The trip was a huge financial risk, but their agent, Stacey Testro, convinced them to go. In order to help studios take interest in the script, Whannell provided A$5,000 (US$5,000) to make a seven-minute short film based on the script's jaw trap scene, which they thought was most effective proof-of-concept. Whannell would play David, the man wearing the Reverse Bear Trap. Whannell and Wan knew cameramen at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who were willing to provide technical assistance for the short. The "Reverse Bear Trap" was made by an engineer friend. The device was actually rusty and had to be placed in Leigh's mouth, and was supposedly completely workable and dangerous. Wan shot the short with a 16mm camera in a few days and transferred the footage to DVDs to ship along with the script. The short was intended to show that Wan and Whannell were a "director-actor team" rather than just screenwriters. Wan said, "Leigh and I just loved the project so much and we wanted a career in filmmaking, so we stuck to our guns and said, 'Look, guys, if you want this project, we're coming on board — Leigh has to act in it and I have to direct it." In early 2003, while in Los Angeles, a friend of producer Gregg Hoffman pulled him into his office and showed him the short. Hoffman said, "About two or three minutes into it, my jaw hit the floor." He quickly showed the short and script to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Evolution Entertainment. (This group would later formed Twisted Pictures as a production label.) The producers read the screenplay that night and two days later offered Wan and Whannell creative control and 25% of the net profits. Wan and Whannell received better financial offers from studios like DreamWorks and Gold Circle Films, but they would not risk letting Wan direct and Whannell to act. The duo made the deal with Hoffman and Co. Saw was given a production budget of between $1 million and $1.2 million. Saw released on Halloween weekend in 2004 and came in at #3, with $18.2 million. It eventually grossed $55.1 million in North America and $47.9 million internationally, making it the 2nd most profitable horror film at the time (Scream was still #1). There are currently 9 films in the Saw franchise, and a tenth entry, tentatively titled "Saw X", currently in production. There are also SAW video games, SAW comic books, SAW horror houses, SAW fan events, SAW escape rooms, and SAW theme park rides throughout the world.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:42
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Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB 15 minutes | dir. George Lucas In an underground city in a dystopian future, the protagonist, whose name is “THX 1138 4EB”, is shown running through passageways and enclosed spaces, attempting to escape his community. The government uses computers and cameras to track down THX and attempt to stop him. The USC program guide accompanying the film described it as a "nightmare impression of a world in which a man is trying to escape a computerized world which constantly tracks his movements"   YouTube: 480 , 480 Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/4w3e Lucas had an idea for a long time "based on the concept that we live in the future and that you could make a futuristic film using existing stuff". Fellow USC students Matthew Robbins and Walter Murch had a similar idea which Robbins developed into a short treatment, but Robbins and Murch lost interest in the idea. (Walter Murch would return to collaborate on the feature-length version, and has a writing credit on that film.) Since the 1940s, the USC film school had a working arrangement with the US Navy. Navy filmmakers attended USC for additional study. It was difficult to fill the teaching position, as the Navy filmmakers often had rigid, preconceived ideas about filmmaking, and many had behavioral issues. However, the Navy paid for unlimited color film and lab processing costs for their students and faculty. One of Lucas' USC instructors suggested Lucas teach the class and receive the benefits to make his ambitious idea come to fruition. The Navy filmmakers formed the crew of the film, and some appeared in the cast. Since Lucas was working with the Navy, he was granted access to filming locations which would not otherwise have been available to him: the USC computer center, a parking lot at UCLA, the Los Angeles International Airport, and the Van Nuys Airport. The majority of the filming was night-shoots and weekends. Although uncredited, John Milius was also involved in the making of the film. George Lucas says the short film wouldn't have been completed or shown if it weren't for Milius's "big brother" attitude standing up for the more soft-spoken Lucas. The film was completed in 12 weeks. Lucas edited it on a Moviola at the home of Verna Fields, where he was working during the day editing United States Information Agency films under Fields' supervision. In January 1968, the film won first prize in the category of Dramatic films at the third National Student Film Festival held at the Lincoln Center, New York. Steven Spielberg, who had not previously met Lucas, was in attendance and was impressed\ by the film. It also came to notice of parts of the mainstream film industry, such as Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin, and Ned Tanen, then a Universal Studios production executive, which would open up an opportunity for Lucas to eventually make American Graffiti. In 1971, Lucas re-worked the short as a theatrical feature, THX 1138. With Francis Ford Coppola acting as producer, David Myers (and Albert Kihn) as cinematographer, and starring Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance.
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Jan 31, 2022 16:19
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Frankenstein Punk 1986 | dirs. Eliana Fonseca, Cao Hamburger 11 minutes | Brazil The story of Frank, a different creature, born to the song “Singing in the rain”, that goes in search of happiness.  YouTube DailyMotion Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/25E4
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Jan 31, 2022 18:02
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