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Non-Narrative
see all genres ›The short form has proven ideal for more abstract cinematic expressions, whether channeling dreamtime logic or pastiching elements from other media.
Discover Non-Narrative Films
Genres / Short / Non-Narrative
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Imperceptihole
A correspondence film: rolls of high-contrast black-and-white film were sent back-and-forth in the mail over the course of a year until the film began to reveal itself as a science non-fiction fairy tale, a speculative quest (circling and searching, falling and landing, entering and exiting) to recapture elisions in light...Start your free trial to watch
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In a Summer Garden
Part of a trio of films that also includes ADAGIO and WINTER LIGHT, IN A SUMMER GARDEN "draws much of its power from the way it is constructed and the ways it deals with images... [T]he camera pans and pauses, almost passively looks at the fields of flowers, and then plunges through them, carrying us...Start your free trial to watch
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Intervals
INTERVALS is the Peter Greenaway’s self-described “attempt” at creating an entertaining, abstract film; a series of bustling streetscapes from that most photogenic of cities, Venice. Using a self-conscious experiment in frame rate and a structure borrowed from the most Venetian of concertos (Antonio Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons"),...Start your free trial to watch
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Japanese-English Pictionary
Quite possibly the best game of Pictionary ever played. Animator Koji Yamamura’s organizing principle is simple: the last letter of one word supplies the first of the next, from “Retake” to “Evolution” to “Nuclear War” to “Rainy.” The linguistic associations become increasingly freewheeling as the...Start your free trial to watch
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A Journey to Avebury
Composed of fixed scenic views bathed in golden shades of sunset, A JOURNEY TO AVEBURY evokes the solitary experience of a walk. The film is a pure expression of Derek Jarman’s enduring attachment to England’s landscape and heroic past. Avebury’s magnificent Neolithic monuments appear as dark masses...Start your free trial to watch
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Kindless Villain
In KINDLESS VILLAIN, two boys wander through a stone fortress, while the history of never-ending battle forms traces in the waters below. Seemingly alone in their island world, the boys succumb to fatigue, and to rituals of power. Scratched phrases from an ancient recording of Hamlet reveal a sad cry for...Start your free trial to watch
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Kingsbury Beach
Digital stills and video footage of a child on a beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, are manipulated and obscured to create a nostalgic atmosphere of remembrances. The Amiga computer has now been replaced by the Macintosh. The editing program is the Media 100.Start your free trial to watch
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Light Work I
LIGHT WORK I is a haunting and impressionistic video that connects the industrial and medical transformations of the last century with the present day digital revolutions in music and movies and the implied demise of 16mm film. LIGHT WORK I sprung out of the immersive expanded cinema performance "Light Work Mood Disorder"...Start your free trial to watch
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Longhorns
LONGHORNS is cine-dance with a surrealist tang. There are no human figures in this early short from Hilary Harris, only a pair of Texas longhorns turning endless spirals in the tall reeds of a New York inlet. The strangeness of this scene abstracts the horns’ mesmerizing rotation, the better for Harris to explore the...Start your free trial to watch
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The Magic Sun
Composer, photographer and filmmaker Phill Niblock's classic of experimental underground filmmaking with a sensational soundtrack by pianist Sun Ra and the members of his Solar Arkestra. Shot in the mid '60s, when the Arkestra was based in New York, this film was produced using a unique negative process and ultra-tight...Start your free trial to watch
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Moonlight Sonata
"After GYMNOPEDIES, I had long wanted to animate a film specifically for a pre-selected piano piece by [Erik] Satie. MOONLIGHT SONATA is that film. It was totally designed for the 'Gnossienne V' and the movements of the animation are timed to the overall rhythms as well as the specific beats of the music."...Start your free trial to watch
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Night Fantasies
Elliott Carter’s composition of the same title inspired Rudy Burckhardt, in collaboration with Yvonne Jacquette, to photograph this collage-style film. Mostly shot in New York City, but also in Hong Kong and Searsmont, Maine. Dance by Robert Black, Yoshiko Chuma, Grazia Della-Terza, Douglas Dunn, Dana Reitz, Harry Sheppard.Start your free trial to watch
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9 Variations
As the title of Hilary Harris’s 1966 avant-garde classic suggests, the film unfolds the same concise dance (performed by Bettie de Jong, longtime member of Paul Taylor’s company) nine times, each from a different cinematic vantage. The first variations are duets of camera and dancer: Harris gracefully circles de Jong’s...Start your free trial to watch