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.
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Genres / Short / Non-Narrative
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Psych-Burn
“PSYCH-BURN was what musicians call a contract-breaker. ABC had given us some coin to make a few short films for a TV pilot. LOVE-IN TONITE was to be a psychedelic rock variety show with live performances, skits and whatnot to cash in on the emerging hippie demographic. Even pre-Disney, the...Watch Movie
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Duo Concertantes
DUO CONCERTANTES has two parts, THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION and PATRICIA GIVES BIRTH TO A DREAM BY THE DOORWAY. Both PATRICIA and HAMFAT ASAR (made the following year), the two most spectacular of Lawrence Jordan's animated works, operate against the backdrop of a fixed scene....Watch Movie
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At Land
AT LAND begins at sea. In the film's stunning opening sequence, a woman (played by filmmaker Maya Deren) emerges on shore, climbs up a pile of driftwood... and finds herself in the middle of a formal banquet. She then moves from lush, verdant jungles to seaweed-strewn beaches, stealing chess...Watch Movie
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Rated R for Nudity
Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve takes a playful stab at mass hypnosis. Celebrating the mesmerizing power of movies, he offers mischievous glimpses into a subconscious world inhabited by Ingmar Bergman, Steven Spielberg and Bo Derek. The audacious creative force behind POLYTECHNIQUE...Watch Movie
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Cosmic Alchemy
On ancient star maps of magnificent color quality, experimental animator Lawrence Jordan takes the viewer out of this world into a world of cosmic imagination. COSMIC ALCHEMY is thematically and visually consistent with Jordan's earlier shorts and yet, set to an evocative score by John Davis, the...Watch Movie
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A Colour Box
It is one of the curious quirks of film history that the UK General Post Office is responsible for several masterpieces of cinema. Among them, John Grierson's NIGHT MAIL and this characteristically fizzy Len Lye short, his first camera-less film. Painted directly on film stock, Lye's colors and...Watch Movie
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Port Noir
Within the vast machine landscape of Terminal Island, the textural strata of a one-hundred year old boat shop provides a glimpse into Los Angeles Harbor's disappearing past. Dwarfed by massive container terminals, the cumulative scenic details of the last working boatyard, often recast as an...Watch Movie
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Solar Sight III
Describing some of the scenes for SOLAR SIGHT III, artist Lawrence Jordan writes, "I have continued the dream-like form of disparate animated scenes, each with its own "romantic-with-an-edge" slightly surreal flavour. Scenes are sometimes run-on, sometimes separated by brief periods of darkness...Watch Movie
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Two Bagatelles
Two experiments in pixilation co-directed by Norman McLaren and Grant Munro. In the first, (which was inspired by NEIGHBOURS/VOISINS) a man waltzes to a synthesized version of a Johann Strauss melody; in the second, he moves around playfully to a tune played on a street organ.Watch Movie
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Gymnopédies
Lawrence Jordan took not only the music but the title from Erik Satie. These three pieces are probably the most famous of Satie's musical series. The precise sense of the word "gymnopédies" is unknown. Etymologically it denotes the goings on of named (gymno) children (paidos); yet here the word...Watch Movie
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Vittorio
Made as part of a Triton Gallery show to publicize the poster art of Canadian artist Vittorio Fiorucci, filmmaker Wakefield Poole cut apart posters and hand-animated the film using his 8mm camera to create stop-motion. The film was combined with dancers, lighting and projections to create and...Watch Movie
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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...Watch Movie
