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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Summer Has Been Over for a Long Time
Punk filmmaker David Markey gives visual voice to the end of the "Endless Summer" Southern California beach scene of the sixties and the rise of the "Dogtown and Z-Boys" asphalt and concrete scene of the seventies and eighties. A young man watches the bikinis and boogie...Watch Movie
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Barn Rushes
The long way around the barn never looked so good. Larry Gottheim composed BARN RUSHES from eight tracking shots tracing the same arc around a barn in different conditions. The fact that nothing changes makes it all the much more apparent that everything does: a meditative approach that Tony...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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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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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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Compound Eyes
Commissioned by the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Paul Clipson's five-part COMPOUND EYES cycle delves into the otherworldliness of the natural world. In training his Super-8 camera on insects and other "minor" invertebrates, Clipson draws the eye into an unseen realm, one so delicate as to...Watch Movie
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Trumpit
Lawrence Jordan shot TRUMPIT in the basement of a house on Baker Street in San Francisco that he shared with Stan Brakhage in the mid-1950s. Brakhage himself stars in the film (along with Yvonne Fair). Featuring a card game played on the body of a naked woman, Jordan portrays male sexual...Watch Movie
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Big Sur
In describing the process of BIG SUR, artist Lawrence Jordan writes, "As with RODIA-ESTUDIANTINA only one shot, which probably was the result of lapse in concentration, was deleted from the original camera roll. This film was intended to extend my experiments with the 'in-camera' film, and is...Watch Movie
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Adagio
Lawrence Jordan's rapturous live action short contemplates two nude figures in California idyll. They remain physically separated but Jordan's spellbinding cutting and tactile camerawork suggest a loosening of inhibition. Parisian fountains and classical statues signal the deep cultural bedrock...Watch Movie
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Pinball
Think of PINBALL as a spinning flying saucer which lands in your yard, performs, and then flies away to the sound of film flapping in a projector... The film visualizes George Antheil's 1952 revision of "Ballet Mecanique" using trigger fast cutting, painted imagery and sound effects. It might be...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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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
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In the Course of Human Events
From the moment we see a wrecking ball crashing through San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway, it is clear that IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS will not comply with the progressive view of technology and history advanced by the classic city symphonies of the 1920s. By focusing on...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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Orange
ORANGE is inspired by the direct film (cameraless) tradition. This tradition includes works in which the filmstrip is directly manipulated by painting, scratching, or otherwise placing objects on it. This tradition was probably originated by Len Lye in his hand painted A COLOUR BOX from 1935. To...Watch Movie
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Premonition
The eye-of-the-storm in Dominic Angerame's "City Symphony" series, PREMONITION occupies the ghostly interval between the Loma Prieta earthquake and the resulting demolition of San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway. The abandoned highway is an apt figure for the imagination of disaster,...Watch Movie
