Experimental

Experimental

This vast collection of experimental films proves just how boundless the genre can be. From Chantal Akerman's aesthetically minimalist and humanist reflection on 'the Israel question' in DOWN THERE, to Robert Kramer and John Douglas's free-associative document of American life in MILESTONES, to pranksters of Contemporary Art Peter Fischli & David Weiss in THE WAY THINGS GO, to Tiffany Sia's assemblages of eye-witness resistance in Hong Kong, to Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento’s Chilean surrealist film THE WANDERING SOAP OPERA, and John Akomfrah’s hybrid films that deploy science fiction in pan-African culture, each of these films challenge the standards of storytelling, break all the rules, and expand our consciousness.

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Experimental
  • The Embassy

    Directed by Chris Marker • Drama • 1973 • 21 minutes

    One of Chris Marker's few fiction films, THE EMBASSY shows political dissidents seeking refuge in a foreign embassy after a military coup d'état in an unidentified country. Over the next few days, more and more people fleeing the military assa...

  • Silent Witnesses

    Directed by Luis Ospina, Jerónimo Atehortúa • Experimental/Drama • With Mara Meba, Roberto Estrada Vergara • 2023 • 79 minutes

    “Silent Witnesses” tells the impossible love story between Efraín and Alicia during the first half of the 20th century in Colombia.

    Based on remnants of the few Colom...

  • Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

    Directed by Maya Deren • Documentary • 1977 • 52 minutes

    A journey into the fascinating world of the Voudoun religion edited from footage shot by Deren in Haiti.

    "Maya Deren was a brilliant filmmaker and theorist whose substantial body of films and writings has paled beside the even larger lege...

  • The Apocalyptic is the Mother of All Christian Theology

    Directed by Jim Finn • Documentary • With Linda Montano, Usama Alshaibi, Jim Finn, Begüm Malkoçlar • 2023 • 64 minutes

    A psychedelic portrait of the founding theorist of Christianity. The story of Paul the Apostle’s life, ideology and influence is told by piecing together 20th Century 16mm and ...

  • The Last Angel of History

    Directed by John Akomfrah • Documentary • 1996 • 45 minutes

    John Akomfrah, director of Seven Songs of Malcolm X, returns with an engaging and searing examination of the hitherto unexplored relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and rapidly progressing c...

  • Abstract Cinema

    Directed by Keith Griffiths • Documentary • With Stan Brakhage, William Moritz, John Whitney, Michael Scroggins, Jules Engel • 1993 • 51 minutes

    Exploration of the work of pioneers in abstract cinema using rare archive film, film clips and interviews to demonstrate the influence of the early cin...

  • David Holzman's Diary

    Directed by Jim McBride • Drama • With Eileen Dietz, Kit Carson • 1967 • 73 minutes

    David Holzman's Diary is one of the most influential films of the 1960s, an "ingenious puzzle movie" (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader) that charts the self-destruction of a media-saturated youth. As news from the Viet...

  • The Way Things Go

    Directed by Peter Fischli & David Weiss • Documentary • 1987 • 30 minutes

    Inside a warehouse, Swiss artists Peter Fischli (b. 1952) and David Weiss (1946—2012) built an enormous, precarious structure 100 feet long made out of common household items—tea kettles, tires, old shoes, balloons, wooden...

  • From The East (Chantal Akerman)

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • Documentary • 2003 • 110 minutes

    FROM THE EAST retraces a journey from the end of summer to deepest winter, from East Germany, across Poland and the Baltics, to Moscow. It is a voyage Chantal Akerman wanted to make shortly after the collapse of the Soviet bloc "befo...

  • Killing Time

    Directed by Fronza Woods • Drama • 1979 • 9 minutes

    KILLING TIME, an offbeat, wryly humorous look at the dilemma of a would-be suicide unable to find the right outfit to die in, examines the personal habits, socialization, and complexities of life that keep us going. Part of the mediamaking move...

  • Fannie's Film

    Directed by Fronza Woods • Documentary • 1981 • 15 minutes

    In FANNIE'S FILM, a 65-year-old cleaning woman for a professional dancers' exercise studio performs her job while telling us in voiceover about her life, hopes, goals, and feelings. A challenge to mainstream media's ongoing stereotypes o...

  • In the Mirror of Maya Deren

    Directed by Martina Kudlácek • Documentary • With Miriam Arsham, Stan Brakhage, Chao Li Chi, Rita Christiani, Maya Deren • 2002 • 104 minutes

    With In The Mirror Of Maya Deren, documentary filmmaker Martina Kudlácek has fashioned not only a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking and influential...

  • Le Navire Night

    Directed by Marguerite Duras • Drama • With Bulle Ogier, Dominique Sanda, Mathieu Carrière • 1979 • 90 minutes

    With LE NAVIRE NIGHT, writer and filmmaker Marguerite Duras (L'Amant, India Song) explores the matrix of love, desire and language in her characteristically oblique and experimental sty...

  • Today

    Directed by Su Friedrich • Documentary • 2022 • 57 minutes

    TODAY opens with filmmaker Su Friedrich’s left foot stretched out in front of her as she lies in bed. Overhead, a ceiling fan whirs. Friedrich takes another deep breath and says to no one in particular, “Try to pay attention to the momen...

  • The Wandering Soap Opera

    Directed by Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento • Drama • With Luis Alarcón, Patricia Rivadeneira, Francisco Reyes • 2017 • 78 minutes

    Filmed by Chilean master Raúl Ruiz in 1990 but left unfinished until it was completed by his wife and collaborator Valeria Sarmiento in 2017, The Wandering Soap Oper...

  • An Injury To One

    Directed by Travis Wilkerson • Documentary • 2003 • 53 minutes

    AN INJURY TO ONE provides a corrective-and absolutely compelling-glimpse of a particularly volatile moment in early 20th century American labor history: the rise and fall of Butte, Montana. Specifically, it chronicles the mysterious ...

  • The Annotated Field Guide of Ulysses S. Grant

    Directed by Jim Finn • Documentary • 2020 • 61 minutes

    For four years in the 1860’s half of the United States was held hostage by an unrecognized white supremacist republic. Shot on 16mm in national military parks, swamps, forests and the suburban sprawl across the former battlefields, the film ...

  • A Biography of Lilith

    Directed by Lynne Sachs • Documentary • 1997 • 35 minutes

    In a lively mix of narrative, collage and memoir, A Biography of Lilith updates the creation myth by telling the story of the first woman. Lilith’s betrayal by Adam in Eden and subsequent vow of revenge is recast as a modern tale with a p...

  • A Month of Single Frames (for Barbara Hammer)

    Directed by Lynne Sachs • Documentary • 2019 • 14 minutes

    In 1998, experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer took part in a one-month residency at a Cape Cod dune shack without running water or electricity, where she shot film, recorded sound and kept a journal. In 2018 she gave all of this material...

  • The Bomb

    Directed by Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari, Eric Schlosser • Documentary • 2016 • 61 minutes

    Over seven decades have passed since a city was destroyed by a nuclear weapon. But the danger never went away. We are now confronted with a world in which nine nations possess about 15,000 nuclear weapons. M...

  • Seven Songs for Malcolm X

    Directed by John Akomfrah • Documentary • 1993 • 52 minutes

    An homage to the inspirational African-American civil rights leader, SEVEN SONGS FOR MALCOLM X collects testimonies, eyewitness accounts and dramatic reenactments to tell the life, legacy, loves, and losses of Malcolm X.

    Featuring inte...

  • Notes on Marie Menken

    Directed by Martina Kudlacek • Documentary • 2007 • 97 minutes

    Martina Kudlacek, director of the critically acclaimed "In the Mirror of Maya Deren," brings us the story of Marie Menken (1909-1970), one of New York's outstanding underground filmmakers, who inspired and worked with renowned artist...

  • Riddles of the Sphinx

    Directed by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen • Drama • With Dinah Stabb, Merdelle Jordine, Rhiannon Tise • 1977 • 92 minutes

    Laura Mulvey, author of the seminal essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, helped to establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study. With Peter Wollen, sh...

  • Starfish Aorta Colossus

    Directed by Lynne Sachs • Documentary • 2015 • 5 minutes

    Poetry watches film. Film reads poetry. Paolo Javier’s text is a catalyst for the digital sculpting of an 8mm Kodachrome canvas. Syntactical ruptures and the celebration of nouns illuminate twenty-five years of rediscovered film journeys. ...