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 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...

  • Truth or Consequences

    Directed by Hannah Jayanti • Documentary • 2020 • 103 minutes

    Truth or Consequences is a speculative documentary about time and how we weave the past into the present and our possible future. Set in the small desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the film takes place in the shadow of...

  • [CENSORED]

    Directed by Sari Braithwaite • Documentary • 2018 • 66 minutes

    Deep in the vaults of the Australian National Archives lie thousands upon thousands of celluloid scraps: scenes that were cut by government censors from films imported into the country between the years of 1958-1971. Peppered through...

  • 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...

  • Down in Shadowland

    Directed by Tom DiCillo • Documentary • 2017 • 71 minutes

    Tom DiCillo’s (Living in Oblivion and Box of Moonlight) latest film, Down in Shadowland, was made over the course of 7 years. It is perhaps the most independent of this independent director’s films. He made the film entirely by himself, m...

  • The Point of Least Resistance

    Directed by Peter Fischli & David Weiss • Drama • 1981 • 29 minutes

    THE POINT OF LEAST RESISTANCE is Fischli and Weiss' first film together. A rat and a bear are out to make a lot of money in the Los Angeles art world. So when they find a corpse in a gallery, hoping it will be the means to enter...

  • 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...

  • The Right Way

    Directed by Peter Fischli & David Weiss • Drama • 1983 • 55 minutes

    In THE RIGHT WAY, friendship is once again put to the test as rat and bear go hiking in the open, as-it-were unspoiled countryside, at the mercy of the elements and all kinds of miracles - and, above all, at the mercy of themsel...

  • From The East

    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...

  • Light is Calling

    Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2004 • 8 minutes

    "In Light Is Calling, a deteriorating scene from James Young's The Bells (1926) was optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon's seven-minute composition. The aesthetic of Morrison's film is inexorably intertwined with many of Mich...

  • No Data Plan

    Directed by Miko Revereza • Documentary • 2019 • 70 minutes

    A voiceless narrator rehashes details about his mother’s affair as he crosses America by train. “Mama has two phone numbers. We do not talk about immigration on her Obama phone. For that we use the other number with no data plan.” The l...

  • Oxhide II

    Directed by Liu Jiayin • Drama • With Liu Jiayin, Huifen Jia, Zaiping Liu • 2012 • 132 minutes

    Breaking new ground in cinematic art, Liu Jiayin's follow-up to her masterful debut OXHIDE turns a simple dinner into a profoundly intimate study of family relationships.

    Building on the stunning visi...

  • 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...

  • I Cannot Tell You How I Feel

    Directed by Su Friedrich • Documentary • 2018 • 42 minutes

    Su Friedrich has taken up the camera again in her ongoing quest to film the battleground of family life. Her mother Lore—who played the lead in The Ties That Bind (1984), a film about her experiences growing up in Germany during the Seco...

  • Now He's Out in Public and Everyone Can See

    Directed by Natalie Bookchin • Documentary • 2017 • 24 minutes

    A riveting polyphonic documentary, NOW HE'S OUT IN PUBLIC AND EVERYONE CAN SEE presents a fractured narrative about an unnamed man whose racial identity is continually redrawn and contested by clusters of impassioned narrators. This ...

  • The Two Sights

    Directed by Joshua Bonnetta • Documentary • 2020 • 90 minutes

    The first solo feature from Joshua Bonnetta (co-director, El Mar La Mar), The Two Sights (An Dà Shealladh) explores the disappearing tradition of second sight in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. As we listen to locals' accounts of haun...

  • 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...

  • Night Cries

    Directed by Tracey Moffat • Drama • With Marcia Langton, Agnes Hardwick, Jimmy Little • 1991 • 19 minutes

    On an isolated, surreal Australian homestead, a middle-aged Aboriginal woman nurses her dying white mother. The adopted daughter’s attentive gestures mask an almost palpable hostility. Their...