The lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex in and around a modern-day underground salon. A sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, a dominatrix who is unable to connect, a gay couple who are deciding whether to open up their relationship, and the people who weave in and out of their lives, all converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus, a mad nexus of art, music, politics and polysexual carnality. In a post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City, the story is told with sexual frankness, suggesting new ways to reconcile questions of the mind, pleasures of the flesh and imperatives of the heart.
Film tracks the history of Harry Smith’s Anthology of America Folk Music from its initial compilation of 78rpm records from rural Americana to its release on Folkways Records in 1952. A set of interviewees reveal ist lasting impact and the remarkable personality of Harry Smith. The film includes rare archival footage, performances and interviews with Elvis Costello, Beck, Sonic Youth, Sonic Youth. Beth Orton, Philip Glass, David Johansen, John Cohen e Greil Marcus.
A silent man, of volcanic, visionary instincts, lives in an old mansion with his housemaid and driver. He leaves home one morning, after waking from a long sleep, to be driven through roads and tracks. That man’s spirit, haunted by transcendent glimpses and ghosts, leads him to wander, somnambular and diffuse, through a dense forest fog. Projected on the magnetic, fluid landscape, his shadow envisions a series of characters, dishevelled spectres that pass through the world, forever living in his actions and words.
The Tramp cares for an abandoned child, but events put that relationship in jeopardy.
Rika, 24-year-old, is an attractive woman. Out of the blue, her boyfriend, Ono, breaks off their relationship. In utter despair, she makes a series of calls on her cell phone. One of them reaches Kono, a 29-year-old film distributor who is at home composing a letter of resignation. Determined to confront her ex-boyfriend, Rika visits Ono’s apartment. But Ono reiterates his scorn and accuses her of loving only herself. Faint from the shock of this encounter, Rika hits the redial button on her cell phone. Her call reaches Kono. He rushes to meet her and takes her home. Increasingly alienated from his professional life, Kono has begun to regard Rika as his only connection to the world.
The Tale of How tells the story of the Piranha birds or Dodo’s as they would be known to you. The piranha’s are born from the blossoms of a tree growing on Otto the monsters head (Otto is a giant octopus with a broken heart.) Otto is insane and eats the piranha’s. They’re not happy and decide to escape. A very clever, wise and magical being then appears to them,‚Ķ. Eddy the Engineer!
This Collaboration with Sonic Youth is an elegy for NYC’s legendary CBGB club and all the transcendent shows we’ve all ever been to.
Nling is an impenetrable walled slum city whose inhabitants are cut off from the world outside. In this redemption story, animated entirely with paper print outs, a Nlingian man and his best friend Donkey tunnel beneath the wall to find food and alcohol. In his struggle to survive, the man finds that he is no more human than his animal friend.
At 40, Miriam radiates serene beauty and tranquility, a confidence and self-assurance as vast as the sea close to her summer home. There are no taboos in the life she shares with her partner André and their 15-year-old son Nils; there is understanding. And if Nils invites his 12-year-old girlfriend Livia to spend the holidays with them, fine. But when the brazenly sensual Livia begins flirting with an older man, Bill, Miriam feels it is her responsibility to stop the questionable relationship. But as she does so, it is she herself who falls for the shy and charmingly insecure Bill. Miriam forges ahead, seducing him, seeing him secretly. But it is Livia that Bill loves, not Miriam…
Four men dance in the set of a beach bar off season. One of them, before, recalled the circumstances of a military defeat. This film puts in parallel an episode of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars and a choreographed digest of the history of the Twist.
Syndromes and a Century explores how we remember; how our sense of happiness can be triggered by seemingly insignificant things. It is a film in two parts which sometimes echo each other.The two central characters are inspired by the filmmaker’s parents, in the years before they became lovers. The first part focuses on a woman doctor and is set in a space reminiscent of the world in which the filmmaker was born and raised. The second part focuses on a male doctor and is set in a more contemporary space much like the world that we live in.
A young boy experiences difficulties interacting with some grumpy girls.
A portrait of Jake Williams ‚ who lives alone within miles of forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jake always has many jobs on at any one time, rarely throws anything away, is an expert mandolin player, and has compost heaps going back many years. He has a different sense of time to most people in the 21st Century.
Nagai is widely regarded as a successful businessman, but in reality his situation is desperate. His company has gone public and he’s at the beck and call of demanding shareholders. To complicate matters, he has separated from his wife Akira.
A loose remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic Stray Dog (1949), An Obsession follows the story of a police detective named Sosuke who investigating the murder of a strange cult leader who may himself have been responsible for a rash of missing persons cases from the last few months. When the cult leader turns up dead, Sosuke and his partner track down the assailant fairly quickly but he’s not about to go down without a fight and Sosuke ends up taking a bullet in the line of duty.
Timothy Higgins, picked last for the team, is the saddest boy in the world. Friendlessness, suburban complacency and prescription drugs have conspired against the youngster to make this his worst year yet. Musical Chairs and birthday cake can’t save him now‚Äîat his ninth birthday party, Timothy prepares for a show-stopping suicide.
A giant tiger mysteriously appears in a big city, revealing the hidden reality in an otherwise ordinary night. A short film inspired by William Blake’s poem of same name.
A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus in his post-Beatles years and particularly on the time in his life, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist. Recounts the facts about Nixon’s campaign to deport him in 1972.
