New Arrivals
Experimental Films (1943-1959)
"From the early 1940's until her death in 1961, Maya Deren evoked and exemplified the American avant-garde movement virtually by herself. Her first film, Meshes Of The Afternoon, set the tone for the decade and linked the movement to the older European avant-garde films of Cocteau and Bunuel". -- Cecil Starr, The New York Times. "Intensely personal, symbolic and surreal films that reveal her deepest, darkest fantasies. She's Fellini and Bergman wrapped in one gloriously possessed body. Watching …
III Tagofest
Filmed during the 3rd edition of a most important independent festival in Italy: Tagofest @ Tagomago (Massa-Italy). With: afraid!, airportman, almandino quite deluxe, be invisible now!, dadamatto, fuzz orchestra, harschcore, i/o, jealousy party, larsen lombriki, miranda, musica da cucina, ovo, tiger!shit!tiger!tiger!, with love.
Divine Horsemen - The Living Gods of Haiti
Maya Deren takes us on a journey into the fascinating world of the Voudoun religion, whose devotees commune with the cosmic powers through invocation, offerings, song and dance. In 1947 filmmaker she received the first Guggenheim Fellowship for creative work in motion pictures based on a proposal for a film on Haitian dance. On trips to Haiti in 1947, 1949 and 1954, she shot several thousand feet of "Voudoun " rituals. The Voudoun pantheon of deities, or loa, is witnessed as being living…
Trash Humpers
In the Summer of 2010, the underground trend of 'trash-humping' JUMPED the NASHVILLE CITY LIMITS as the film Trash Humpers spread across the nation, screening in movie theaters, galleries, bars and grills and anyplace, really, indoors or out, that could draw a crowd to see the thing. Filmmaker Harmony Korine often accompanied the film, standing around and answering questions when he wasn't doing something else. It was something to see, but the only problem was, all you could do once you'd …
Ström
Ström is a 45 minute piece for five loudspeakers, live-electronics and live-video, based on an openminded, artistic approach towards electricity. The piece is an attempt to transfer electric current via sound to the audience. The five speakers in the surround system struggle to take over the sonic stream like electro-magnets. Sine waves and noises rotate at breakneck speed around the listeners, try to charge them with static electricity, and, as an ultimate goal, even make them levitate. The vid…
Seven Easy Pieces
Belgrade-born Marina Abramovic, the subject of a recent New Yorker profile, is the first performance artist to be honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. To coincide with "The Artist is Present," Microcinema has released Seven Easy Pieces, a document of Abramovic's week-long residence at the Guggenheim in 2005, in which the artist spent seven hours a day performing one of five landmark performance art pieces by other artists and two of her own.Performance art is by nature ephem…
An Evening Of Dance Constructions
In the spring of 1961 Simone Forti presented a program titled Five Dance Constructions and Some Other Things in a concert series organized by her friend, composer La Monte Young, at the New York loft studio of Yoko Ono. These radically new dances created circumstances for the performers' direct, non-stylistic actions. Each of the pieces was performed in a different place in the loft, with the audience moving from location to location to view them. Some of the pieces required elementary structure…
Max Ernst Hanging
"In this revealing documentary, patron, collector, and curator Dominique de Menil hangs the 1973 exhibition Inside the Sight, in conversation with Max Ernst, the 20th-century Surrealist artist. From installation to opening party, the events that transpire, as captured by filmmakers John and Francois de Menil, provide a rare and intimate glimpse into the process of making an exhibition."
FLicKeR
“Really, I think, behind everything, he was trying to teach people to see differently.” Genesis P-Orridge, on Brion Gysin...This award-winning documentary about poet, artist, calligrapher and mystic Brion Gysin, portrays the life and legacy of an artist who believed art could revolutionize human consciousness. FLicKeR chronicles Gison’s complex ideas, friendships and influence with some of the 20th century’s key counterculture figures, such as William Burroughs, Kurt Corbain and Marianne Faithfu…
This World Is Unreal Like A Snake In A Rope
A film by Robert Millis. Folk cinema from the eternal never-ending collage that is India. A journey through the ancient Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu featuring Hindu trance ceremonies, street music, festivals, nagaswaram improvisations, impossibly loud cities, ancient temples, processions, devotions, decay, fireworks, abstractions and more. India is impossible to know: it is impossibly old and impossibly new, impossibly rich and impossibly poor, quiet and chaotic. Offered here is on…
Words Of Advice: William S. Burroughs On The Road
In 1983, the counter culture icon and author of the cult classic Naked Lunch (1959), William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), traveled throughout Scandinavia making a series of personal appearances. Twenty years later, filmmakers Lars Movin and Steen Moller Rasmussen found never-before-seen footage of his Copenhagen visit and set out on the road to record new material, telling the story of the acclaimed author's later work -- especially what is known as The Last Trilogy -- and his unique perform…
Sonic territories
'Sonic Territories is 12 works for 12 distinct acoustic spaces. Composer -performer Jonas Braasch utilizes soprano saxophone, field recordings, and electronic processing. Sonic Territories investigates the creative potential that various acoustic environments can unleash. Opposed to the current ideal of quiet recording studios that do not distract the performer from inner thoughts, I was looking for spaces that inspire and mess around with me, by influencing and guiding my performance. A n…
Charisma X
A documentary film by Efi Xirou with composers George Apergis, François Bernard Mâche, Gerard Pape, Curtis Roads and featuring Françoise xenakis, Makis Solomos, Sharon Kanach, Mâkhi xenakis. Charisma X presents the visonary work and ideas of Greek composer and architect iannis xenakis structured around musical performances, interviews and testimonies from xenakis' collaborators and those with a deep understanding of his work. Musical performances and recollections are presented from percussionis…
Interstices
Through these interstices, when conscience — this present to one’s self — falls asleep; through this tiny little interval between two instants, something arises, something you had never thought of; The erring ways of thought; through the cracks thus created, we lend our voice to the characters that rule over an unknown existence. These sounds are too rich of all their possible existence…
'Evelyn Glennie - Fred Frith. Touch the sound'
Subtitled A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie, German director Thomas Riedelsheimer's exquisite Touch the Sound is nominally a portrait of the Scottish musician known as the first full-time solo percussionist. Glennie is certainly a fascinating subject. Profoundly deaf since childhood, she disdains the use of hearing aids and sign language, relying instead on lip reading and, more crucially, on the use of all of her senses, especially touch, to hear with her entire body. The film reveals …
Mtt
Incus Records is proud to present this stunning live performance of the MTT trio. The Dance Hakushu Festival in the farming village of Hakushu, 800m high in the mountains of Yamnashi Prefecture is a unique event and this DVD captures these three formidable artists bringing their individual qualities into play to create a dynamic and electrifing whole.Live performance at Dance Hakushu Forest Stage, August 18, 2006 Hakushu Town, Yamanashi, Japan.Running time : 45' 55” Produced and presented by Dan…
Rewriter
2009 release. Subtitled: Early (conceptual) photographs, (expanded) films, (body) videos and (contextual) works, 1964-1975. "This video archive with accompanying essays traces internationally-renowned media and conceptual artist Peter Weibel's artistic developments from his beginnings through 1979. Weibel started out in 1964 as a visual poet, and was soon transferring the structures of the visual culture from the page to the screen, while still retaining the model of language as one of perceptio…
Live at Cosmopolite
Celebrating their fifteenth anniversary, Norwegian fusionists Jaga Jazzist present their first ever live concert DVD, filmed at Cosmopolite in Oslo on the 4th April 2005. This recording was made around the same time as the release of Jaga's What We Must, and features material from throughout their career, all replicated with remarkable levels of precision on the live stage. In addition to the excellent 80-minute concert the DVD comes with bonus features that include …
Convoy Tour DVD
The adventure of 35 of our favourite, very different musicians in a bus on tour in France. It was the first time Getatchew Mekuria was in Europe, there is Zu from Italy, Silent Block from France, Hisako Horikawa, a danser from Japan, John Butcher (GB), The Jimmy trio (Ethiopia) with Han Bennink, Zea, Anne-James Chaton (F), The Evens (Ian Mackays new band) a living Ex jukebox, and much more. A film about far too long drives, amazing combinations and incredible musical adventures. Filmed by Emma …
Live in Japan
"Live In Japan is the first official domestic live Boris DVD to be unleashed! The power, majesty and unique psychedelia that only Boris can deliver is perfectly captured in this stunning visual document. Professionally filmed on the last show of the their worldwide Smile tour 2008. Light dazzled eyes, cut off the view a lot of smoke, and making loud noise can destroy the delicate environment can monitor everything that is Boris.” (label)