midautumn

shot in melbourne, may 2024

Brise-glace : Bateau givre

First part of the collaborative project "Brise-Glace" showing the diverse travels on the icebreaker "Frej". Directed by Jean Rouch.

Nightfall

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.

I'm Too Sad to Tell You

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.

Broken Fall (Geometric)

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.

Broken Fall (Organic)

Bas Jan Ader hangs from the branch of a tall tree, until he loses his grip and falls into a river below.

Fantaisie érotique

You Will Never See It All

Conceptual visual artist Ján Mančuška died in 2011. However, in his short 39 years of existence, he managed to create a number of remarkable works, many of which have been exhibited in renowned galleries around the world – including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA in New York. In his homeland, however, his work reflecting everyday life, social reality or the meaning of language has never achieved comparable fame. Together with the children of an artist who was not afraid to confront the public with the question of the meaning of art, the director embarks on a journey that aims not only to get closer to Mančuška, but also to reveal him in hitherto unrecognised shades, thus filling in the gaps that are increasingly appearing in the context of the fading memory of his personality.

5002 Space Aliens

There are 5002 space aliens currently on our planet. This is the only known footage of all of them. Please put on your anti-alien glasses now and memorize all 5002 space aliens.

Les Outils du Jeu

This non-narrative short film examines one of the great American icons: the Louisville Slugger baseball bat. The film was conceived by its co-directors, Marlon Johnson and Dennis Scholl, along with the Louisville Orchestra's conductor, Teddy Abrams, to be screened set to a live performance by the orchestra of Claude Debussy's "Jeux".

Vespertilio Spillover

Vespertilio Spillover is a moving images materializing from a woodcut depicting cat-bats in a rare book written by the German scientist Athanasius Kircher (*1602 / +1680) illustrating China in comparison with the actual context of the Covid-19 insurgence, including the spillover infection phenomenon and its potential causes. THIS FILM IS DEDICATED TO ALL VICTIMS - R.I.P.

Boy Oh Boy

A boy conjures the stars out of yogurt.

The Falls

Told in the form of a mock documentary in 92 short parts, nineteen million people are left obsessed with birds and flight following a strange occurrence. A documentarian analyses the lives of all the survivors whose surnames begin with FALL to uncover the truth behind the event.

Mirror

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Glitching Offshore

If a machine would possess a soul it might be a beach. Every single sand corn symbolizes a data-set of a memory captured in the world wide web saved deep down in the ocean. From there the bytes condense and finally reach the cloud. But how would it feel for a machine to see the glitch waves and feeling the shore stones on its case? What would be the colours of the coastline? Glitching Offshore tries to portrait the soul of an AI and the universe behind it. Glitching offshore, alike drifting away as in a psychogeographical dérive (furthermore, away from the "rive": bank) where human intentional yet chaotic action is substituted by pixels' stirrings of the soul.

Super Sauber

A dream where obsession for German as a second language mixes up with an obsession for neatness and cleanliness as a distinctive feature of the national culture in question seen from the perspective of a foreigner. The dream is not a nightmare only because the set it is dreamt into is the seashore of the mare nostrum, where the dreaming subject is perfectly at home. A homeland which she, in turn, in her more secret thus naïf dreams would dream of being cleaner and tidier as in the reality, especially in front of such beauty of nature. As is right and proper.

Taxidrome

To fly a – way from/out of death, don’t hire a taxidermist but take a ride in this taxidrome! Series of 41 Moving Images - this analogy is possible being conservation at its core rescuing what really matters in the world, like nature, habitats, science and art. It is vital. Yet in a continuously changing environment, the flipside of conservation becomes and here it is where the vital feature of conservation becomes its lifelike trait, a fictive life, a fake life. The embalming process consists of 1) imparting a balmy essence to the dead body, as in the ancient world, 2) by filling its blood vessels with formaldehyde to prevent putrification, as in the modern world, although recently with more regard towards more natural treatments, as for instance in bio-art. To embalm also means to “preserve from oblivion”, and “to cause to remain unchanged”, “to prevent the development of something”.

Hitler: A Film from Germany

A structure-free, four-part examination of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Each part explores a different topic, from Hitler's cult of personality in propaganda to how said propaganda was associated with pre-Nazi German cultural, spiritual, and national heritage to the Holocaust and the ideology behind it, particularly from Himmler's point of view.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?

Abandoned Village

Village, like a human being, is born out of love. Village, like a human being, is ruined, if left without love.