From Beyrouth with Love (2005)

All images were filmed on Market Street, one of the main streets in San Francisco. The visual was carefully composed frame by frame, while shooting on the street. This project was commissioned by Exploratorium and San Francisco Arts Commission for the outdoor screening event, A Trip Down Market Street 1905/2005: An Outdoor Centennial Celebration.

Memories split in the space.

Familiar objects are transformed into a candy-coated vision of war in this seminal stop-motion short by PES.

Pollet provides an insight into life on the leper colony of Spinalonga, an island off Crete, through the eyes of Raimondakis, who tells the story of his life to the camera after having been excluded from his community to spend years of his life on the island with his fellow sufferers. Themes addressed include love, community, companionship and death and the importance of these values to all people whatever their state of health.

Insects are tortured in various ways amidst the sounds of screaming.

A surrealistic montage set in motion by a tidal wave and incorporating a samurai battle.

Sergey Dvortsevoy makes his international debut with this astonishingly intimate portrait of a nomadic family on the Kazakh plains. Several scenes in this slow, elegant film betray a certain dry humor -- a child devouring the last of a bowl of yogurt and then crying; a cow getting its head stuck in a pail; and a woman singing to herself, accompanied by her snoring husband. Other scenes capture the nomads' hardscrabble lives -- drunken herdsmen in the grips of existential despair, growling dogs, and a camel enduring a rather grim septum piercing. By the end of the film, the family pulls up stakes and herds its sundry four-legged beasts -- camels, cattle, goats, dogs, and horses -- to a more fertile plain. This film was screened at the 1999 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.

M. Rasta, a high society con man, is accused of a crime he didn't commit.

This picture shows an old gentleman seated at his shaving table. The razor is evidently giving him a great deal of trouble...

Word & number gag, no camera.

The gang goes to a circus sideshow to visit Dickie and Spanky's uncle, mistakenly believing he is "The Wild Man from Borneo."

This Oscar-nominated documentary short tracks the shift in the relationship of an individual to his work between the 19th century and today. Focusing on how nails are made, we first see a blacksmith laboring at his forge, shaping nails from single strands of steel rods. The scene then shifts from this peaceful setting to the roar of a 20th century nail mill, where banks of machines draw, cut, and pound the steel rods faster than the eye can follow.

Zineb is a psychiatrist assigned to Rihana, a traumatized and pregnant young woman, who was raised as a son by her dictatorial father. Rihana's story awakens repressed thoughts in Zineb's own mind.

"In Chakra, I was able to transfer the traditional order of the chakras into a film, starting with the first (lower) chakra and working up to the seventh (top) chakra…" - Jordan Belson

A shy old man works up the gumption to meet a woman on whom he has a crush.

After bullies steal his son's lunch-box, a retired wrestler goes on a violent rampage to avenge him and bring justice to the school.

The scene opens on a theatrical stage. The magician enters from the wings, and making a bow to the audience, removes his coat and hat and they disappear mysteriously in the air. He then takes a white handkerchief from his pocket, holds it over his knees, and his long trousers disappear, and behold! he is clad in knickerbockers. He next makes a pass with a magic wand and a table suddenly appears before the audience, on which is a large pile of tissue paper. The magician takes up the paper and shakes it a few times and three live geese fly out upon the floor. This is a highly pleasing and mystifying subject.

A montage of some home movies taken by Archie Stewart (1902-1998), an early enthusiast in taken 16 mm sound films of his family. We see his daughters, Mary and Anne, playing in the aftermath of a January, 1936, snowstorm. Next, indoors, the girls bring in a birthday cake and sing to Archie. He has Anne read to him from a children's book, and a year later, has her read aloud to show her progress. Anne and Mary dress up Pat the family dog in a dress and scarf and hold a tea party, chattering away. Archie's high-pitched voice provides narration on and off camera.

A man arrives home late and drunk as usual. His wife reminds him that he's supposed to take their daughter out to a play. While watching the play, he's faced with his own drinking evils and how his life would be without them.