Quartet Number One (1991)
Genre :
Runtime : 8M
Director : Jonas Mekas
Synopsis
Quartet Number One (1991) 8 min.
A woman’s face disappearing behind, and emerging from, a pair of hands. Flashing lights. An empty building full of dark hallways. Designs drawn in the air with light and long-exposure cinematography.
Salvatore "Sal" Fragione is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.
A seductive alien prowls the streets of Glasgow in search of prey: unsuspecting men who fall under her spell.
The hopes and dreams of four ambitious people are shattered when their drug addictions begin spiraling out of control. A look into addiction and how it overcomes the mind and body.
A static and silent shot of a sunset off the western coast of Madagascar. Tacita Dean filmed the ‘green ray’, a legendary natural phenomenon that takes place when, in specific atmospheric circumstances, the last ray of sun passes over the horizon and becomes green.
A young woman, Junta, lives apart from her village and, for her solitude and strangeness, is considered to be a witch; when she comes to the village for one reason or another, the townsfolk chase her away. They feel that she may in some way be responsible for the deaths of several young men of the village, who have felt compelled, one by one, to climb the local mountain - and fall to their deaths - on nights when the moon is full.
A busted projector on an otherwise gorgeous day. Shot on 16mm.
A man wanders. Available on demand from: ypostasfilm@gmx.com
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, according to his biographers (and his letters confirm this fact), was an extremely sensuous person, and Nachtstück (Nocturne) was intended to refer to this aspect of his personality: We glide into "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" a bit, then abandon standardized paths of conventional representational film and encounter a few seconds of passionate sensory filmæan example of something I would like to call "physical cinema." The thesis: Herr Mozart would have enjoyed it.
A depiction of a girl’s uneasy state of mind as it wavers between life and death.
An exploration of the ambiguities of documentary photographs which develops ideas triggered by a German pun. Worst Case Scenario starts out as a series of still photographs depicting daily life on a Viennese street corner. The film re-orders and manipulates a selection of these images, and as it progresses the static world slowly and subtly comes to life. As Sigmund Freud casts his long shadow across the city, an increasingly improbable chain of events and relationships starts to emerge.
Experimental filmmaker James Benning returns with this abstract documentary about California's Central Valley. Consisting of 35 shots, each over two minutes long, the film quietly portrays nature's subjugation to encroaching commercial interests. This film was screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival.
Viet Flakes was composed from an obsessive collection of Vietnam atrocity images, compiled over five years, from foreign magazines and newspapers. Schneemann uses the 8mm camera to “travel” within the photographs, producing a volatile animation.
"O'Neill found an envelope labeled 'Helen's Coreopsis' with seeds from a 1935 visit his mother had made to her sister in Nebraska. His film COREOPSIS was made by scratching into developed and discarded pieces of film stock revealing pink, yellow and clear layers. This remnant of his memory of her is performed and inscribed in these excised layers." - Erika Suderburg
EMULSION ELECTRONS IMBUED is part of a collection of films revolving around previously recorded cassette tapes. This film is the first in the series and originally shot on 16mm.
A play between the internal and external, an investigation between the printer and the optical effects of projection. One strip of super-8 film is reconstructed, taped onto 16mm and then re-photographed on the optical printer. The effluence, according to its new emulsion, becoming a reflection of its action.
In summer 2011, James Benning returned to his hometown of Milwaukee to make a third version of his seminal 1977 film 'One Way Boogie Woogie'. In 1977 he filmed 60 locations in Milwaukee’s industrial valley each for 60 seconds, creating short, minimal, playful narratives. In 2004 he remade the film as Twenty Seven Years Later, with the same 60 camera positions. This 2012 installation version, presents 18 locations similar to, and reminiscent of, the original.
A camera moves back and forth at an increasing pace. Back and forth, back and forth...
A musing is addressed to a glorious phantom-like entity.
From the south of France, a science fiction film about the end of the Leisure Class and that which came to replace it.