David Lang

Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective (Деревенский детектив), a 1969 Soviet film—, caught in the nets of an Icelandic trawler, is the first step in a fascinating journey through the artistic life of film and stage actor Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899-1981), icon and star of an entire era of Russian cinema.

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Pawns of Passion (1928).

14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.

Two lifelong friends bond whilst vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical career despite the urging of his loving daughter Lena, Mick is intent on finishing the screenplay for what may be his last important film for his muse Brenda. And where will inspiration lead their younger friend Jimmy, an actor grasping to make sense of his next performance?

In 1924, Jewish tradesmen in the newly-formed Soviet Union relocated to the Ukraine, Belarus and Crimea to form farming colonies. The film is of a tour to survey the so-called “Agro-Joint colonies” by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, shot during one week in May 1927 by Bill Morrison’s grandfather, James H. Becker.

Divided into three sections, Bill Morrison's The Highwater Trilogy examines our relationship to the threat of natural disaster by combining archival footage of icebergs, hurricanes, and floods with a soundtrack by David Lang and Michael Gordon.

Calligraphy on water. The first joint work of director Peter Greenaway and composer David Lang.