Few of Us (1996)

A documentary about the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was an episode of the French documentary film series Filmmakers of our time. The title of the film is a play on the title of Solzhenitsyn's novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

The film is a day in the life that passes by, even if it seems neverending. In the morning the streets are alive with people, pedestrians and cars, with loud and exultant noise. Such sounds accompany the restless walk of a woman and her child across a dusty street, while Bartas’ gaze wanders through many different perspectives.

An animation film, made without the use of a camera, in which "boogie" played by Albert Ammons and "doodle" drawn by Norman McLaren combine to make a rhythmic, brightly colored film experiment. The main title is in eight languages.

An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The spheres drift in space while changing shapes and come back down to another setting, which eventually becomes more fantastical and symbolic than the opening one. The soundtrack has a jazz slant, with an ensemble of four saxophones and synthetic sound (i.e. sound created by drawing directly on the soundtrack).

We're given the history of man seeking flight, however not by the channels of 'do-it-yourself': men jump off of cliffs while trying to flap their arms, be them in armor or other outfits.

The final film produced by Warsaw’s Documentary Film Studio is an epic re-enactment of a treacherous mission by the Voluntary Tatra Mountain Rescue Service to aid colleagues stranded behind enemy lines at the close of World War II (several real participants feature in the film). Based on a short story about the rescue by Adam Liberak, Munk’s final “documentary” is also arguably his first major exercise in the craft of narrative filmmaking.

An impressionistic retelling of Dostoyevsky's "A Gentle Spirit"

This three-part ballad, which often uses music to stand in for dialogue, remains the most perfect embodiment of Nemec’s vision of a film world independent of reality. Mounting a defense of timid, inhibited, clumsy, and unsuccessful individuals, the three protagonists are a complete antithesis of the industrious heroes of socialist aesthetics. Martyrs of Love cemented Nemec’s reputation as the kind of unrestrained nonconformist the Communist establishment considered the most dangerous to their ideology.

A young woman agrees to model for an artist as Virgin Mary. His strange influence triggers her repressed sexual urges causing her to have delusions and nightmares about spiders and other grotesque imagery.

An attempt to bring the work of surrealist artists to a wider public. The plot is that of an average Joe who can conjure up dreams that will improve his customer's lives. This frame story serves as a link between several avant-garde sequences created by leading visual artists of their day, most of whom were emigres to the US during WWII.

Paper cutouts over images of mixed colorful liquids, creating hypnotizing swirls and aesthetic explosions, as well as combining original and futurological sounds. Starting with the relentless hunting of antelopes, the geometric cutouts show the constant struggle between the warring groups. We have been observing it since the primeval times, when the tools of the battles were arches and spears, through the times of the domination of swords, later replaced by firearms. The increasing automation and power of war machines, the emergence of tanks and aircraft, eventually the use of weapons of mass destruction lead to total annihilation

Debord’s eighteen-minute Critique of Separation directs its experimental attentions to “the documentary.” Debord draws from a catalogue of newsreel footage and book covers, rephotographed photographs, views of Paris and its neighborhoods, and a catalogue of disabused, seemingly offhand footage of him and his friends in the porous zone comprising the cafe and the street.

After the doctor's refusal to perform abortion on a 17-year old girl, she and her boyfriend have to cope with the new situation. They both need to learn to take responsibility for their decisions, in spite of numerous hardships facing them.

This remarkable companion piece to In the City of Sylvia offers a compendium of images recorded by Guerín in Strasbourg while searching for the traces of a (fictional?) brief encounter some years earlier with a young woman named Sylvia.

Colourful orphanage life.

Animated photographs (made with Jan Lenica) with elements of animated cartoon. A display of military drill.

A small group of animals gathers around a frozen pond. The animals then play together on the ice and in the snow. Later, when the season changes, they look for new ways of passing the time.

Taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, this lovely puppet film tells the bawdy story of the beautiful young Venetian lady who confesses her sinful passion for the Archangel Gabriel to a lustful monk, who promptly impersonates him in her bedroom with predictable results. Amidst the film's ribaldry, the hypocrisy and false piety of the monk are mercilessly mocked.

The first Wojciech J. Has (Saragossa manuscript) short film. Very simple and touching story about a boy who dreams about buying an accordion.