Larry Sider

Docimentary about the work of the Qway Brothers for their film Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life

Documentary with fictional elements exploring issues around housing in the United Kingdom.

Robinson is commissioned to investigate the unspecified "problem of England." The narrator describes his seven excursions, with the unseen Robinson, around the country. They mainly concentrate on ports, power stations, prisons, and manufacturing plants, but they also bring in various literary connections, as well as a few conventional landscapes.

In 1977, young Xiao Mei leaves China for the UK to enter into an arranged marriage. Speaking no English and feeling distant from her Elvis-obsessed new husband and his stern mother, Xiao Mei dreams of reuniting with her long-lost parents and brother.

Documentary about John Davis, a businessman who as chairman oversaw the decline of the Rank Organisation.

Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?

A short film exploring the imagery of medical and scientific experimentation.

Filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Mark Lewis use rare archival footage and interviews with artists, art historians, and museum directors to examine the fate of Soviet-era monuments during successive political regimes, from the Russian Revolution through the collapse of communism. Mulvey and Lewis highlight both the social relevance of these relics and the cyclical nature of history. Broadcast on Channel Four as part of the 'Global Image' series (1992-1994).

A psycho-geographic journey through London and its history, as undertaken by an unseen narrator and his companion, Robinson, at the time of the 1992 general election.

Tony Rayns presents the work of the 'Fifth Generation' and other innovative filmmakers who emerged during the 1980s in China.

Tony Rayns presents the work of the 'Fifth Generation' and other innovative filmmakers who emerged during the 1980s in China.

An unconventional portrait of painter Frida Kahlo and photographer Tina Modotti. Simple in style but complex in its analysis, it explores the divergent themes and styles of two contemporary and radical women artists working in the upheaval of the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.

Experimental drama set in London during the Thatcher administration involving four characters: Neil, a science-fiction illustrator, who is accidentally killed in Mexico City; Kim, a woman rock musician; Vermilion, an analyst of satellite photography; and Julian, an old friend of the illustrator who has just finished his Ph.D thesis on the fairy-tales of Charles Perrault. Their four lives are closely interlinked as events happen to each of them.

Igor: The Paris Years, one segment of a larger biographical program created for Channel 4 on the life and times of Igor Stravinsky, finds the brothers working in a slightly different vein than the one that would come to characterize their later work. This is the first section, which covers the pianist’s “French period” from roughly 1920-1939, and it details, among other things, his connection with Jean Cocteau (who, as a matter of fact, contributes voice work to this project). Filtered through gonzo and impressionistic puppetry (often bearing strong resemblance to the work of Terry Gilliam), the film takes an unconventional and often beautiful stab at the television biography special.

Using the tricks of the Flemish playwright's own trade--puppetry, masks, and a Breughelesque sense of bizarre carnival, the collaborators succeeded in bringing about a rich and sardonic humor lurking at the edge of the playwright's macabre, death-obsessed imagination in an allusive homage.

An unusual documentary from the Brothers Quay and Keith Griffiths about the history of the Punch and Judy puppet show.

Mulvey's readings of the myth of Oedipus and the sphinx are layered atop 360º panning shots of various locales; the protagonist appears in elliptically-edited sequences.

Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.