ADEBAR

ADEBAR Production: Austria, 1957 Director: Peter Kubelka Category: Experimental From 1956 onwards, film-maker Kubelka developed what he termed “metric cinema”, a rigid format where films were constructed using incredibly precise regulations. At one minute long, Adebar is the first of these metric films, using predetermined shot-lengths of 13, 26 and Continue Reading

STADT IN FLAMMEN

STADT IN FLAMMEN (“City In Flames”) Production: Germany, 1984 Director: Jochen Müller, Jochen Lempert & Jürgen Reble Category: Experimental A 5 minute-film by the German Schmelzdahin group, who were dedicated to the exploration of the effect on found sequences of Super-8 film by exposure to bacteria, chemical treatment, burying the Continue Reading

JEROVI

JEROVI Production: USA, 1965 Director: José Rodriguez-Soltero Category: Underground/Queer From the 1960s New York underground, a 10-minute queer movie showing a young man disrobing and masturbating while clutching a red rose. Rodriguez-Soltero also made the camp mess Lupe (1967), starring Mario Montez as Lupe Velez, the Hollywood star who committed Continue Reading

MARAT/SADE

MARAT/SADEProduction: UK, 1966Director: Peter BrookCategory: ExperimentalThe first substantial screen portrayal of the Marquis de Sade, by Patrick Magee, is the centrepiece of Peter Brook’s Marat/Sade, a film of a play and a play within a film, showing the inmates of Charenton asylum performing a theatrical piece written for them by Continue Reading

THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE

THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE Production: USA, 1971 Director: Leland Auslender Category: Experimental A 12-minute experimental film evocation of the myth of Aphrodite, using multiple superimposed liquid images filmed with distorting mirrors and electronic soundtracking with subliminal vocal sounds. Aphrodite’s birth is paralleled with the creation of life itself, emerging from the matrix of Continue Reading

BODYBUILDING

BODYBUILDING Production: Austria, 1965 Director: Ernst Schmidt Jr. Category: Performance Art A 9-minute film-capture of one of the seminal 1960s performance-art pieces by Vienna Aktionist Otto Muehl. Using both colour and sound, Schmidt adds solarization effects to match the intensity of Muehl’s Materialaktion, which included mummification by bandages and daubing Continue Reading

LA FÉE SANGUINAIRE

LA FÉE SANGUINAIRE (“The Bloodthirsty Fairy”) Production: Belgium, 1968 Director: Roland Lethem Category: Experimental Horror One of the most startling arthouse films of the 60s, in which a voluptuous nude creature launches violent assaults on religion and society; the film opens with a swastika before we see the avenging fairy/angel sexually abusing Continue Reading