Cygnus-X(2024)

Ghosts Before Breakfast(xx)

Hans Richter, noted for his abstract shorts, has everyday objects rebelling against their daily routine.

Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted(en)

After her boyfriend ends their relationship, the dreamself of a heartbroken woman floats through the air over an industrial wasteland singing ballads of love.

Avatar: Creating the World of Pandora(en)

The Making-of James Cameron's Avatar. It shows interesting parts of the work on the set.

Prelude: Dog Star Man(en)

A creation myth realized in light, patterns, images superimposed, rapid cutting, and silence. A black screen, then streaks of light, then an explosion of color and squiggles and happenstance. Next, images of small circles emerge then of the Sun. Images of our Earth appear, woods, a part of a body, a nude woman perhaps giving birth. Imagery evokes movement across time. Part of the Dog Star Man series of experimental films.

Blue(en)

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One(en)

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?

A Night in the Show(en)

Mr. Pest tries several theatre seats before winding up in front in a fight with the conductor. He is thrown out. In the lobby he pushes a fat lady into a fountain and returns to sit down by Edna. Mr. Rowdy, in the gallery, pours beer down on Mr. Pest and Edna. He attacks patrons, a harem dancer, the singers Dot and Dash, and a fire-eater.

Unaccustomed as We Are(en)

Laurel and Hardy try to entertain a female neighbor, unbeknown to Hardy’s wife.

Dough and Dynamite(en)

Pierre and Jacques are working as waiters at a restaurant where the cooks go on strike. When the two are forced to work as bakers, the striking cooks put dynamite in the dough, with explosive results.

The Giver(en)

In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.

The Cowboy and the Frenchman(en)

A grizzled, hard-of-hearing cowboy, Slim, and his two friends, Dusty and Pete, capture a mysterious, well-dressed Frenchman.

Mad God(en)

A figure known as "The Assassin" descends from the heavens into a nightmarish pit full of monsters, titans, and cruelty.

In the Soup(en)

An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.

At Land(en)

A woman washes up on a beach and embarks on a surreal journey, encountering others and fragmented versions of herself in a quest for identity.

Helpmates(en)

Ollie's house is a mess after a wild party from the previous night. Ollie receives a telegram from his wife (who is on vacation in Chicago), which tells him that she is returning home in the afternoon. Fearing his wife's wrath he calls Stan over to help him clean up. Things go downhill and they make more mess not less.

Heavy Traffic(en)

A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.

The Grandmother(en)

To escape neglect and abuse from his parents, a young boy plants some strange seeds and they grow into a grandmother.

Why Worry?(en)

A hypochondriac vacations in the tropics for the fresh air - and finds himself in the middle of a revolution instead.

A Woman(en)

Mother, father and daughter go to the park. The women doze off on a bench while the father plays a hide-and-seek game with a girl, blindfolded. Charlie leads him into a lake. Both dozing ladies on the bench fall for Charlie and invite him for dinner. The father returns home with a friend. Charlie rushes upstairs and dresses like a woman, shaving his mustache. Both men fall for Charlie.

Liberty(en)

While changing clothes in a getaway car, escaped convicts Stan and Ollie mistakenly put on each other's pants. They spend the rest of the film trying to exchange pants in various unlikely settings.

AccepTance(en)

An experimental documentary looking at the transgender experience around the world over two hemispheres, three continents and with four interviewees. The film employs limited B roll shots or edits during the interviews, instead opting to have the interviews mostly uncut, with the goal of creating both a level of sincerity and a conversational narrative between any one of the interviewees and the audience.

The Aqueduct of Seyssuel(fr)

Five fragments of observation and sensations during a journey with Gorneton's trail in Seyssuel, Isère. A work-in-progress with sounds, the interest of light and the solitude of a digital camera.

Blink(en)

A son finds himself suspended in time, haunted by a presence that seems both familiar and distant. As he navigates a looped reality from a single point of view, fragments of memory and emotion begin to surface, hinting at something deeper left unresolved.

Moon|Rabbit(en)

A meditation on the Moon as a series of spheres melting away. The audio-visuals are synchronized via a repeated glitch process: the same values that databent the visuals are also used to change the base audio samples, creating a translation between a visual glitch and an audible one, even though in the final presentation they seem entirely different.

The Baby of Mâcon(en)

In 17th-century Tuscany, a church play is performed for the benefit of young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.

El Retiro(es)

Epistemology: Floating Images and the Search for a Greater Enallage(en)

Philosophical excerpts breaking the rules of language overlapped with footage of nature, inscrutable voice recordings, strange noises, and classical music.

Man Under Table(en)

In an anachronistic dystopian landscape, a beleaguered young man attempts to navigate his way through the indie film scene in LA.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation(en)

It's Christmastime, and the Griswolds are preparing for a family seasonal celebration. But things never run smoothly for Clark, his wife Ellen, and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious family guests, but he manages to keep going, knowing that his Christmas bonus is due soon.

Soft(en)

A portrait of new found sobriety and love unravels as a young woman moves through the motions of melancholic life in seclusion.

When the Camera Wasn't Running(en)

A young girl from New Orleans dreams of celebrating her birthday during the weekend of Hurricane Katrina.

Bloodlust(de)

An attempt to constitute a human / machine dialogue. It shows the filmmaker’s blood as seen / heard with the eyes / ears of the machine which is a film projector with optical sound. He affixed his blood onto clear film leader by cutting into the flesh and then pressing the film leader onto the wound. Additionally he had blood taken with a syringe and afterwards dripped it on the film leader. fresh and clotted blood was used.

Shapeless Tracking(es)

Inside a computer a space-time is revealed in which image and sound become numbers and motion manifests as rhythm, flow and chaos. This tracking and integration experiment removes the superficial identity of video to detect kinetic disturbances in everyday environment.

Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera(en)

The creative processes of avant-garde composer Philip Glass and progressive director/designer Robert Wilson are examined in this film. It documents their collaboration on this tradition breaking opera.

The Thomas Henry Experience(en)

A vlogger whose life is seemingly controlled by an unknown presence begins to spiral as he falls further into surrealism and imaginary worlds.

Heartstorm(en)

A young woman goes on a cathartic journey through memory and imagination inspired by the performers at an open mic.

Salamander Days(en)

Salamander Days is an atmospheric meditation on friendship, grief, self-discovery, and adolescent consciousness. Set in an American high school, taking place in the midst of a student’s passing, and deeply rooted in the mythology of the salamander, the film explores the concepts of memory and creation, as well as the transformative experience of loss.

Litraso(tl)

An artist holds a pen on paper and slowly starts drawing the line. The line gradually increases its pace, leading to curves, reversions, curveballs, and inconsistencies. As the artist nearly finishes, the artist lifts the pen to show the entire drawing. The artist slowly returns to drawing and continues the following chapters of life.

Nova the Film(en)

An inspiring 75min DIY documentary film on new art and the young artists behind it. It was all filmed on the heat of live action of the first NOVA Contemporary Culture Festival, July and August 2010 in São Paulo, Brazil.

Into the Meridian(en)

A musical audiovisual journey in four parts. A young man finds himself unexpectedly taking an audiovisual odyssey into a world of surreality, slowly recounting his memories, revealing the puzzle pieces that led him to where he is, and maybe how he can get out.