In between our color films, we'll be throwing in a hefty dose of experimentation (on a Saturday for a change) to kick off our new format, the Nachtwache! It's the weekend, it will be immersive; standing at the beginning, then walking, then prancing and finally dancing through the cinema, hall and lobby if our concept works: Because: The door of the Blue Salon remains open, outside and inside blur, there are drinks and music in the foyer and atrium of the HfG. It goes from our favorite bartender to our favorite DJ and from there in front of our favorite screen, where a roll of experimental short films runs in a loop all night. The films pick up the mood of the evening, set it, reinforce it, break it, you decide, dancing through the HfG by night.
El nido del Sol
In the nest of the Sun, Xolotl, Huitzilin and Xochitl meet to recover the dance of radiation, the heat of which awakens the new fire of their cosmic dance. Part of the Tonalli film, El nido del Sol was presented at the 2022 edition of the Oberhausen Festival.
Meditation
Meditation is an experimental short film that offers a visual interpretation of the meditation experience through hypnotic patterns and kaleidoscopic color compositions. Inspired by the teachings of Yogananda, Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana Maharshi, Belson uses innovative techniques to depict a state of calm and enlightenment.Representing the avant-garde cinema of the 1950s, the film shows Belson's contribution to visual art and the exploration of the medium as a tool for spiritual representation.
Pattern Language
‘Pattern language’ is a term coined by architect Christopher Alexander to describe the existence of certain human ambitions through an index of structural patterns. In this film, highly organised and richly layered patterns move in accordance with audio frequencies and rhythms, towards the construction of an endlessly mutating labyrinth.
Games on Reflection and Speed
A high-speed view of Paris via train-track; Zooming down the Seine by boat. Chomette's first film, "Games of Reflections and Speed" (1925), traverses tunnels and elevated railways to produce a disarming rhythm. The avant-garde short film dispenses with a plot and instead plays with speed, movement and reflections. Using techniques such as dissolves and time-lapse, Chomette transforms the dynamics of the city into an abstract visual experience. He thus expanded the cinematic language and left a lasting mark on the experimental film art of the 1920s.
Jüm-Jüm
Jüm-Jüm shows a series of still images in which a woman swings in front of a large painting of a phallus. The film creates a rhythmic interplay between movement and static images, using its unique visual composition to captivate viewers. Directed by Dore O. and Werner Nekes, the film reflects their jointly developed artistic methodology, which is characterized by the precise manipulation of various film techniques. This approach is based on a comprehensive investigation of visual and perceptual experiences.
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Kustom Kar Kommandos
This fragment, shot in San Bernardino at the very time when car customization was becoming a commercial subculture and journalists like Tom Wolfe were writing about it, is a dreamy little gem - the most perfect of Anger's films. He himself provided the music, the pink background and the white cotton swab used to clean the engine. Anger assumed that the car's creator, who is anonymous in the film, had not noticed that the tailor-made seats, which were supposed to perfectly enclose his body, were shaped like labia. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
While traveling through Spain with fellow filmmaker Kenneth Anger in 1958, Menken shot this work in a single day at the Alhambra, a fortress complex in Granada. Later she added composer Teiji Ito’s soundtrack of classical guitar, castanets, and hand clapping; the percussive rhythm intensifies the alternating flashes of graphic patterning and long panning shots that trace the Moorish buildings’ ornate curvature. Menken’s experimentation with movement was innovative, the filmmaker Stan Brakhage recounted: “This is one of the first films that took full advantage of the enormous freedom of the hand-held camera. In the history of cinema up to that time, Marie’s was the most free-floating hand-held camera short of newsreel catastrophe shots.”
Five Minutes of Pure Cinema
What is pure cinema? Henri Chomette’s answer to this question adopts a minimalist and formalist style, juxtaposing objects and landscapes. This experimental short film from the silent era is a seminal investigation into the nature of cinema as a medium and as an art form.
Place Mattes
Place Mattes explores the space between reaching and touching. Animation and optical printing are used to create travelling mattes for places, confounding the difference between eternal and internal.
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Walking Cycle
Walking Cycle is an abstract audiovisual piece that celebrates the line, its quality and its movements. This piece is a tribute to early abstract animation masters Len Lye and Hans Richter.