Movies: Avant garde

A gang of outlaw bikers pull a home invasion on a disgraced Anthropologist hiding a secret locked in his cabin basement....

An old woman is carrying shopping bags. A child with a gun is riding a scooter. Birds are flying. A city is falling. A party is lit....

Obsessed with a general's wife, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism....

A one-hour documentary on the making of Frank Zappa's bizarre 1971 comic musical. Vintage private footage from Frank's personal archives plus behind-the-scenes of the actual shooting and recording. With Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, Keith Moon and suc...

Andy Warhol’s screen adaptation of Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange”....

Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirag...

A pulsing, kaleidoscope of images set to an energetic soundtrack. This is a world in motion, dominated by mechanical and repetitive images, with a few moments of solitude in a garden....

The second part: Brakhage’s layering of images spends less time with images of war, and begins filtering in scenes of Vienna and his home in Colorado. He sets up a comparison between “Kubelka’s Vienna” and his own....

A (barely) two minute short is that it was made specially for a Paramount newsreel segment on Bute and Nemeth making films in their teensy New York apartment. Paramount apparently never got round to including the filmmakers in any newsreel, but their...

While playing his trombone one Sunday, the enthusiastic Zero sees Beatrix and falls in love. He returns the next week to express his feelings, and it's mutual. Over the next few months, they spoon, kiss, and find happiness. Then, she receives a lette...

What does the energy harnessed through orgasm have to do with the state of communist Yugoslavia circa 1971? Only counterculture filmmaker extraordinaire Dušan Makavejev has the answers (or the questions). His surreal documentary-fiction collision beg...

This short experimental film tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood to become a star, only to fail and be dehumanized. He is identified by the number 9413 written on his forehead....

Cracking open the human-camera body....

To forget about the end of a relationship, a woman fantasizes about an ideal one. Fantasy and reality begin to melt into one another, but the past finds a way to rear its head again. Films used: Notorious (1946) Gaslight (1944)...

A costume designer is sent to the Catskills for an interactive theatre piece set in the 1920s. When she arrives things seem dark, strange and off. She soon realizes she is part of a student film....

A father must face his dark past when his gifted daughter has visions of a young girl reborn from her deceased mother. This award-winning metaphysical thriller combines elements of art house, avant-garde, surrealism, and experimental horror....

With input from actor and writer Jan Hlobil, director and cinematographer Rene Smaal presents a film in the true surrealist tradition, in the sense that only 'found' elements were used, and that it defies interpretation based on ordinary cause-and-ef...

Exploring the wit, work and world of Joe Orton through his own words, and the testimony of those who knew him and worked with him....

Rock musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"....

Events take a sinister turn one night in London, when two very different couples arrive at a double-booked apartment. Actions have consequences and not all debts are paid for with money. Leaving, it's harder than you think....