ROJA

1 minute experimental film.

Born in Los Angeles but a New Yorker by choice, Barbara Hammer is a whole genre unto herself. Her pioneering 1974 short film Dyketactics, a four-minute, hippie wonder consisting of frolicking naked women in the countryside, broke new ground for its exploration of lesbian identity, desire and aesthetic. (from bfi.org.uk)

In this avant-garde look at a series of unique or eccentric men and women, director Stavros Tornes has created a film that is visually engaging, but too obscure in many points to be understood. The main protagonists are a young taxi driver - a man who has had some very unusual, puzzling, and inspirational experiences - and a middle-aged painter he gains as a new friend. The two men are complemented by a few tough women (all played by the same actress), a pair of verbose politicos, and a handful of other distinctive characters. By the end of the movie, transformations are in store for the pair of friends, reflecting the tenor of the film throughout. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Originally edited in two versions. Version I, 70 minutes; version II, 90 minutes. (The only known existing version is not Markopoulos’s edit and contains additional titles, music and voice-over added later than 1961. 65 minutes.) Filmed in Mytilene and Annavysos, Greece, 1958. Existing copy on video, J. and M. Paris Films, Athens.

In the final days of the American Civil War, an emigre Hungarian military officer attempts to map the situation of the enemy. Many veterans of the 1848 War of Independence in Hungary fought on the northern side. Experienced Fiala, Boldogh who struggles with homesickness and the reckless Vereczky all experience their enforced emigration in different ways and news of impending peace elicits different reactions from them all.

Two women – one passive and resigned, the other aggressive and domineering – interact in various locations in New York city. The film explores the dynamic between them before ending with a showdown at the roller-coaster on Coney Island.

In Razor Blades, Paul SHARITS consciously challenges our eyes, ears and minds to withstand a barrage of high powered and often contradictory stimuli. In a careful juxtaposition and fusion of these elements on different parts of our being, usually occurring simultaneously, we feel at times hypnotised and re-educated by some potent and mysterious force.

Lois Patiño dissects the movement of a fire, analyses its fleeting ephemeral forms, and transforms them with sound to enrich the meaning of the images. The Image Burns begins as a reflection on our perception and becomes an intense interaction between the parts, between the images and the spectator. We look at the fire and the fire looks back at us.

Features four distinct, bizarre, existential tales about people whose lives are in transition, who are each asking questions about themselves, their environments, and about God(s).

A Japanese salaryman finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.

Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to the "forest." There, under an apple tree, he communes with his selves, represented by celebrated personages from the New York "underground scene" who appear as modern correlatives to the figures of Greek mythology. The filmmaker, who narrates the situations with a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound , finds the personalities of his characters to have a timeless universality.