All Films

Boatman

2004 • 49 min

91-year-old Tan Bangwu is a well-known veteran boatman in the Three Gorges region. His four sons are all among the post-relocation migrants of the Three Gorges Project. After the reservoir began filling in June 2003, most of their mountain land was submerged, making their livelihood a serious concern. This film, spanning a decade, documents the mass relocation of Three Gorges migrants, the historic transformation from deep gorges to wide lakes; it captures the lived experience and emotional upheaval of an old boatman and his descendants amid sweeping change; and it preserves the arduous history and resilient survival spirit of the boatmen of the Three Gorges region.

Lucky for Some

2004 • 11 min • Australia

Two people are interviewed by police after the murder of a gambler. The two suspects give alibis to hide their activities.

Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning

2004 • 17 min • Canada

In the 21st century Mr. George Reaper has become your average 9 to 5 working stiff, eking out an ineffectual existence, reduced to a pale shade of his former glorious self. The film has him wake up, get ready for work, wait for a bus and suffer humiliation at the hands of Norman the Daisy.

Geranium

2004 • 12 min

While caring for her geranium, an old woman reminisces about the man she received it from.

Wait 54s

2004 • 1 min • Netherlands

Living in the beyond, there is a lot of time to count seconds, in Amsterdam there is a lot of water but there is no sea, in Amsterdam time is bigger than memories. I wish I can build an additional memory for this same time.

My Gogol

2004 • 23 min • Ukraine

A mystical drama based on the works of Nikolai Gogol.

Involución, de historias y deshistorias

2004 • 3 min • Mexico

The mother-queen-child-cannibal-larva sleeps, not knowing what it means to be awake. She sleeps until the egg disappears, until the universe consumes her and she becomes nothing. Animated linocut print based on a story by Victor Argueta.

Kulihat Tamanku

2004 • 4 min • Indonesia

A short film by Renas Makki

Pravahi

2004 • 31 min • India

Pravahi is a film that documents and cinematically interperts the dance of Alarmel Valli, one of India’s foremost Bharatanatyam dancer.

Jethro: Off The Wall - Live

2004 • 56 min • United Kingdom

Jethro explains to a jam packed audience everything from the differences between men and women to West Country logic and Viagra. He has the audience roaring with belly aching laughter with his tales and yarns of his old mate Denzel Pemberthy. He's been barmy and bonkers but now he's gone OFF THE WALL.

Joni Mitchell: Refuge of the Roads

2004 • 60 min • United States of America

Nearly 15 years after its initial release on VHS, Joni Mitchell’s critically acclaimed Refuge Of The Roads concert film is available on DVD. This legendary 1983 show, filmed on a soundstage at the end of a successful tour, is highlighted by her version of "Woodstock" (a hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), "For Free" and "Raised On Robbery," as well as clips from intimate home movies shot during the tour. Mitchell’s love affair with jazz/rock was in full swing during the tour, and she brought with her a great band: keyboardist Russell Ferrante (Yellowjackets), guitarist Michael Landau, bassist (and husband) Larry Klein, and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. The ensemble seamlessly wove elements of jazz, pop, rock and folk together, while Mitchell’s incomparable lyrics gracefully floated above it all.

Folk Music of the Sahara: Among the Tuareg of Libya

2004 • 55 min • Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Folk music of the Sahara is an intoxicating experience of sight and sound captured among the Tuareg and Libyan people of North Central Africa. Filmed from the perspective of actually being one of the performers, this mind-blowing IN YOUR FACE document captures the spirit of Libyan folklore and the essence of emotion armed with pounding rhythms and wailing vocal choruses. Both men and women are featured here equally as overseers of the hybrid forms of expression where central African traditions collide with the tones and colors of the Arab world creating one of the most unique overviews of Saharan folk music ensemble and dance the outside world has ever witnessed. The diversity of faces is extraordinary, every costume is stunning, and the women are among the most beautiful on earth.

Gorgonas

2004 • 14 min • Argentina

A retake on the classic story of the gorgons brought forward to the modern world and turned into an apocalyptic horror story.

Time Sights

2004 • 10 min • Hungary

The encounter can never happen between a man in the past (tense) and a girl in the present (tense) in the garden of times.

_grau

2004 • 10 min • Germany

_grau is a personal reflection on memories coming up during a car accident, where past events emerge, fuse, erode and finally vanish ethereally … various real sources where distorted, filtered and fitted into a sculptural structure to create not a plain abstract, but a very private snapshot of a whole life within its last seconds.

The Patio

2004 • 16 min • Switzerland, Argentina

Martina and Sofia are sisters. They wake up one morning in great heat, eat breakfast on the patio and remain there all day watching TV. They eagerly await a call from their mother who lives abroad.

Pre Evolution Soccer's One-Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League

2004 • 1 min • Portugal

Exactly what it's announced: the screen of the famous console video game and a dance with no music, to the fragile rhythm of replays.

In Heaven as on Earth

2004 • 5 min • Norway

During a trip to Hessdalen, "the Bermuda Triangle of the North", a rag-tag group of amateur scientist, torn apart by internal strife, are taught a lesson in the mysterious workings of causality.

A Dangerously Free Man

2004 • 52 min • Ukraine

Roman Shyrman's documentary details the life and work of Sergei Paradjanov, who was no less vibrant and extravagant in everyday life than in his films. His personal life was itself a piece of art. This film is a tragicomic story about this great improviser and fantasist.

Accordion

2004 • 6 min • Canada

Exploration of the connections between sex, love and technology.

Wohnhaft

2004 • 8 min • Germany

Documentary about the apartment of filmmaker Bernhard Marsch.

It Was Only a Dream

2004 • 4 min • Canada

A man wakes up from a bad dream only to realize he is in yet another nightmare. The most worrying thing is that it does not seem to stop. If only these dreams could stop... getting shorter and shorter!

Still Life

2004 • 16 min

Still Life gazes unflinchingly at the violence of war, observing the eerie architecture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip collapsed under Israeli occupation. This portrait provides brutal witness to how government sanctioned destruction metes upon structures of home and State. Unlike the mediated images of current warfare, Still Life examines the effects of the destruction of Occupation through the details of cinematic landscapes and its inherent inhabitants. In its relentless questioning reaffirmed with a unique and unremitting soundtrack by composer Zeena Parkins, Still Life forces us to focus on details of devastation.

Ester

2004 • 4 min • Sweden

A woman enjoys swimming because she feels a lot lighter in the water.