All Films

Asleep

2005 • 7 min

Night wandering in a labyrinthine city. Layout of roads, avenues, deserted streets, hostile architectures where the homeless, shadows of flesh and blood, lost in the power of the city, silently die. The film carries us away in the madness race of the city, at night, submerged by the insomniac, alienating waves of the media, through which the human voice tries, like a distant echo, an obstinate wake up call.

Panda Nursery

2005 • 50 min • China

Although they are trying to hold on to life despite all difficulties, there are fewer than a thousand in the wild today. But the struggle to save Panda and his species, the most beloved and charming bear in the world, continues with a great determination and dedication. The newborn panda puppies are now being raised by people with a new and wonderful partnership called 'exchange, cultivation', not just by their parents. In this documentary we look at the adventures of the panda nursery, who saved the lives of the twin pandas and the future of their generations, and the life stories of the cute pandas.

The Kings of Christmas

2005 • 10 min

Every year, starting on December 26, Steve Pancini begins to think about what animated-doll he will add to his lawn for next year's Christmas-even though he's already got hundreds of such dolls and has just taken weeks off from his job to maintain this year's display. Pancini, a Staten Island electrician, and others such as Frank Seddio, an Assemblyman in Canarsie, Brooklyn, compete to have the biggest, brightest, most over-the-top Christmas house in New York City. This short documentary shows what motivates these men and what it takes for them to pull it off bigger and flashier every year--despite the sometime objections of angry neighbors.

You Made Me Love You

2005 • 4 min • United Kingdom

Twenty-one dancers are held by your gaze. Losing contact can be traumatic. Twenty-one dancers play a game of cat and mouse with an unpredictable camera. Disoriented, the viewer is fixed by the gaze of dancers who crowd the frame. …On the one hand this is like looking at a group of aliens who have never seen anything like the camera (or you) before. The concentration of the faces on what is before them takes away their self-consciousness, and like a series of Thomas Ruff portraits they have an unsettling air of insouciance. But ultimately, the thought one is drawn to, and the allegory the title suggests, concern the contemporary obsession with becoming visible through some sort of brush with celebrity, however brief, demeaning or meaningless that might be.

Panni

2005 • 3 min

Panni is a visually arresting work in its formal structure and visual expression of colors. The subject matter of the film is a row of bed sheets flapping on a clothesline, drying in the wind. The colors punch through the screen as orange sheets flutter against a green backdrop of grass and trees.

Circunstancias

2005 • 53 min • United States of America

The story of a gay and Latino couple in New York. One of the lovers has a full professional life, the other, who has left everything in his native land, is unemployed and complains that his boyfriend works a lot and does not spend enough time with him.

Jane's Window

2005 • 11 min

My grandmother cherished her large dining room window for the opening it afforded her onto the world. From this perspective she would espy the arrival of friends and family, contemplate the change of seasons and reflect on time past. On the shelves of this window she collected mementos of a childhood in China, life as an artist, and the travels in between. Combining images of my own travels through Japan and China with images of the home my grandparents built, Jane’s Window reflects on the passing down of memory, curiosity and creativity across generations.

Case 442

2005 • 49 min • Australia

Frank Byrne was forcibly removed from his mother Maudie at the age of 5 and has been searching and yearning for her almost all of his life.

Ken Leishman: The Flying Bandit

2005 • 47 min • Canada

Ken Leishman: The Flying Bandit tells the remarkable story of the life of Canadian bank robber, prison escape artist and folk hero Ken Leishman. Earning his nickname "The Flying Bandit", by using his plane as a getaway vehicle. Leishman masterminded several stylish yet completely non-violent bank robberies throughout Canada during the 1960's and 1970's including the biggest gold heist in Canadian history.

Caspian Bride

2005 • 9 min • Azerbaijan, Germany

Beneath layers of grime and waste, a man unearths an ancient mannequin, bringing it back to his humble abode. After a meticulous cleansing and adorning, he embarks on a whimsical bicycle journey through the oil fields, with the mannequin as his unconventional companion. As a band of curious children playfully trails behind him, their escapade takes an unexpected turn when they encounter a flock of grazing sheep.

I Had an Abortion

2005 • 52 min

Underneath the din of politicians posturing about "life" and "choice" and beyond the shouted slogans about murder and rights, there are real stories of real women who have had abortions. Each year in the US, 1.3 million abortions occur, but the topic is still so stigmatized it's never discussed in polite company. Powerful, poignant, and fiercely honest, I HAD AN ABORTION tackles this taboo, featuring 10 women - including famed feminist Gloria Steinem - who candidly describe experiences spanning seven decades, from the years before Roe v. Wade to the present day.

The first day as a grandmother

2005 • 15 min • South Korea

Short film by Minkyou Yoo.

Homos en banlieue

2005 • 52 min

How does one live in the suburbs when one is a young homosexual? Should you run away or stay hidden in this macho environment? Is violence against gays a myth or a reality? Let's discover through their testimonies, the life of four homosexuals who agreed to break the law of silence.

Helen Hill's Home Movies

2005 • 23 min

"These unedited rolls of live-action footage shot by the animator capture images of New Orleans rituals and events, and glimpses of several neighborhoods both before Hurricane Katrina and in its aftermath. The footage, too, was a victim of the storm and despite preservation shows clear signs of water damage." - Anthology Film Archives

Turning Points Stories of Life and Change in the Church

2005 • 57 min

Turning Points is a documentary about Presbyterians struggling with the denomination’s previous barriers to ordination for LGBT Presbyterians. It opens with the poignant visit of Susie Smith, now a minister in the United Church of Christ, to her former Presbyterian congregation in South Carolina. Congregation members speak to the camera and to Susie about how their lives were changed by her presence and her departure. The choice between one’s son and one’s church is the focus of the Calhoun family’s story in the second segment. The third story recounts a tragic moment of misunderstanding in the life of a young minister and a daring act of reconciliation twenty years later. The fourth segment considers how a thriving congregation in the Midwest welcomes and includes gay and lesbian members.

Knowledge of Good and Evil

2005 • 2 min • Canada

"An abstract exploration of the tension surrounding women and stereotypical representations of their knowledge. The film was created from footage shot at Phil Hoffman's independent imaging retreat in Ontario as well as from footage shot in Vancouver (where I had given myself the challenge of shooting 100 feet of film every month). All of the footage was hand-processed, and some of it was contact printed by hand and treated in baths of potassium ferricyanide. The final film was created through various optical printing techniques." — Amanda Dawn Christie

Lancaster Bombers

2005 • 55 min

There is something delightfully nostalgic about the Lancaster Bomber that aircraft experts and enthusiasts alike will always appreciate. Reliable, versatile and readily available, the Avro Lancaster's arrival in 1942 made way for a new calibre of the four-engined bomber that would become Bomber Command's primary weapon during the Second World War. Participating in some of the most daring and famous missions of the day, the Lancaster marked a momentous period in British aviation history, and has maintained an iconic status ever since. Using original wartime footage and recent colour film of one of the few operational Lancaster's remaining in the world, this programme relays a full and fascinating account of the Lancaster's story, which will prove both informative and highly dramatic.

This Heat: Live In Koln Germany 1982

2005 • 43 min

A set from the end of This Heat's life, mid-transformation into Camberwell Now.

The Distance Between Here and There

2005 • 7 min • Canada

Traveling through an invented landscape... the space between here and there.

Envío 1

2005 • 1 min • Chile, Switzerland

for Ute Aurand, Berlin

After Hours

2005 • 7 min • United Kingdom

Shooting on 8mm film and making field recordings on cassette tape, recorded patterns of light and sound become a low quality, dreamlike plane of stillness, silence and uncertainty, exploring the passing of time through the study of vacant institutional spaces. The transitory spaces of these mundane but haunting buildings become an obsolete reality of forgotten ideals, the filmstrip itself a receiver of these resonances.

Living in the Dark

2005 • 5 min • United States of America

Often we can't appreciate something so close to us until its taken.

Invisible Cities

2005 • 48 min

Invisible Cities depicts a slow, almost weightless flight through what seems to be a deserted city where the only thing that reminds us of some life, are birds flying next to the central square. The sky is clear as the camera passes different archetypical aspects of any small northern European city: housing blocks, high rises, industrial areas, shopping streets and a railway station, leading to a central square.

The Hills Are Alive

2005 • 7 min • United States of America

With "The Hills Are Alive" BIermann takes an iconic scene from the 1965 Hollywood musical and reveals another take on the tenderness of this Rodgers and Hammerstein song, deconstructing it down to its smallest components, repeating its moments and reinscribing its music into something completely different.