All Films

In 1971 Matta-Clark produced works for the exhibition Brooklyn Bridge Event. This film records his process of making a sculpture - a small wall made of rubbish, waste paper and tin cans collected from the area. —EAI

The camera slowly zooms, in over a long period of time, on the light of the sun reflected in the mirror of a bicycle parked at the construction site. To this is added a slowly evolving flicker effect derived from negative-positive reversals, progressively dismantling the distance from the subject. Nakai created a masking film with a calculated pattern of black and white frames into which he inserted positive and negative images and made a print out of two separate rolls of film. The original projection speed was 16 frames per second, but the sound is separate from the open-roll tape rather than burned in, so it can also be screened at 24fps. Also, the original sound consisted of the friction noise of rubbing steel, but in 2019 a new version of the sound was created featuring the friction noise of glass. Two versions of the film exist: 24:15 mins at 24 fps and 40 mins at 16 fps.

This film appears to focus on the female body in an artistic and colorful manner through the use of superimposition and flashes of repeated scenes. The film begins with two females in the nude, chatting, smoking, and eating saltines. Other scenes include two females in the nude and in a variety of positions: slouching, standing, sitting, etc. They are displayed in many colors and patterns, purple in one scene and polka dots the next. At one point, the women appear to be colorful cutouts moving jaggedly around the screen. In this film and in Hexagrams, Byron re-uses some of the same film scenes to create original content. Festival of Cyclists was created using a film technique invented with a Bell and Howell Film 16mm camera. In this technique, a short loop of film is repeatedly printed onto the camera roll. Byron wrote and published an article in Filmmaker's Newsletter about the technique. In 1972, Festival of Cyclists was shown at the 10th Ann Arbor Film Festival.

The objective is to show myself visiting myself, and then showing the frustration of loneliness, by trying to be with myself. –Al Wong

Phosphene features colorful negatives of erotic imagery. Scenes in the film display flashes of sexual intercourse and vibrant inkblots (similar to those seen in Inkaboos). During the creation of this film, Byron was fascinated with the degenerated images in old film footage. He went on to obtain pornographic films shot in 8mm. He photographed individual frames using a still camera with high magnification and further exaggerated the grain and the contrast. Prints of these frames were re-photographed on kodalith negatives and then fastened like animation cels. Colored gels were placed beneath the kodaliths on a light box and the sequences re-animated. The film was screened at the 9th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1971; however, it was nearly rejected due to its erotic imagery. The music in this film is from the Grateful Dead song, “Viola Lee Blues”, and can also be heard in Fotogrammar. -Chicago Film Archives

"Abstraction deals with the interpretation of abstract form as found in the combination of the nude body, landscape, and objects. Imagery is achieved through visual distortion dealing with reflective surfaces, as well as the superimposition of subject matter. The rhythmic structure focuses on a pulsating expansion and contraction that simulates a life force. An attempt has been made to reveal the basic concepts of a painter's approach to the distillation of reality." —Rosalind Schneider

"This is a comedy about a boy who sweeps floors in a Chi-Com drug store and who one day meets a girl. What happens after that is humorously absurd." —Keith Lock & Jim Anderson

Located is south of Iran. a teenager belongs to a group of boys catches a red fish from the sea and adventures follow.

A boy, a girl, several horses, a mother, and a nursing baby provide the central focus for a study of movement.

Paleolithic Pornograffiti is about a prehistoric man who learns how to whack, is shown how to fuck, and sets out to try

Music by Morton Subotnik. "A computer-generated abstract film produced by the world-famous sculptress, with original music by a leading contemporary composer. Circles revolve in, around, and through each other, float off like loosened coils, and evolve into whirling spheres. The pale colors of the circles multiply into brilliant hues against a stark musical accompaniment which evokes the sounds of endlessly bouncing springs." – The Booklist

Follows the experiences of two brothers and their little sister as they explore the inside of a large empty house which is rumored to be haunted.

The title owes a lot to Dali because the film takes off from the fascination shared by the great Catalan and his friends Lorca and Bunuel with the wounds of the martyred saint Sebastian. But the text in the intertitles comes, of course, almost exclusively from Georges Bataille’s Eroticism. This film is a darker, more focused, companion piece to the slightly earlier Barbarêveuse. It really ought to be a treat for any self-respecting sado-masochist. RS

This space and texture work, created specifically for video, is a tour of the skyline and domestic interiors of New York's Chinatown.

A Playground for Baboosh...

Traditional music of the Trobriand Islands is played on a variety of flutes, from simple curving stems to panpipes. Songs (wosi) are also an important part of Trobriand music, and although everyone may compose and sing, people with special talents are encouraged to develop their skills. A range of songs are filmed and translated here: gardening and sailing songs, kula trading songs, songs of love and enticement, of grief and mourning. The film also reveals glimpses of everyday and ritual life: villages, gardens (and their magic), exchange, harvest dances, children in the rain.

A film animation experiment in metaphoric imagery. This is a surrealistic garden where the earth seethes with strange, unusual shapes and activity, accelerated in movement, compressed in time. Insect-like creatures dart under and over the sand with elusive swiftness; Picasso-like faces stare momentarily upward, mutate, and disappear; wilted blossoms become suddenly animated. What happens on the screen is punctuated and accompanied by synthetic sound effects.

An animated film exploring modern urban life.

An animation film based on a Latvian folk tale.

A sobering look at Battersea's Doddington and Rollo estate - home to 7,000 people.

A personal take on Palestine and the creation of Israel, from the Arab perspective. Admittedly a presentation of only one side of the story, done in order to provide some balance to the issue for American audiences. The filmmaker uses a narrative voice over photos as well as metaphoric images and skits, rather than relying on documentary footage.

“The destruction of trees in Sydney...chainsaws, the trees really screaming out. Rapid zooming, often close up shooting. In Edgecliff and Paddington, near where I lived, I'd travel around with the council workers as they lopped established trees, made way for progress...power lines, new buildings. On the Cahill Expressway, across from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, huge old Moreton Bay Figs were being butchered. As they were ripping and cutting into the trees, I was ripping into them…very physically, rapid zooming. I wanted a very strong message. It was way over the top, really…screeching chainsaws and woodchip machines. There was no real Green Movement in those days. When I showed the film, people came up to me and said I’d made them feel guilty for lopping down trees in their own yard. The aggression of the film still causes people trouble.” (Paul Winkler)