All Films

Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix

2019 • 7 min • South Korea

Ayoung Kim’s enchanting film Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix (2019) takes the viewer on a journey through hyperbolic mythology based on a fictional genderless mineral Petra Genetrix. Through this character, Kim explores the Mongolian animist belief that positions land, mother rock, stones, and sacred caves at the center of their universe. By likening rocks and stones as the Earth’s memory storage vessel, the work illuminates the futurist potential of animism: “Quartz can be considered to be a type of natural computer since it absorbs and stores a large amount of energy“. The traditional spirituality oriented towards land or ancient animism reveals the potential equivalence between primeval objects and the futuristic memory sphere.

Chai Coffee

2019 • 49 min • India

An upset musician comes to an unidentified place for isolation but his life changes as he meets a girl with extremely spontaneous yet thoughtful nature.

Pleasure Prospects

2019 • 17 min • Canada, Lithuania, Norway

New Mineral Collective is the largest and least productive mining company in the world. The company provides counter- prospecting operations and geo-trauma healing therapies at 259 Lake Shore Blvd E and Small Arms. This video installation, Pleasure Prospects, follows the process of acquiring prospecting licenses for alternative values and takes a critical look at “perforated landscapes”—land altered by extractive industries.

Preacher Lawson: Get to Know Me

2019 • 58 min

In his debut stand-up special, "America's Got Talent" finalist and comedian Preacher Lawson overshares about losing a million dollars to a child, sleeping in a race-car bed in high school, frequently peeing his pants and being vegan.

Dorsia

2019 • 12 min

A promising youngster of the 'Posh-Milan', Davide, finally has an invitation for the most glamorous club in Milan and the most exclusive event of the season, Dorsia. However, due to an error on the list he will be rejected by the bouncer. He embarks on a series of attempts to get inside. Through a mosaic of encounters with typical characters of the Milan's night scene and his continuous failings, his well constructed mask of charisma will fall, showing a different face beneath it.

My Own Life

2019 • 14 min

Ian is a shy and insecure teenager searching for his identity. With his only imaginary friend, he learns to discover himself and face his difficulties.

509 Films: Volume 14

2019 • 57 min

Volume 14 features the best backcountry snowmobile athletes in the world as they travel the globe in search of the best terrain mother nature has to offer. From powder turns in Sweden's tundra, to 270 backflips in British Columbia, the team has stepped it up for yet another season. Follow us as we hitch a ride with many of the sport's legends, as well as the newest generation of backcountry shredders.

Familiars

2019 • 6 min • France

In a cottage deep in the forest, a cat and an owl are competing for the approval of their witch mistress. Less skilled for spellcasting than his rival, the cat steals her magic wand from the witch as she leaves for the woods.

Ghost Estate

2019 • 8 min

A young couple expecting move into the house of their dreams, only to find that it is possessed by an evil entity. Also, the sink is banjaxed.

Helium

2019 • 10 min

It's all fun and games... until your voice gets stuck.

A Woman Who Paints Thangkas

2019 • 25 min • China, United States of America

Lutso is one of the first female painters of Tibetan thangka art—intricate and colorful depictions of Buddhist icons painted on fabric. As a mother, wife, and daughter with responsibility to her parents, she struggles to support her family as an artist.

Chemical Intervention in (Film) History

2019 • 57 min • Germany

Part one starts with an overview of the prehistory of moving images in the 19th Century: Zoetrope, Phenakistiscope, Chronophotagraphy etc. until the invention of the Cinematograph and Kinetograph/Kinetoscope. The second part will be devoted to the Brothers Lumiere following 20 of their amazing documentaries between 1895 to 1905. The third part is a new interpretation of A TRIP DOWN MARKET STREET, San Francisco 1906.

The First VCR

2019 • 45 min

This is a documentary about the 1956 invention of the first VCR (video cassette recorder), which launched the home video revolution.

Lunch Box

2019 • 9 min

The dishes in an obento are a reflection of “someone’s” heart from ‘then’ until ‘now’. Obentos have been made somewhere in kitchens in towns every morning. One day for an obento made with a quite elaborate hand; One day for an obento made with a quick, simple hand; One day for an obento left behind on a table by a careless forgetful hand; One day without an obento because of “someone’s” oversleeping. An obento stays close beside us day by day. but strangely enough, an obento is quite common and a matter of course. This film is dedicated to all those people as “someone” who makes an obento.

Miasma

2019 • 4 min

Onto the architecture of a temple, it's attributes are heard.

Venus is a Guy

2019 • 15 min

Michele, Emanuele and Ornella. Three lives that cross for an existential void that they try to fill with addictions: some from drugs and from Botox, some from their mother and from the disastrous family context and those from their sexual impulses perhaps never really explicit. Each of these figures seeks their own place in the world by asking to be loved.

Mbudha, in the Chimpanzees' Footsteps

2019 • 52 min • Belgium, France

In the northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a ‘red zone’ remains, designated as such since the second war of the Congo, (1998–2002), where no foreigners have entered since 1999. The biologist Anne Laudisoit and her team of Congolese scientists embark upon a scientific exploration to identify species that dwell in one of the last virgin territories of Central Africa. In the lush yet inaccessible valleys of the Blue Mountains thrives an amazing startling biodiversity. Rumor has it that there are even chimpanzees.

The Bag

2019 • 18 min • Ukraine

Going home lonely woman finds the corpse on the lane. The man was strangled by the plastic bag. And this is not the first murder in the city. Who is this maniac and who is his next victim? Major Gunko and Junior Lieutenant Petrushka are going to investigate this series of murders.

Symbiont

2019 • 21 min • Mexico

Pelayo goes through life trying to direct reality as if it was the shooting of a movie, which is why he goes from one public place to another in this task. People react in crescendo to Pelayo with increasingly convincing results for him.

The last jar

2019 • 8 min • Peru

Old shipibo konibo Lola witness how mestizos have appropriated and deforested the forests that ancestrally belonged to her community; they are no longer allowed access and she no longer have the materials to make their ceramic jars. She worries that every day they are losing their culture

Text Complex

2019 • 7 min • Japan

The protagonist hates the Japanese hiragana letter "hee." Just the sight of it bothers her. But one day, she finds herself in a parallel world where the same syllabary lives a spectacular life.

Dirty Dishes

2019 • 4 min

The mannequin washes the "Dirty dishes", makes a dirty cleaning and lives with a dirty neighbor. The responsible adult "Ramon" fights with the sloppy lazy "Nini" for cleanliness. Only one dummy can win, and revenge is always a dirty business.

Don't Look Now: 4K Restoration Featurette

2019 • 7 min • United Kingdom

New featurette, Steve Bearman (senior colorist at Silver Salt Restoration) discusses some of the issues that had to be addressed during the 4K restoration of Don't Look Now. Cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond also comments on the type of look that he and the restorers wanted to preserve for the final product. Before and after comparisons are provided.

Midnight Bleu

2019 • 16 min

Ben, a twenty-year-old depressive and quiet boy, passionate about music and art in general, wants to write songs. Stuck between a brother who is his only friend and an absent father, he is searching for his source of inspiration.