The Stendhal Syndrome or My Dinner with Turhan Bey

Joan Crawford's close-up in Humoresque. Michelangelo's David and Boticelli's "Birth of Venus". Stendhal was overwhelmed by the cultural overstimulation in Florence, which Graziella Magherini described scientifically in 1979 as Stendhal syndrome. Mark Rappaport describes his fascination for the Austrian actor Turhan Bey, who made a career in exotic roles in Hollywood in the 1940s. A very personal essay about the effect of close-ups, the canvas idols of the dream factory and the role of their admirers and fans.

2020-12-31 | en

It's Yours: A Film on Hip-Hop and the Internet

By the dawn of the 21st century, hip-hop sales had reached an all-time high, but one thing has remained the same. The doors were still locked, and the music industry held the keys. Young artists began to self-market on the Internet, ultimately helping to collapse the music industry as we knew it. It’s Yours explores how it became possible to become a rap star through a Twitter account, YouTube site or Myspace page. It tells this story through the unique perspectives of numerous artists, producers, record industry insiders, and music and cultural critics.

2020-02-13 | en

Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy

This subversive documentary unpacks the tricks brands use to keep their customers consuming — and the real impact they have on our lives and the world.

2024-11-19 | en

The Social Dilemma

This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.

2020-01-26 | en

Feels Good Man

When indie comic character Pepe the Frog becomes an unwitting icon of hate, his creator, artist Matt Furie, fights to bring Pepe back from the darkness and navigate America's cultural divide.

2020-09-04 | en

Love in the Time of Corona

A video essay by Mark Rappaport, which spans René Magritte and Michelangelo to Bonnie & Clyde. Let’s mask up to rob a bank! But make sure that you are home before the curfew.

2021-06-08 | en

TFW No GF

Born from the internet, the phrase "TFW No GF" was originally used online to describe a lack of romantic companionship. Since then, it has evolved to symbolize a greater state of existence defined by isolation, rejection and alienation. The meme's protagonist, "WOJAK," has become the mascot to a vast online community consisting of self-described "hyper-anonymous twenty somethings" and "guys who slipped between the cracks." TFW No GF asks: How has the zeitgeist come to bear down on a generation alienated by the 'real world'? Meet the lost boys who came of age on the internet- places like 4chan and Twitter, where they find camaraderie in despair.

2020-04-27 | en

Ausgerastet und abgestürzt: Der Fall des Angry German Kid

Be it as ‘Unreal Tournament Kid’, ‘KeyboardCrasher’, or ‘Angry German Kid’: Almost everywhere across the world this video of a youth who freaks out whilst playing on the computer and destroys his keyboard is known. Many still share it today as a meme when chatting without knowing that it was staged. Also: the young guy never uploaded the video himself. Powerless, he had to witness how it was shared and distorted countless times – how it destroyed a part of his life. Now, for the first time, Norman Kochanowski speaks with ZAPP about his story and the consequences of virality.

2023-02-02 | de

You Can't Kill Meme

A hybrid documentary feature film about the genesis of "memetic magick" and its application by the alt-right in the United States.

2021-11-05 | en

The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem

From Rickrolling to viral conspiracy theories, explore how an anonymous website evolved into a hub for real-world chaos in this documentary.

2024-03-10 | en

Home Page

A look at the early days of online culture as personified by college student Justin Hall, now acknowleged as the web’s first blogger.

1998-10-14 | en

Rope’s End

A fictionalized biography on John Dall who was in two great movies - Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950).

2022-05-21 | en

Functions of Film Sound

This visual essay sets clips from Robert Bresson's "A Man Escaped" to a reading of "Functions of Film Sound," a chapter from David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's book "Film Art." The chapter analyzes the sound design of Bresson's masterpiece as a means of discussing the use of sound in film.

2013-03-26 | en

The Wikipedia Promise

In 2001, Jimmy Wales published the first article on Wikipedia, a collaborative effort that began with a promise: to democratize the spreading of knowledge, monopolized by the elites for centuries. But is Wikipedia really a utopia come true?

2021-01-03 | de

Daedalus

"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." Shot in just seven consecutive days during the summer of 2023, it concludes the first volume of Bliss, a playlist of sounds and shapes. Daedalus delves into the perilous dance between striving for something and the suffocating pull of stagnancy. This chaotic structure bridges the warnings and epiphanic thoughts of 20th-century thinkers with the lives of today's dreamers.

2024-07-17 | en

InRealLife

InRealLife takes us on a journey from the bedrooms of British teenagers to the world of Silicon Valley, to find out what exactly the internet is doing to our children.

2013-09-09 | en

Rebuild of Evangelion Series Analysis

| ru

Lullaby of Ukraine

Dedicated to the Children of Ukraine, victims of the brutal Russian invasion...Let everyone ask themselves and the leaders of their countries: what else has to happen, what arguments are needed that Ukraine is finally given the necessary military aid for Victory?

2022-10-24 | uk

Martin und Hans

A fictional biography of Hollywood actors Martin Kosleck and Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, both of whom fled Hitler-era Germany to live a long-lasting relationship.

2022-05-20 | en

Last Year in Dachau

Near Munich, in Bavaria, Germany, is the Schleißheim Palace, where French filmmaker Alain Resnais shot his film Last Year at Marienbad in 1960. Nearby is the Dachau concentration camp, where thousands of people were killed between 1933 and 1945. An essay about the present and the past, beauty and horror, life and death.

2020-07-10 | fr