Nightingales in December

Torchbearer

February 2005 •Czech

The mechanism that propels the cycle of the sun and the moon has failed, and endless night falls. A nameless and silent hero must find his way through a dangerous labyrinth of traps, fierce creatures, and mysterious sentinels to restore the mechanism.

Candle

September 2021 •English

Confined to an endlessly burning waiting room, a dying sedentary woman experiences herself blurring in and out of her body. In her last remaining fragments she tries to make amends with her spirit before her remaining fragments either decay or create.

Hen, His Wife

May 1990 •Russian

Extraordinarily detailed and beautifully drawn animation of a bizarre and surreal world; the domestic life of a fat man, his wife, a sort of oversized obese chicken, and their child/pet, a slug-like creature with a human head. This expressionistic and interior vision of Soviet animator Kovalyov is like an animated Eraserhead. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, Academy War Film Collection, in 2007.

Atman

July 1975 •Japanese

ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set up an increasingly rapid circular motion. ĀTMAN is an early Buddhist deity often connected with destruction; the Japanese aspect is stressed by the devil mask of Hangan, from the Noh, and by using both Noh music and the general principle of acceleration often associated with Noh drama.

Red Colored Elegy

June 2007 •Japanese

Uninvolved with the political movements of the time, Ichiro and Sachiko hope for something better, but they’re no revolutionaries; their spare time is spent drinking, smoking, daydreaming, and sleeping—together and at times with others.

Plus Minus

January 1967 •Finnish

A short avant-garde film from Finnish director Eino Ruutsalo.

Wax Experiments

April 1927 •German

For the production of this film, Oskar Fischinger tinted various layers of hot wax. After cooling, the resulting lump of wax resembled a marble cake. Fischinger then began to cut off slices from the lump, photographing each step.

Forward March, Time!

May 1977 •Russian

Soviet animation from Vladimir Tarasov.

38-39°C

January 2011 •English

A man enters an old public bathhouse and dream of his father while under the spell of the elevated temperatures.

Tin Pan Alley Cats

July 1943 •English

A jazz cartoon involving a "Fats Waller"-like cat who leaves the "Uncle Tomcat Mission" for the local jazz club. One of the “Censored 11” banned from TV syndication by United Artists in 1968 for racist stereotyping.

The Match

January 1987 •

Krešimir Zimonić's take on the underlying nature of a hard-fought soccer game.

Voyage

June 2023 •English

Follow the flight of a bird, from the city to the sea

TRAUMA

March 2014 •

TRAUMA is a collaborative film project by Jesse Kanda and Arca first partially exhibited at MoMA PS1 at the end of 2013. The film follows a nonlinear narrative about the death of a salaryman, a drunk driving infant and takes place within a subconscious world. TRAUMA's score will span through Arca's existing and future works.

The Birth of the Robot

October 1936 •English

This experiment was a “prestige advertisement” for Shell Motor Oil. As conventional animation became dominated by Walt Disney, many European filmmakers turned to puppets as an alternative, and Lye enlisted the help of avant-garde friends such as Humphrey Jennings and John Banting to make the amusing puppets. Exploring the still-complex color process, which involved the combination of three separate images, Lye creates such a vivid storm scene that reviewers hailed it as “proof that the color film has entered a new stage.” The music is Holst’s The Planets. - Harvard Film Archive

Around Perception

January 1968 •English

An early experiment in employing computers to animate film. The result is a dazzling vibration of geometric forms in vivid color, an effect achieved by varying the speed at which alternate colors change, so producing optical illusions. In between these screen pyrotechnics appears a simple line form gyrating in smooth rhythm. Sound effects are created by registering sound shapes directly on the soundtrack of the film.

memoria e imaginación

September 2013 •

The End of Hunger

January 2008 •French

Expeditious.

Crossing Victoria

August 2013 •English

An experimental animation that recalls a treacherious, winter journey across a Montréal landmark.

Sophie's Place

July 1986 •English

Five years in the making, Lawrence Jordan's feature-length "alchemical autobiography" Sophie's Place takes as its inspiration the story of the Greek goddess of wisdom, Sophia. Writes Jordan, "I must emphasize that I do not know the exact significance of any of the symbols in the film any more than I know the meaning of my dreams... I hope that the symbols and the episodes set off poetic associations in the viewer. I mean them to be entirely open to the viewer's own interpretation."

Patch

March 2014 •German

An experimental animated short film using abstract painting to explore the tension field between abstraction and recognizability.