Berlin Horse

Railway Station

January 1980 •Polish

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

June 1896 •French

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Black Trip

November 1965 •English

Through the uses of kinescope, video, multimedia, and direct painting on film, an impression is gained of the frantic action of protoplasm under a microscope where an imaginative viewer may see the genesis of it all. – Grove Press Film Catalog

The Sunlit Night

June 2020 •English

An aspiring painter meets eccentric locals and a fellow New Yorker while working on a barn in Norway.

Miracle

January 1975 •English

Los Angeles-based artist Ed Ruscha’s 1975 short film Miracle centers on a day in the life of an auto mechanic (played by artist Jim Ganzer), who has a transformative experience while working on the engine of a Ford Mustang. Actress and singer Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas plays his love interest. Since the 1960s, Ruscha has received extensive critical acclaim for his paintings, photographs, drawings, and books exploring the commercial vernacular of Los Angeles—its graphic signage, architecture, and even parking lots. In effect, his work subtly comments on America’s cultural and socioeconomic evolution in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Miracle is one of only two films made by the artist in the 1970s. – Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis by Kelly Shindler, Associate Curator

The Science of Sleep

June 2006 •French

A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.

Memby

August 2020 •Portuguese

Glimpses and sparkles of light lead us onto the dreamy path of a timeless place, immersed within ancient nature. There, the ancestors move beyond the darkness, seeking to create another (im)possible world.

Hers is a Lush Situation

December 2018 •English

Like reading the back pages of a discarded journal revealing the thoughts of a young man slipping into madness, Hers Is A Lush Situation mixes a disjointed narrative with an underlying thread of black humor to give a subtle view on what young, urban lives really look like today.

Melting

January 1965 •English

Melting shows the natural monostructural disintegration of a strawberry sundae, its passage from rigidity to softness, from edibility to waste. The spoon resting on the plate refers to the human presence, which lurks behind the screen, declining to interfere with what transpires. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

Acceleration

June 1968 •

A film about the dominance of time and space over a human being. A poetic reflection on the transience of material life characterized by a Mediterranean ambience, contemplation, mosaic structure, and repetitive editing patterns.

A Lady and Her Maid

May 1913 •English

The photographer sends miss Ophelia a dozen photographs of her in different poses. Selecting the best one, she presents it to her favorite boarder, Billy, who does not think much of it and who gets very indignant when it is compared with the photo of his sweetheart. Miss Ophelia goes up to her room in tears and tells her faithful maid, Belinda, that her heart is broken. Belinda goes down and forcibly tells Billy what she thinks of him. Miss Ophelia resolves on suicide, because no one seems to love her. Belinda gets back in time to prevent this and, to divert her mistress, she suggests that they go together to a beauty specialist. Arriving there, both receive attention. Miss Ophelia gets a new complexion, while Belinda gets new teeth. Both invest in new gowns and dresses and the transformation is complete. At supper time, the boarders are all astounded.

The Miracle Water

February 1914 •Italian

In this sophisticated romantic comedy, healing waters are the cover for an extramarital affair that “cures” the infertility problems of a childless couple.

The Burning Towel or A Household Quarrel

August 1911 •French

A couple’s fight over dinner leads to spiralling domestic abuse that spreads all over town. (MoMA)

Spectrum

September 2019 •

A 1963 timelapse recording shows the effects of air pollution during an entire day on Santa Monica Bay in Los Angeles. A machine interpretation of an unstable version of the original file is divided into slits and rearranged in time, giving rise to a time panorama that mirrors an uncertain, abstract future lying ahead of us.

Olga

August 2020 •English

Farewell letter to an old love.

Book of Dreams: Welcome to Crateland

January 1994 •English

Mona relates her dream. Crawling through an apparently endless wooden crate, she encounters diverse characters while the crate itself is moving towards a fiery destruction.

Metamorphic

January 1991 •Italian

It is well known that the disposition of the images drawn by Escher are neither for animation nor for pre-animation; actually, quite the opposite. His images appear to be the carrying out of metamorphic dissolves. A bird gives way to the recognition of a house, which turns into fish, which turns into birds, and so on. Not a single flapping of wings takes place; everything is reiterated and fixed, becoming immersed in and re-emerging from a static continuum. All of Escher is an homage to one of the major animating forces of the cinema: the cross-dissolve. Precisely there, I found cinematic attitudes: in the house which turns into fish and in everything that transforms into something else. I gradually managed to figure out various types of non-existent sequences and then finally found myself dissolved, crossing over metamorphically. —P.G.

Dia de Visita

December 2011 •Portuguese

The Paintjackers

January 1959 •Russian

When the clock strikes twelve in a toy store a bunch of paint tubes come to life.

Death of a Stag

January 1951 •French

Russian emigré Dimitri Kirsanoff’s film, alternatively titled Death of A Stag and Une chasse à courre, is a post-war study of a traditional stag hunt. The pursuit of the animal finds a cross-cutting parallel in the felling of a tree in the forest.