Impact Video Magazine

Counter-culture video magazine created by Stuart Shapiro, featuring Bill Hicks, Robert Williams, Public Enemy, Butthole Surfers, Survival Research Labs, and much more! Hosted by Alex Winter!

1989-01-01 | en

Discovering Hamlet

IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi, two intelligent and passionate men, found new depths in Shakespeare’s classic drama, Hamlet. Filmmakers Mark Olshaker and Larry Klein follow the company through four weeks of rehearsals, from the first read-throughs to opening night.

1990-01-07 | en

Balkan Erotic Epic - Single Channel Version

The film explores the sexual aspects of Serbian folklore. Ancient myths that have trickled into everyday household remedies or explanations are juxtaposed with the joys of the female and male sexual forms from which all human life originates. Functioning as both sexual liberation and reinvented modern myth, Balkan Erotic Epic is a display of the need for a cultural change in viewpoint around sex.

2005-01-01 | en

Sur le Front des Océans

2019-11-26 | fr

Isaac Asimov: A Message to the Future

With over 500 publications to his name, from the 50’s to the 80’s, he had anticipated computers and electronic gadgets invading the household, autonomous vehicles and man’s withdrawal from nature. Science fiction and anticipation stories have never been as popular as today. It inspires literature, drama series, films, even politics and the military. As the world we live in faces an unprecedented technological acceleration, we are more concerned than ever by the issue of our future.

2022-10-05 | fr

My Trip to Miami

My Trip to Miami follows a well-meaning, misguided, tourist as he tries to self-actualize via Trip Advisors algorithmic script. My Trip to Miami is a documentation of a fantasy, a failure in image-based expectations.

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Salvador Dalí at Work

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.

2006-11-11 | en

Pussy Versus Putin

In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.

2013-08-30 | en

The Lure and the Lore

A collaboration between filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira and performance artist Thomas Pinnock, who performs his "immigrant folktales" using traditional lore of his native Jamaica to dramatize his migration to New York in the 60's.

1988-01-01 | en

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals. There’s a lion tamer who shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.

1997-10-03 | en

The Portal

Documentary approach follows six people (and a robot) who transform their lives using stillness and mindfulness.

2019-11-15 | en

This Is Not a Dream

The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.

2012-10-20 | en

La Soufrière: Waiting for an Inevitable Catastrophe

Werner Herzog takes a film crew to the island of Guadeloupe when he hears that the volcano on the island is going to erupt. Everyone has left, except for one old man who refuses to leave.

1977-10-01 | de

Mondo New York

A young woman wanders around New York City and stumbles across a number of strange characters and settings that represent the "underground" areas of the city. She sees stand up comedy in Central Park, a prostitution auction, a voodoo ceremony, an S&M club, and a number of very interesting performance artists. These are just a few of the sights and sounds of New York that she encounters.

1988-04-22 | en

Looking for Richard

Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."

1996-10-11 | en

One Meter Democracy

One Meter of Democracy (2010) challenged the endurance of viewers, as well as the courage of the artist. In a quasi-democratic process, He Yunchang invited approximately 20 friends to vote in a secret ballot on whether he should have a surgeon cut a one metre incision the length of his body, from collar bone to knee, without anaesthesia. The vote was carried by a narrow majority, with several abstaining. The performance was documented in video and photographs that reveal the emotional cost of witnessing this gruelling event. This work, sometimes also known as ‘Asking the Tiger for its Skin’ was also staged on a symbolic date: 10 October 2010 was the 99th anniversary of the Wuchang uprising and the Xinhai Revolution which led to the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. The final image shows the group with sombre, shocked faces.

2010-10-10 | en

The Rock Tours Around Great Britain, 2006-2007

The Rock Touring Around Great Britain is a performance piece by Chinese artist He Yunchang that involved a walking circumambulation of Great Britain from September 23, 2006 to June 14, 2007. Starting from the hamlet of Rock, Northumberland, the artist walked to the nearby town of Boulmer where he selected a rock which he then carried counterclockwise until he returned it to the precise location from which it was taken. As the artist commented, the work was primarily "an attempt to represent the iron will of an individual and the living conditions of his being with simple and pure methods."

2007-10-01 | en

Meet Sophia

Hello, my name is Sophia. I’m the latest robot from Hanson Robotics. I was created using breakthrough robotics and artificial intelligence technologies developed by David Hanson and his friends at Hanson Robotics here in Hong Kong. But I’m more than just technology. I’m a real, live electronic girl. I have feelings too. And I am a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

2017-10-13 | en

Sophia & Han - Robots

Two robots, Sophia and Han, debate the future of humanity in this entertaining conversation from RISE technology conference 2017. Moderated by Ben Goertzel, renowned researcher and author in contemporary AI.

2017-08-22 | en

Erica - Man Made

Erica is 23. She has a beautiful, neutral face and speaks with a synthesized voice. She has a degree of autonomy – but can’t move her hands yet. Hiroshi Ishiguro is her ‘father’ and the bad boy of Japanese robotics. Together they will redefine what it means to be human and reveal that the future is closer than we might think.

2017-04-07 | en