The Island

The Island is a short film shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War. The artist and his family were some of the 250,000 people who inhabited the tiny island between 1978 and 1991; it was once one of the most densely populated places in the world. After the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shuttered the camp in 1991, Pulau Bidong became overgrown by jungle, filled with crumbling monuments and relics. The film takes place in a dystopian future in which the last man on earth - having escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam - finds a United Nations scientists who has washed ashore after teh world’s last nuclear battle. By weaving together footage from Bidong’s past with a narrative set in its future, Nguyen questions the individual’s relationship to history, trauma, nationhood, and displacement.

Rummaging for Pasts

Rummaging for Pasts is an experimental juxtaposition of two cinematic documents: the video diary of an international archaeological excavation and a collection of assorted eight millimeter found footage of Indian weddings.

Two Times in One Space

One film projected two times with a difference of a couple of seconds.

Western 4.33

Vertiginous documentary, shot in effective black-and-white, treats two painful histories. The first is a love story about a truck driver who, on his way from Johannesburg (South Africa) to Luderitz (Namibia), is haunted by thoughts of his girlfriend and their recently severed relationship. His memories are expressed in an often recurring scene, in which songs by Alec Empire, Macy Gray and Robert Schumann roughly tell the story. This small history is alternated with the tragic fate of the Namibian Heroro people, many thousands of whom died early last century in concentration camps that had been set up by the German colonisers near Luderitz. The depiction of this history is cruder and more poignant, with slanting frames, odd camera angles and a multi-layered sound sculpture. The dilapidated barracks and officers' quarters are the last remnants of the miscarried, so-called civilisation projects in Africa.

Wall Street

Shot at high noon in New York’s financial district, Wallstreet is much like a vertical tickertape, charting the existence of typical office workers. The film’s elongated shadows suggest these workers’ depersonalized, neuter, nearly uniform lives, which flow by without any solid or stable element that might provide definition.

Taris

Short documentary directed by Jean Vigo about the French swimmer Jean Taris. The film is notable for the many innovative techniques that Vigo uses, including close ups and freeze frames of the swimmer's body.

Head, Tail, Rail

The starting point of this film was a set of 35mm trailers acquired from various abandoned cinemas. This work reveals the veiled and forgotten images used by the commercial film industry.

Kata

Nature, gymnastic movements, a cat...

Vineyard IV

Glen Denny observed: "This film is not ocean, it is panther stalking jungle." Camera flows because it is free to move through space.

Swimming Stone

Fluidity of stone. Subatomic motion asserting a surface. Mind loop wandering. Visitation of sound matrix. Liquid solid. Nature transforms a planetary cycle. Relations of a timeless void.

Young Girls Vanish

Between 1652 and 1657, 58 girls were devoured by a wolf in the Essonne, France. Four centuries later, in the same place, young girls vanish.

Home Movie: On the Set of Philippe Garrel's 'Le lit de la vierge'

An experimental and poetic portrait of a woman.

Ignoring It: The Big Ba$il Story

A documentary about an up-and-coming young rapper with big aspirations.

Es-pi'azione

Shotgun Baby

A personal documentary questioning the ways in which family imposed narratives force us into roles that we spend our lives either rebelling against or conforming to.

Sinfonía de verano (Retrato de una ciudad)

A portrait of Madrid's summer

Layering

This short experimental diary film reveals my struggles with mental illness in my adolescence and queer adulthood while simultaneously reflecting upon my joyous childhood experiences. I investigate when and how my depression began and explain that my relationships with the people I love have supported me through my harder times. The film incorporates footage shot over May and June 2023 and archival home videos. Overall, I aim to resolve my "growing pains" through the medium of diary film and by reconnecting with my younger self.

Remains

Something takes us underground, where gods and monsters are active, amid the ruins of a world they move around with their innumerable hands. Inspired by Fritz Lang and Richard Wagner, Remains is a daydream.

In the Autumn Before the Winter Comes Man's Last Made Surge of Youth

Optically printed fragments of film I shot in the autumn months in Seattle. -JB This film was made in response to seeing some of Caryn Clines films. Caryn re introduced me to shooting my films outside. -JB

Age 12: Love with a Little L

This film is depicts early lesbian sexuality, using reenacted scenes from the experience of a 12-year old girl as the platform for a meditation on forbidden desire, transgression, and Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts of identity formation. Raw adolescent memories counterpoint staged scenes, exploring mechanisms of power and submission.

Avatar: Creating the World of Pandora

The Making-of James Cameron's Avatar. It shows interesting parts of the work on the set.

Daguerréotypes

An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.

Vampir Cuadecuc

An atmospheric essay, which is an alternative version of Count Dracula, a film directed by Jess Franco in 1970; a ghostly narration between fiction and reality.

The Beaches of Agnès

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

Stop Making Sense

A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.

Uncle Yanco

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never heard of before, Jean Varda, nicknamed "Yanco". This hitherto unknown uncle lives on a boat in Sausalito, is a painter, has adopted a hippie lifestyle and loves life. The meeting is a very happy one.

42 Up

Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)

Captured during Billie Eilish's sold-out world tour, a concert experience from one of the most celebrated and successful artists of her generation, presented in immersive 3D.

Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20

An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.

Naqoyqatsi

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Cameraperson

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

Heart of a Dog

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

Love, Marilyn

Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.

Varda by Agnès

An unpredictable documentary from a fascinating storyteller, Agnès Varda’s last film sheds light on her experience as a director, bringing a personal insight to what she calls "cine-writing," traveling from Rue Daguerre in Paris to Los Angeles and Beijing.

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

12 Days

A new documentary by filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon – where justice and psychiatry meet.

My Mom Jayne

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Adele One Night Only

A primetime special with performances from the superstar including Adele’s first new material in six years plus her chart-topping hits. The special will also feature an exclusive interview with Adele by Oprah Winfrey from her rose garden, in Adele’s first televised wide-ranging conversation.

28 Up

Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.