Frankenstein's monster gropes towards the awareness that his mind is a universe; Attila, naked on a white horse, liberates his people from their ignominy; the ultra-caustic Viva bemoans the frustrations of married life and drifts into the elegiac persona of the Bloody Countess Bathory; Louis Waldon...
Moscow, summer of 1953. Tanya, an eleven-year old girl, meets a boy, Mitya. Mitya and his family have just returned from exile in the Russian Far East. Tanya learns that Mitya had to leave behind his best friend, a dog called Hector. Mitya is eager for Hector to join him in Moscow, but the adults...
The supremely world-weary Lemmy Caution, last seen in Godard's "Alphaville" (France/1965), has several strange encounters while trying to make his way from the former East Germany to "the west."
Described by Stephen Dwoskin as "a documentary without being one," the basis of BEHINDERT is autobiographical: the story of a physically disabled man and a physically normal woman- played by Dwoskin (who has a post-polio disability) and Carola Regnier- who confront the difficulties of a...
For this remarkable experimental film, the provocative avant-garde legend Stephen Dwoskin gathered together a group of strangers and filmed them as they explored their fantasies over a period of five days: a project that now sounds a little like TV's Big Brother. The ceremonial gowns and make-up...
'Dyn Amo' is a 'drama' exploring the distinction between a person's self and his projection of that self to others; and it's a 'horror movie' tragically suggesting how a projection can become more substantial than the self behind it. Its subjects are role-playing (especially sexual role-playing),...
Troubled teen Lisa can't seem to find the joy in everyday things. Lashing out desperately, she falls in love with her mother's junkie boyfriend, which can't end well.
Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars is an in-depth documentation of Robert Wilson’s ambitious attempt to stage an epic, twelve-hour, multinational opera for the 1984 Summer Olympics. Filmmaker Howard Brookner follows the avant-garde theatre director as he confronts a hectic work schedule, funding...
Evolves around the rooms of a house as one of the main characters, Lisiska, is waiting and is studied in depth as she prepares herself for a meeting. The film attempts to display sexual barriers and misconceptions, and about the role-playing and the confusion around the whole question of sexual and...
Trixi is Dwoskin’s most convulsive version of his recurrent theme: the confrontation of a solitary girl with the camera. Shot in one continuous 8-hour session. Trixi records Beatrice Cordua’s responses to the situation, from initial shyness, fear and withdrawal through teasing and posturing to...
A man walks towards the camera down the end of a street to the sound of 'Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet', a composition by Gavin Bryars based on a loop of an anonymous homeless man singing the song. The man’s voice is progressively intensified by an instrumental accompaniment, which increases...
An unfulfilled man renders himself to the unrealized sensuality of four women. In his drifting search, he fails and fades in the same loneliness as the women.
To Tea, made in Holland (at the house of the Dutch avant-garde filmmaker Franz Zwartjes), is a slowed ‘Alice in Roomland’.A guide to sensual contact between two women. Their contact is arrived at through an arrangement of slow tactics. As the light of day goes the bodies come closer, and the...
Life of an ordinary fisherman changes when a young mai-mai fish sees him and falls in love!... Set to original music by composer Gavin Bryars, the film tells a romantic story of the transforming power of love - even without a happy ending.
The décor for BIPED is an exploration into the possibilities of motion capture technology. The movements (but not the physical appearances) of the dancers were transposed into digital images. Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar collaborated with Merce Cunningham to make a new piece of virtual...
An experimental dance film featuring members of the Ballet Rambert, one of the world’s most renowned dance companies, performing to the music of Gavin Bryars.
