Shot in black and white, with a jazzy soundtrack and no dialogue at all, The Lift tells the classic story of man versus machine. First short film by Robert Zemeckis, made while he was studying in California.
Category: Short
Combining documentary authenticity with subtle fantasy, Danish directors Stefan Fjeldmark and Karsten Kiilerich explore children’s attitudes and vague conceptions about death.
The House is Black is an empathetic portrait of a leper colony from Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. Her work, both in film and poetry, has influenced everyone from Iranian New Wave master Abbas Kiarostami to French essay film pioneer Chris Marker. With The House is Black, Farrokhzad unflinchingly captures the world of a leper colony in Tabriz, Iran. She recites her own poetry over images of everyday life for a people shut away from society. Farrokhzad’s portrait highlights a world weighed down by tragedy yet uplifted by community. The result is a heartbreaking film that eschews condescension in favor of hard-won empathy.
A documentary of the epic story of the weaving Chigh. Chigh is a kind of texture made from wood and osier that is made in the ilats of the west of Iran and is used for covering around their Siah-chadors (tents).
This experimental short by Bruce Conner uses Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” as accompaniment to constantly shifting collage of female nude, cartoons, and newsreels of atomic bomb explosions.
A story of life and death, featuring Marcel Lozinski’s six-year-old son Tomaszek and elderly people spending time on the benches of a Warsaw park. Riding his scooter, Tomaszek asks the elderly very adult, though basic, questions, which they are happy to answer. The boy’s ideas of future and life are confronted with those of people at the end of their lives.
A series of strange abstract images are projected in a movie theater. An old man from Russia in the audience watches this and can make neither head nor tail of them. He heckles the picture, wondering out loud, “Vhat da hell is dis?” while irritating the other patrons around him. He comments outrageously the entire time, saying, “It must be some symbolism! I think it’s symbolic of… junk.”