This 2008 film was written, produced and directed by Javier Chillon of Madrid, Spain.  The director of photography was Luis Fuentes.  Artistic direction by Ángel Boyano.  In the fifties, a Soviet cosmonaut chimpanzee crash-lands in West Germany.  Within weeks, a deadly virus has spread across the country and confounds all the scientific experts.  The film [...]

Oscar Sharp made this beautiful short film in London. It stars Jethro Skinner as Ben, the ‘board guy.’ The performance is endearing and full of intelligent energy. The film was shot in HD by Anthony Gurner. I love the way the people have all these colors in their clothes and then [...]

The British Film Institute has released the first filmed version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.  This British film was made in 1903 by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow.

Using IBM computers, Dr. Henry Markram is building a model of the human brain that he hopes will take about 10 years to complete. Filmmaker Noah Hutton is chronicling the endeavor in an ongoing documentary that will be finished once the brain model exists. This is one of the most fascinating and important [...]

Spy Films produced this short film by Arev Manoukian.  Lots of beautiful slow-motion, water and glass.  I like the black & white retro look.  The film captures one of those fleeting moments of imagination that usually don’t involve both parties, but rather just the lonelier one.  Usually the guy.  The woman in the restaurant would [...]

Writer/director Wanuri Kahiu has made a twenty-minute science fiction film in Kenya about a future that takes place after great water wars have left the earth barren and lifeless.  The short, called Pumzi, is playing at the Sundance Film Festival.  It was produced by Inspired Minority Pictures.  The film follows a woman who works for [...]

This is a clip from a documentary film, Meanwhile, a butterfly flies, about filmmaker Jonas Mekas. He shares a few thoughts about culture, country, poetry and what those things really are.

Jonas Mekas is one of our great independent filmmakers. He spent years writing a film column in the Village Voice. He founded the Anthology Film Archives in New York City. He makes lots of films with small cameras that he can carry almost anywhere he goes. That is, by the way, [...]

I love Bob Dylan’s recent album, Christmas in the Heart.  Listened to it many times on Christmas day.  This is his video for Little Drummer Boy.  The people do seem awfully pink but maybe it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me.

I spend a lot of my very limited brain capacity wondering why Hollywood directors don’t run around with small cameras making their own little movies for YouTube.  Scarlett Johansson has made an excellent short film called These Vagabond Shoes which puts on display her obvious interest in and love for true cinema.  The person [...]

Born of Hope is an independent feature fan film inspired by The Lord of the Rings and produced by Actors at Work Productions in the UK.  Kate Madison is the main producer/director.  The film is a 70-minute original drama set in a time before the Lord of the Rings stories.  It tells the story of  [...]

Stan Brakhage was one the most important experimental filmmakers of the 20th century. He used many techniques to make his films, one of them being direct painting on the film itself. This is one of his pieces from 2000. It is very beautiful and goes through several distinct movements during its short [...]

Here’s a new film for the film fans who happen to stumble by. It’s a film about memory shifts, searching, losing something, trying to find the old image, trying to regain an old feeling or impression, capturing a season of life or the mind. As if one were thinking, “I can almost remember [...]

Here’s a beautiful science fiction film from Bruce Branit, about a man who builds a world for the woman he loves. If you’ve ever made anything in a 3D program, you know exactly what this film is up to.

Here’s a stop-motion film about the making of a book called The Complex of All These.  It was made at the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York and consists of 3,000 photographs taken over a 2-month period.
Via Dangerous Minds

This is an odd post and I’m not entirely sure I can pull it off. The film above is called Montparnasse. It was made in 1929 by Eugene Deslaw.  I watched the film and want to write about it cold, without looking up Mr. Deslaw on Google.  I’ll check up on him after [...]

Art Director Tommy Kane went to Lebanon and made a film about his wanderings. He also drew magnificent illustrations of what he saw. Those are in the film too.  The combination of the beautiful street scenes and the cheerfully expressive drawings make me want to get on a plane and go visit [...]

This film was made by Franck Deron.  On his blog he says that he filmed it without a lens, using a pinhole through some aluminum foil.  I’m not exactly sure what that means.  I’d be curious to know more about exactly how he set that up.  But I like the results.  It’s a mysterious and [...]

This is a short documentary called The Gospel According to Reverend Billy, from an outfit called Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers.  This guy looks like a preacher but he’s decidedly against what most preachers seem to be preaching in our angelic little country.  He’s Reverend Billy and he’s running for mayor in New York City.  [...]

Famed Charles Manson prosecutor and three time #1 New York Times bestselling author Vincent Bugliosi wants former President George W. Bush indicted for murder.  Bush and his vice-president Dick Cheney misled the nation into a brutal and needless invasion of Iraq which has resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,000 American soldiers.  They should both [...]