I did not know this filmmaker, Paolo Gioli, existed until yesterday. And that really bothers me because I feel a very strong kinship with this filmmaker just on the basis of having seen two of his pieces. What can a filmmaker do with his own backyard? That is the question that comes to my mind [...]

Between 1988 and 1998 filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard made a film called ‘Histoire(s) du cinéma.’ Though it purports to be a sort of cinema history, reflecting on how cinema intersects with the 20th century, I think it is more likely a vision of how cinema works in the mind of one filmmaker. The images drift in [...]

Italian filmmaker, Fabio Scacchioli, works with zero budget and creates masterpieces of Italian cinema.  I think the great movement of cinema in the 21st century is underway and it looks to me like Italy is riding the top of the wave.  We are finally reaching the point where an artwork is created with a ‘zero [...]

Read the following remarks at your own risk.  The post begins one way and finishes in another. The online film journal Senses of Cinema has an excellent essay by Pedro Blas Gonzalez called Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: An Existential Odyssey.  He examines 2001: A Space Odyssey from an existential viewpoint.  He focuses primarily on astronaut Dave [...]

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 length.  I am [...]

The Auteurs (www.theauteurs.com) is a site for art film lovers.  Their mission is to offer a huge selection of international art films by the world’s best directors for simple online viewing.  Last night I watched an Italian film from 1960 called L’Avventura, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.  The image quality was excellent and the sound was [...]