Movies: Avant garde

Filmed in Chicago & finished in 1959, The Cry of Jazz is filmmaker, composer and arranger Edward O. Bland's polemical essay on the politics of music and race - a forecast of what he called "the death of jazz." A landmark moment in black film, for...

Seeing himself as a form unable to experience intimacy, he is given the chance when brought to the household of twin sisters....

Shirley Clarke's frenetic documentary about multi-talented musician Ornette Coleman....

A guy named Ray tries to go to sleep and a sasquatch gets into funky business....

"Dancing is sculpting in time." Diotima captures the fluid grace of two people sculpting time through dance, in a continuous one-take shot around Indy Simin's "Echt in Vorm." Their movements inside, around, and upon the sculpture reveal a simple unit...

Although the free jazz movement of the 1960s and '70s was much maligned in some jazz circles, its pioneers - brilliant talents like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane - are today acknowledged as central to the evol...

"I only say the sun goodbye." Dionisos captures the existential unease where insomnia echoes and shadows of past regrets linger. As days blend into unconsciousness, the night unveils a haunting struggle between personal demons and the unending flow o...

Recorded Live in Paris in 1980, this is a rare recording of Frank Zappa performing at the peak of his career with his incredible backing band, including Ike Willis (guitar/vocals), Ray White (guitar/vocals), Tommy Mars (keys), Arthur Barrow (bass) an...

The wind carries an aspiring healer into a chaotic, virulent parallel world. Paralyzed by a familiar universe that is gradually becoming distorted, she discovers she has the power to stop time....

Ayush suffers from sleep paralysis and dark hallucinations, haunted by shadowy figures that represent his repressed fears. Trapped between dream and reality, he confronts these manifestations of his inner turmoil....

Shot on July 23, 1968, this historical 16mm footage of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention at Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, CA has been newly restored from the Vault! The film has been newly synced to the 2023 mixes, marking the first time i...

A multimedia sex-ed video about life and love in a world where humans have corkscrew penises and corkscrew vaginas....

Abstract experimental film by Ignacio Mardones...

An experimental portrayal of being adrift in a daydream....

You find yourself in a foreign landscape. Two other people are on the horizon. Something about the world around you is off. It isn't long before something is released from a caged pit. There is limited time left as something ugly consumes the land ar...

Short film shot in southern Chile, appreciating its landscapes with an experimental visual objective....

An experimental film documenting a river leading up to a waterfall, depicting both its natural beauty and its inherent danger....

A corridor of an apartment is transformed into a claustrophobic and vertiginous vortex that swallows and imprisons you in an infinite fall through a mise en abyme: it’s a pure enclosure inside the image world, it’s the Descent into the Maelstrom....

The humble line has a life of its own. As it travels from one point to the next it can take whatever route it fancies. With plenty of ups and downs, it encounters all manner of random items and beings as it endlessly travels towards its destination. ...

An American Dissident: un tributo a Frank Zappa is an Italian documentary that aired on the Videomusic channel on January 7, 1994. It includes footage from Zappa's Universe, Video From Hell, Does Humor Belong In Music?, Baby Snakes, The True Story Of...