There Is

PD Dr. Andreas Rauscher and Prof. Dr. Marcus Stiglegger are talking about black cinema.

Natalie Merchant's entire musical life encapsulated in this very personal film, which digs deep into the music through live performances, archival footage, and interviews. The memoir-style film contains live performances, archival footage, and interviews with musicians, friends, and fans about the influence the songs of Tigerlily have had over the past 20 years.

Like talking toy animals, we sit there and speak, every day. We speak copy-and-paste language. We don't know yet what we will have said. In the "Istanbul", it's risky. It can work, it can fail, just like maintaining the role.

Kenji Onishi short film time-lapse projection at YIDFF 2013 (Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival).

"My name, melancholia".

During the production of my Jabba documentary short, Slimy Piece of Worm Ridden Filth, I was put in contact with Toby Philpott’s colleague and Jabba’s right hand man. Literally, his right hand man, puppeteer Dave Barclay. Dave helped us, along with Toby (Jabba’s left arm), Mike Edmonds (tail) and John Coppinger (animatronic engineer) to reconstruct just how it was inside that filthy Hutt. And of course it couldn’t have been done without the amazing work of Eletrographica aka Pete Starling, who rendered all that information into a multilayered illustration. Dave was so impressed with the Jabba documentary that he asked if I would consider doing one on Yoda. Dave aged just 19 in 1979 was involved in building and puppeteering Yoda for The Empire Strikes Back. After a few email exchanges, Dave kindly found time between his work on The Muppet Show for an interview.

A reflection on lesbian desire.

This new work is developed from footage collected during a trip to the remote and beautiful sub-tropical island of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. In March 2015, after Rivers’ visit, Vanuatu was devastated by Cyclone Pam, laying waste large parts of the islands. River’s 16mm lm material has become a record of a place that has irrevocably changed. Filmed on 16mm and then digitised, island imagery of active volcanoes, underwater WW2 debris, children playing, and wrecked boats transform into intangible digital recollections of the island. Images of the eroded land merge with eroding lm and deteriorate until they are no longer recognisable.

My projects often come about from traveling, which was not possible in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, I attempted to travel vicariously through the webcams of the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration, capturing screenshots on my phone and editing them with videos I had recorded during the pandemic and on previous trips to Iceland. I found time and landscapes moving strangely, if at all—seeming to mirror our new reality of sudden isolation, tragedy, and the utter unknown.

While mowing her lawn Janice uncovers a hole in the ground and is forced to navigate its ever-looming sounds and presence.

Utilising modes of queer bodily abjection and subversions of concrete poetry, IN THE FIELD THERE IS A SWELL attempts to explore relations between mimetic aversions of both bodily autonomy and visibility and trans depiction in everyday life and work.

Samuel Muxingueno escapes from conflict areas in eastern Angola, and seeks shelter in Luanda. Here, his main enemy becomes his own shadow. Seeking to get rid of it, Samuel turns to life in the darkness of a deserted building. To be able to get back into the light, he makes a radical decision.

There is something exhilarating about observing an artistic star that shines at the edge of the cosmos, and steadfastly refuses to move to the centre, that even seems to vanish beyond the periphery as time and fashion move on, only for it to become visible again”. Tim Cawkwell.

​The Fruit is There To Be Eaten is based on the 1947 film Black Narcissus, by British directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger., set in India. The work echoes the style of the source material in that it is set in India, but replaces painted backdrops with back projection, stock footage and revealed sets to reimagine the relationship between lower-caste dancing girl Kanchi and missionary nun Sister Clodagh. In a schoolroom and in the gardens of a Himalayan convent, Kanchi and Clodagh recognise they are trapped in a film set in 2016. With the colonies a distant memory, Clodagh has lost her role as sister superior. This allows Kanchi to introduce her gods in order to challenge an imposed belief system, and in so doing to break down the civility of the colonies into something more carnal.

An intimate account of a highly toxic relationship: during a lengthy visit from her boyfriend’s mother, the filmmaker documents the arguments between mother and son.

Martina was doused with acid by her ex-boyfriend, causing third-degree burns to the upper half of her body and almost complete blindness. The documentary portrait follows her life story after this life-changing attack – coping with the loss of physical attractiveness, the fear of a world she cannot see, and her search for a new meaning in life. Martina's story bears all the hallmarks of a good biopic. It presents a strong central character going through difficult situations and finding happiness despite many pitfalls. But what sets it apart from mainstream productions is the directness with which Martina speaks to us and its potential to break through many taboos.

A no-budget film that delves into every nook and cranny of an abandoned house in order to tell the tale of its long-forgotten owners.

A 35-year-old shepherd wandered over the border from the Turkish district of Kars into Armenia to retrieve his animal. In this haunting, desolate landscape, the borders are invisible, but fatal.