Kenneth Anger

An omnibus project bringing together acclaimed directors from around the world, each contributing a 42-second short inspired by a dream. Produced by 42 Below vodka, the collection blends surreal, poetic, and experimental visions into a mosaic of oneiric cinema.

Egyptian gods summon the angel Lucifer, in order to usher in a new occult age.

Cinematic magician, legendary provocateur, and author of Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger was a unique figure in post-war American culture. His iconic short films are characterised by a mystical-symbolic visual language and phantasmagorical-sensual opulence that underscores the medium’s transgressive potential. Anger’s work fundamentally shaped the aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s subcultures, the visual lexicon of pop and music videos and queer iconography. These nine films form the basis of Anger’s reputation as one of the most influential pioneers of avant-garde film and video art. Fireworks, 1947, 14 min Puce Moment, 1949, 6 min Rabbit's Moon, 1950/1971, 16 min Eaux d'Artifice, 1953, 13 min Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 1954, 37 min Scorpio Rising, 1964, 28 min Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, 3 min Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, 11 min Lucifer Rising, 1981, 27 min

A gang of bikers prepares for a race as sexual, sadistic, and occult images are cut together.

This film resulted from the unfinished short film Puce Women. The film opens with a camera watching 1920s style flapper gowns being taken off a dress rack. The dresses are removed and danced off the rack to music. (The original soundtrack was Verdi opera music; in the 1960s, Anger re-released the film with a new psychedelic folk-rock soundtrack performed by Jonathan Halper.) A long-lashed woman, Yvonne Marquis, dresses in the purple puce gown and walks to her vanity to apply perfume. She lies on a chaise lounge which then begins to move around the room and eventually out to a patio. Borzois appear and she prepares to take them for a walk.

Covering the second half of Anger's career, from his legendary SCORPIO RISING to his breathtaking phantasmagoria LUCIFER RISING, Fantoma is very proud to complete the cycle with this long-awaited final volume of films by this revolutionary and groundbreaking maverick, painstakingly restored and presented on DVD for the first time anywhere in the world. Contains the films: Scorpio Rising (1964) Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965) Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) Rabbit's Moon (1979 version) Lucifer Rising (1981)

A magician encounters the void that separates the human mind from divine consciousness and in turn faces the mad god.

A Japanese fairy tale meets commedia dell'Arte. All in white, the naïf Pierrot lies in a wood. Doo-wop music plays as he rises, stares about, and reaches for the moon. Although music abounds and the children of the wood are there at play, Pierrot is melancholy and alone. Harlequin appears, brimming with confidence and energy. He conjures the lovely Colombina. Pierrot is dazzled. But can the course of true love run smooth?

Lord Shiva wakes. A convocation of magicians in the guise of figures from mythology; a masquerade party at which Pan is the prize. The wine of Hecate is poured: Pan's cup is poisoned by Shiva. Kali blesses the assembly as a bacchic rite ensues.

The shadowing forth of Our Lord Lucifer, as the Power of Darkness gather at a midnight mass. The dance of the Magus widdershins around the Swirling Spiral Force, the solar swastika, until the Bringer of Light—Lucifer—breaks through.

Covering the first half of Anger's career, from his landmark debut FIREWORKS in 1947 to his epic bacchanalia INAGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME, Fantoma is very proud to present the long-awaited first volume of films by this revolutionary and groundbreaking maverick, painstakingly restored and presented on DVD for the first time. Contains the films: Fireworks (1947) Puce Moment (1949) Rabbit's Moon (1950, the rarely seen original 16 minute version) Eaux d'Artifice (1953) Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

A woman dressed elegantly walks purposely through the water gardens at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, as the music of Vivaldi's Winter movement of The Four Seasons plays. Heavy red filters give a blue cast to the light; water plays across stone, and fountains send it into the air. No words are spoken. Baroque statuary and the sensuous flow of water are back lit. Anger calls it water games.

A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking a 'light' and is drawn through the needle's eye. A dream of a dream, he returns to bed less empty than before.

This film portrait of a new kind is a deep dive into the heart of the art scene of Los Angeles. From a ride on Sunset Boulevard in a convertible car at the sunrise, going through a lunch with the art dealer Patrick Painter and a visit to Peter Shire's studio... Having a beer and a deep talk with Paul McCarthy, calling Raymond Pettibon stuck in New-York or searching for Ed Ruscha in bars.... From Ariana Papademetropoulos opening exhibition to the visit of a car wreck with Umar Raschid... From the old house of Cary Grant to the dodgy underground of Downtown passing through Eugenio Lopez's private art collection on the Hollywood hills... Through intimate conversation, 24 Hour Sunset gives us access to the thoughts, inspirations and practice of legendary artists, world famous art dealers, appraised curators and collectors, as well as the young up coming scene of artists living in Los Angeles.

A homage to the late American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, Elliott’s Suicide is a sentimental 15 minute tribute, lacking Anger’s usual irony for obvious reasons. The film begins with shots of friends’ and fans’ last words written on Smith’s memorial on Sunset Boulevard, then to footage of a Macy’s parade, focusing closely on the oddly outfitted participants, some in renaissance attire, cowboys with lassos, and beauty queens. The film is scored with Smith’s music, resulting in a melancholy effect, especially in the segment that follows Smith through the woods and films him as he digs up a guitar, then plays a song. This footage is repeated in the end of the film, but in a negative reversal print, suggesting pretty damn clearly that the subject matter has moved beyond the veil.

This faux cautionary documentary features film clips and often humorous softcore reenactments of several notorious celebrity sex scandals from the golden age of Hollywood.

The training practice of a soccer team – close-up of feet, body parts, muscles – entirely silent except for the noises of the ball being hit – a sort of minimalist, crisp, homoerotic version of Philippe Parreno's and Douglas Gordon's Zidane – A 21st Century Portrait.

A young man with a stylish crew cut watches a surveillance video monitor with great interest as a security guard makes out with a bodyguard (both with similar crew cut) among luxury cars in the underground parking of a posh building.

Guy Maddin, who has been nicknamed the Canadian David Lynch, is undoubtedly one of the last remaining Magi of cinema. Despite living in the middle of the digital age, this heretical director hailing from the snowy plains of Canada has spent 25 years transposing the uncommon and the uncanny onto screens over-saturated with naturalistic imagery. A lover of primitive cinema, he has cunningly summoned the light-and-shadow techniques and experimentations of the Golden Age of film to resuscitate a unique cinematographic language which plays with the spectator’s unconscious by means of visual trickery as disturbing as it is absurd. In an attitude as playful at that Maddin’s films this documentary follows the mediumistic experiments of this master of illusion, filmed during the ‘’spirit’’ shootings he presented in Europe.

Rabbit's Moon is an avant-garde short film by American filmmaker Kenneth Anger, and released in two different versions. It was filmed in 1950, but not completed (nor released) until 1971. This, the second version, was re-released in 1979, sped up and with a different soundtrack.

"Secrets of a Hollywood Star" is another documentary made after "Calling Hedy Lamarr" in 2006. It features interviews with Hedy's friends in both Europe and Hollywood and her film/studio partners.

Using found footage, we're introduced to the short life of Bunker Spreckels, Clark Gable's stepson and surfing legend.

"The Dead became my first work in which things that might very easily be taken as symbols were so photographed as to destroy all their symbolic potential. The action of making The Dead kept me alive." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2013.

"The Man We Want to Hang" is a 12-minute short, consisting of Anger filming borrowed paintings done by legendary and controversial occultist Aleister Crowley.