Coming to Terms

An American independent director comes to Italy to shoot a film. But inconveniences and obstacles stand in the way at every step. These are the years in which “Tangentopoli” rages and the golden rule of officials and collaborators is “one (bribe) to you, one to me, one to Raffaele”.

The Portuguese Revolution (1974-75) seen through the eyes of some of the most important photographers and filmmakers that witnessed the event. Their dreams and expectations and what came out of the revolution. With outstanding historical footage.

Vergessensfuge is a meditation on the psychology of obedience and submission, in this instance springing from a handful of photographs taken in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation in 1945. The images are of young women, aged 20 - 30, who were guards at the camp - to say, compliant, obedient Germans doing as they were told to do.

A tone poem about problems in a romantic relationship of a middle aged couple.

A telling story of an unemployed Vietnam vet in Butte, Montana, whose wife leaves him after seven years when she feels there is no longer communication between them and - more painfully and pointedly - because she is unable to have a child owing to his sterility from exposure to Agent Orange. Told in a gentle style, richly emotional, Bell Diamond was made with non-professionals drawn from the community of Butte.

As night falls, the receptionist of a small hotel dutifully performs her routine tasks while strange lodgers descend upon the dark corners of the inn.

Two HIV-positive young men — a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler — tear off on a cross-country crime spree.

A man who is dissatisfied with his family life leaves home for weeks at a time, drifting from town to town.

A detective fiction mixed with an essay-documentary about Los Angeles, Hollywood and the film industry, Angel City is a satiric comedy with serious intentions.

A movie by Jon Jost, who is the maestro of the American experimental movie world. The film tells us the strange incidents that happen in the ruined old village. Comparing to Jon Jost’s previous movies, this film has a clearer narrative and is more experimental with the structure as well. The essay film, which takes place in Missouri where they live an outdated lifestyle and where old culture still exists, confuses the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. The movie is based from a true story but instead of telling the exact story, the director casts real actors and gives a little twist to it. The actors explain about the inhumane incidents that happened in the village and while reviving it, they create their own narratives.

The famous French film director Jean-Luc Godard is interviewed by British film theorist Peter Wollen and the editor of Framework Don Ranveaud. He talks of the developments in his work, the change in style epitomized by his most recent film, Sauve Qui Peut, his work with Francis Ford Coppola and the relations between his previous films and the new one. He also discusses his radical method of scriptwriting and the critical responses to his latest film.

A parable of the missteps of life enacted in the hothouse world of late 1980’s New York, in which the art market and the stock market each boomed, and in process spawned a smorgasbord of “yuppie” delusions which still persist. Anna, a French actress studying in New York, crosses paths with a successful stock-broker, Mark, standing before a Vermeer portrait at the Metropolitan, thence ensues a peculiar romance of missed meanings and connections, with tangential asides to the steaming arts world and stock market, loft-mate conflicts, and, perhaps, love. Wrapped up in their blindered worlds, Anna and Mark deflect away from their chances, leaving at the conclusion the wistful face of Vermeer’s portrait enigmatically asking questions. All the Vermeers in New York is a comedy of manners which, as gently as a Vermeer, looks beneath the skin of this time and place, and of these characters.

Teenage London is trying to find meaning in the world, or a leather jacket of her own. Unaccepted by neither the Mods or the Asian biker gang, she tries to find her own path. Meanwhile, the two gangs maintain a mutual vendetta sure to erupt in a smorgasbord of violence.

An essay-film on language and theater, on human communication - intellectual in content, but purely poetic in terms of form: image, sound, language, cinema. Stagefright, with the exception of one shot, was all filmed in a small puppet theater space, actors against black.

An essay film/documentary perusing matters of art, society, history, and a grab-bag of the author's interests, which also serves as a primer to the aesthetics of digital video.

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones.