Unstrap Me

A winter chill sets in making the furry residents of various dwelling places a center of affection and reflection. The images conjured up are steeped in a twilight worthy of polar pinpoints in the grip of glaciated gloom. The crushing weight of frigid fragments of time threatens to bury the animated remains of sentient stiffs as they flex their muscles in a vain attempt to ward off encroaching crustiness. Only the lure of mammalian fur promises a few precious moments of centigrade comfort in this zone of zero zoology.

A short film by George Kuchar.

Having nothing to do with racial tensions, HOUSE OF THE WHITE PEOPLE is actually a chunk of film removed from a bigger chunk called UNSTRAP ME. It is a documentation of George Segal creating the basic elements for one of his statues preceded by rare glimpses into his own private museum. Donna Kerness serves as his live model. Walter Gutman sits on a chair and walks around a bit, being that he produced the film. Helen Segal, personifying the ageless saying, "behind every man there stands a woman," stands behind her man and also stands in front of him occasionally. The film is a unique invitation to view the hidden rituals of a famous artist and his infamous model, half naked, snowbound together on a lonely farm, with a silent wife and a notorious guest.

Writes Kuchar: "It was my 50th birthday this year (1992) and my friend's birthday, so I explored our position in time and dusty place with a prognostication on future inertia." In this chapter of his ongoing Video-8 diary, Kuchar's birthday becomes an occasion to ponder mortality, dust, agoraphobia and relationships. Documenting the hilarious yet ultimately melancholy dramas of the everyday within the claustrophobic confines of his apartment, Kuchar may be going nowhere, but, as he notes, "at least we're going nowhere together."

A film by George Kuchar.

A high schooler from suburbia gets in touch with her sexuality while working at a dingy movie theater in the city.

"This film is about depression, although it's not that depressing. I suppose it has a message of faith and hope in it ... it does for me .... But then again my interest may not match yours. It was shot in San Francisco and in Central Oklahoma with a cast of one man and four women. Crushing emotions are indulged in against a massive meteorological background that brings inspiration and terror to the characters involved."

A talented writer, Edgar Allen, arrives in Hollywood with big dreams but is quickly pulled into a world of madness and depravity. A detective investigating a series of murders discovers that they are similar to the murders that occur in the new script by Edgar. Who will survive and what parts will be left for them?

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild, kills its mistress and seeks its mate, a servant of wicked Prince Gianbeno.

"Abner L. Fuqua clears his throat and I get mad and stand close to trains or cut my eyebrow off. Dorothy is Abner's wife. Abner can slap hard, like blue magic." - graffiti

After getting fired from his teaching job and dumped by his girlfriend, Jack, a painter, embarks on a soul searching road trip with his dog, Scout. However, bad weather and bumps in the road quickly cause more problems than he can handle. An impulsive decision to take from a bag full of unknown pills leads him on a drug-fueled journey with no destination in sight, and he soon finds himself making both friends and foes along the way.

David is an artist and a pothead. He's fallen in love with the beautiful and sexy Serena, and things are going simply splendidly until poor David's house burns down. Serena doesn't need the bad vibes, so she splits the scene and runs off to New York with rocker and junkie Tommy. Lonely David finally turns to the sweet, sweet comfort of marijuana and his strange menagerie of friends to forget about his lost home and love

Presented as loosely autobiographical, Hold Me While I’m Naked centres on the tribulations of an independent filmmaker, frustrated at every turn as he tries to make a film that pretends to artistic merit.

"Curt McDowell's NUDES (A Sketchbook) is a paean to the filmmaker's closest friends: a series of portraits (beginning with one of George Kuchar) based on stylized, often graphically sexual interpretations of his or her personality. The portraits also, at times, represent Curt's own sexual interests as he projects them onto the lives of others. My favorites are 'Barbara', a Pre-Raphaelite vision of woman and 'Ainslie', a musical spoof on glamour. The filmmaker's point of view ranges from compulsively erotic to light-hearted and self-debunking. A broad reading of the term 'romantic' would probably best describe the spectrum of extreme, even outrageous, possibilities which Curt embraces in this sketchbook/film." - Karen Cooper, Film Forum

A utopian re-visioning of the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921, featuring film history's first cast of over 100 transgender actors, paints a portrait of formerly pro-Soviet sailors at the Kronstadt naval garrison who rebelled against the perceived failures of the new Bolshevik state.

The young and the innocent at the mercy of a palpable presence oozing menace and scarlet-stained goodness as a strawberry sundae melts under the glare of future hell-firestorms in search of kindling.