Visible Cities

A filmed record of a solo performance by American postmodern dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown. In order to better understand the dance, Mangolte learned to perform it herself. Mangolte shot Brown as she performed the solo twice, and then on the third take she decided to film in slow motion: "I shot slow motion, knowing that it would reveal the dance and the movement in a totally different context... the slow motion version permits a second look at the choreography, and the spectators can marvel at what they remember and also what they missed the first time around."

A “narrative” film centered on young artists living in New York City around 1979. The film is about a certain stage in the development of a young artist confronting the real world in terms of her own idealistic notions of what art is supposed to do. You never see her. She is the camera’s eye and when someone says to the camera “My darling be careful”, it could be addressing her or you the spectator. The subjective camera set-up challenges your position as an impartial observer. - BM

While working on a documentary about the city of Bruges, an artistically frustrated filmmaker must deal with the increasing difficulties in his marriage.

Various unrelated vignettes, often juxtaposing sound and image.

During the summer of 1968, a young French woman staying in an isolated country house reflects upon her involvement in the events of that May.

A lonely young widow lives with her son following an immutable order: while the boy is in school, she cares for their apartment, does chores, and receives clients in the afternoon.

Impersonal and beautiful images of Akerman's life in New York are combined with letters from her loving but manipulative mother, read by Akerman herself.

Jean-Pierre Gorin interacts with a club of model railroad train enthusiasts and his mentor, artist/writer Manny Farber.

A comedy about New York and its eccentric inhabitants. A French filmmaker comes to New York to show her film at MOMA. Fascinated by the city, she decides to stay.

Adaptation of an avant-garde play about Rhoda, a hysterical heroine who feels oppressed by the people around her. She suffers through her birthday party, goes to see a doctor, plans a vacation, argues a lot and even breaks the fourth wall.

Jean-Pierre Gorin’s gripping and unique film about a Samoan street gang in Long Beach, California, is, like other works by the filmmaker, a probing look at a closed community with its own rules, rituals, and language. Part observational documentary, part fiction invisibly scripted and shaped by the director, My Crasy Life, which won a special jury prize at Sundance, is an enthralling and intensely focused contemplation of violence and dislocation.

Chantal Akerman followed famous Choreographer Pina Bausch and her company of dancers, The Tanzteater Wuppertal, for five weeks while they were on tour in Germany, Italy and France. Her objective was to capture Pina Bausch's unparalleled art not only on stage by behind the scenes.

New York City's Monterey is a residence hotel, whose inhabitants are older and primarily live alone. The camera, usually stationery, observes the lobby. No score, the lobby is clean with granite floors, men wear hats, people enter and exit an elevator, the camera looks out from within the elevator as doors open and close. People sit alone and motionless in their apartments. There are long shots of empty halls. Paint peels. The flooring on upper levels is linoleum. Hall lights are florescent. Doors open a crack then close.

The film is about looking. I bet that slight variations of few recurrent elements would encourage the viewer to free associate and to fantasize a kind of narrative. - BM

An avant-garde examination of the relationship between women and money in society. Mixing musical, silent melodrama, and philosophical treatise into a post-punk, heady brew.

Akerman, by using 360° camera pans, explores the space of a small room like a succession of still lifes : a chair, fruits on a table, solitary objects in waiting. Amidst this thread of movement, there is only one living figure: a young woman, sitting on a bed.