Still Life

Still Life

2004 · 16 min · Documentary

Still Life gazes unflinchingly at the violence of war, observing the eerie architecture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip collapsed under Israeli occupation. This portrait provides brutal witness to how government sanctioned destruction metes upon structures of home and State. Unlike the mediated images of current warfare, Still Life examines the effects of the destruction of Occupation through the details of cinematic landscapes and its inherent inhabitants. In its relentless questioning reaffirmed with a unique and unremitting soundtrack by composer Zeena Parkins, Still Life forces us to focus on details of devastation.

Directed by Cynthia Madansky

Your Rating

Make it a double feature

42m together

Still Life

Outlaw

Both from Cynthia Madansky.

More from Cynthia MadanskySee all →

Subjectively capturing the spirit of contemporary Athens, Madansky turns to Greek anarchist poet Katerina Gogou as a source of inspiration. The relationship between cinematic form and language is questioned using performance as a guiding force, accompanied by a striking soundtrack by longtime collaborator and contemporary harp pioneer Zeena Parkins.

Outlaw

MovieDocumentary

A video-verité manifesto made with self-identified gender outlaw, author and activist, Leslie Feinberg (1949-2014). Raw and confrontational, this videotape asks its audience to examine their assumptions about the "nature" of gender, challenging any nead certainties and calling for more sensitivity and awareness of the human rights and dignity of trans people.

AA is a portrait of the dream diaries of Russian avant garde feminist poet and photographer Anna Alchuk.

Treyf

MovieDocumentary

TREYF —“unkosher” in Yiddish— is an unorthodox documentary by and about two Jewish lesbians who met and fell in love at a Passover “seder”. With personal narration, real and imagined educational films, and haunting imagery, filmmakers Alisa Lebow and Cynthia Madansky examine the Jewish identity of their upbringings and its impact on their lives.

ḤARĀM

ḤARĀM · 2017

MovieDocumentaryDrama

ḤARAM is an essay film portraying the urgent contemporary situation at the Haram Al Sharif/ Noble Sanctuary in the Old City of Jerusalem reflecting on the growing Temple Mount Faithful movement whose goal is to build the Jewish Third Temple on this holy landscape and in turn to assert Jewish sovereignty over this holy Muslim site.

Alex & José

Alex & José · 2007

MovieDocumentary

Alex and José, is a 16mm single channel projection that explores gender, movement and form.

VIVA ÁGUA

VIVA ÁGUA · 2016

MovieDocumentary

VIVA ÁGUA is a meditation on the philosophical work entitled ÁGUA VIVA written by Clarice Lispector in 1973. The film reflects on Lispector’s interior experimental monologue on the “instant-now” of time, the discomforts of language which are “beyond thought” and the harmonious dissonant reminders and remainders of that “sometime what is seen is ineffable.”

Dear

MovieDocumentary

Dear features the interior world of two teenage Chinese girls in New York City, whose diary entries reveal their concerns related to growing up as immigrants amidst the ever-gentrifying landscape of Chinatown.

Internal Combustion

Internal Combustion · 1995

Internal Combustion

MovieDocumentary

This experimental video breaks the many silences surrounding lesbians and AIDS. Interweaving the voices of two friends, Internal Combustion reflects on the often unspoken tensions within this epidemic of survival and power and mourning and loss .

Elle

MovieDocumentary

Elle is an experimental dance film shot in a semi industrial landscape in Brooklyn reflecting on every day movements of falling and getting up.

Esfir

A contemporary interpretation of an unrealized script entitled Women, written by Soviet director Esfir Shub.

Devotion

Devotion · 2003

MovieDocumentary

A sparing and minimal travelogue of Istanbul. A foreigner meditates on the unraveling of a relationship while moving from hotel room to hotel room. In a city simultaneously devoted to Islam and secular nationalism, she finds refuge in the frailty and severity of the rituals of devotion.

If Not,

If Not, · 2014

MovieDocumentary

If Not is a meditation on love, inspired by If Not, Winter by Sappho, translated by Anne Carson. Filmed in Ephesus and Brooklyn.

White Sands

White Sands · 2014

MovieDocumentary

White Sands is a 3 screen projection 16mm film installation which reflects on the visible and invisible manifestations of the nuclear fuel chain on the land, air, water and people of New Mexico.

Anna Pina Teresa

Anna Pina Teresa · 2015

Anna Pina Teresa

MovieDocumentary

Anna, Pina, Teresa reinterprets the pivotal scene in Rossellini’s “Roma Città Aperta” where Anna Magnani, who plays the character Pina, (based on the story of Teresa Gullace,) is murdered on the streets of Rome by the Fascist police. This scene is characterized by three movements performed by Magnani — resistance, running and falling. Filmed in the Sala Scherma at Foro Italico in Rome (Mussolini’s fencing studio designed by Moretti) Anna, Pina, Teresa examines the contemporary and historical dynamics between an urban Fascist space and movements of resistance.

Bubble

MovieDocumentary

Bubble is a short film performed by Zeena Parkins and the Plastic Girls, Eleanor Hullihan and Erin Cornell in a public park in Brooklyn, NY.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter