delphinium: a childhood porTraiT of derek Jarman

Matthew Mishory

2009, USA/Uk, video, color ∓ B&W, sound, 13 min.

Delphinium is a stylized and lyrical coming-of-age portrait of Derek Jarman’s artistic, sexual, and political awakening in post-war England. Part biographical narrative, part experimental collage, part personal meditation on the most controversial and important modern British artist and activist, the film finds in Jarman’s childhood the stirrings of creative and individual epiphany that inspired a remarkable life.

illuminaTe

Nataly Lebouleux

2007, Uk, video, B&W, sound, 19 min.

A revolution in coming-out stories, told entirely in stop-motion animation. A seemingly innocent young lady visits a freak show and is exposed to a presumably inappropriate exhibit. Unexpectedly, her clandestine nature is revealed, and we’re suddenly slipping into a jarringly imaginative and stylish gothic fairy tale deep inside a peculiar world of oddities, and acted entirely by plastic dolls!

morning will come

Poutan J. Dezfoulian

2008, Canada, video, color & B&W, sound, Farsi w/English subtitles, 17 min.

Broadcast from the international waters of the protagonist’s bathtub, a legendary revelation of generational tensions and the struggles for freedom unfold. The camera glides forebodingly through hallways and metaphors; a young man in a wedding dress calls out for a husband, the blood of lambs fills a swimming pool, horses are contained and executed, and some twisted games with infants are played. Scrounging vintage footage of curious human practices and filmed entirely in Farsi, Morning Will Come begs to bathe you rather than show you.

naCos de Pele (biTes of skin)

Leonardo Barcelos & Hélio Lauar

2008, Brazil, video, color & B&W, sound, Portuguese w/English subtitles, 15 min.

The fragile bonds of affection draw insecurity and helplessness into a human landscape. The aridity of a solitary experience of love is woven into the visual interplay of bodies and desert. This is the journal of a boy who acknowledges his own pain preceding the outcome of a loving relationship with another man.

Carnaval InesqueCível
(unforgeTTable carniVal)

Pedro Severien

2007, Brazil, video, color, sound, 6 min.

Our heroine flees a toxic relationship with an alcoholic husband to pursue another woman, and traverses a vivacious party scene during her getaway. “I’ll give you pleasure,” sings the underscore, as the partygoers consume every liquid in sight: liquor, piss, gas. There’s a menacing sway and madness in the crowd that will have you asking: are the inhabitants of this world having a riotous-good-time, or an awfully bad one?

my dead brain

Sarah Stuve & PJ Linden

2008, USA, video, color, sound, 9 min.

In an over-grown junkyard of forgotten toys, a tattered and threadbare lady-doll stuffed with fluff seems paralyzed. Entranced and propped against a tree in this sort of sun-saturated purgatory, a glistening television is her only window inward. With a temple-aimed revolver in place of a remote control, she flips through non-chronological incarnations of herself, reemerging each time as a different icon of womanhood: Mary, Marie, Marilyn…marriage. The Protagonist (played by the film’s designer and producer PJ Linden) is “stuffed” quite horrifically with scenes depicting the fear and resentment of body-image, baby-making, and loss of time: this Marie Antoinette sneaks a cupcake and then is literally devoured by an aerobics class, Monroe’s flesh is ripped clean off her face, and feminine sexuality is historically reduced to a role-reaffirming river of menstrual blood. Stylistically, it’s a stunning and whimsical wonderland, color-saturated, and assembled with recycled materials. Each shot steals only milliseconds of screen time, so you have to over extend your eyeballs to take in the sensuous phantasmagoria. My Dead Brain might illustrate, in an exceptionally sumptuous way, what it’s like embracing the goddess, rejecting the standard, and choosing something healthier.