Signals: Regained   

George Kuchar: Wrap Party The very last productions of the eternal enfant terrible of the American avant-garde show Kuchar (who died in 2011) at his vintage best: as the perverse...

Kubelka Films Peter Kubelka (1934) is an artist, anthropologist, cook and teacher. During the five decades he has been active as a filmmaker, he has produced a grand total...

REVERBERATIONS Three short films that appeal as much to our sense of imagination as to our notion of (film) history. A search for the trail of Méliès in the Texas mountains...

Rotterdam Classics: Cinéma Vérité The life and work of three people who were important to the City of Rotterdam. Portraits as Dutch examples of the international documentary movements Direct...

Space and Time: The Abstract Films of Bart Vegter 1 Posthumous tribute to the idiosyncratic abstract filmmaker Bart Vegter. From his earliest works devoted to animated geometric patterns, he later evolved to...

Space and Time: The Abstract Films of Bart Vegter 2 Second part of a homage to the filmmaker Bart Vegter. Preceded by a presentation by Simona Monizza of the EYE Film Institute about the complexities of...

The Master’s Voice Two short documentary portraits of canonical avant-garde figures direct the eyes via the ears. In Maya Deren Take Zero the subject is mostly present via...

Waving Back An eclectic compilation of experimental short films, each communicating a sense of threat. The artists share a fascination for looming violence, inviting us to...

#3 #3 is a film with pure light. The images were created by recording the movements of a tiny light source using extremely long exposures, so that it draws... Joost Rekveld, 1994, Netherlands, 4 min.

Adebar Kubelka strips the images down to their black-and-white essentials, to create the ultimate abstract film choreography. Peter Kubelka, 1957, Austria, 1 min.

Anna Fascinating masterpiece of documentary from the 1970s. Its charm, freshness and complexity defy short explanation. Shot on video, transferred to 16mm and now... Alberto Grifi, Massimo Sarchielli, 1975, Italy, 225 min.

Arnulf Rainer This is a film composed entirely of solid black and solid white frames, strung together in lengths as long as 24 frames and as short as a single frame. Peter Kubelka, 1960, Austria, 7 min.

Babeldom As a ‘science fiction documentary’, this portrait of a futuristic city is narrated by one of its inhabitants. The twist is that all the images in this... Paul Bush, 2011, United Kingdom, 80 min.

Ballet aquatique In one of his very last projects, Raul Ruiz celebrates the films of his historical predecessor Jean Painlevé, a documentary innovator whose work always blended... Raúl Ruiz, 2011, France, 50 min.

Beeldspraak: Huub Bals en het maken van een festival Bals - a film fanatic and founder of the IFFR - is followed close up. A striking example of widely praised, cross-disciplinary and high-class cinematographic... Jan Venema, 1976, Netherlands, 24 min.

Celluloid Brushes This growing anthology of films and posters focuses on the filmic representation of the artist, from 1267 till the present. Contemporary artists are invited to... 0 min.

Conference (Notes on Film 05) The face of fascism? This grotesque found-footage film combines close-ups of 65 actors playing Adolf Hitler in films made between 1940 and today. Norbert Pfaffenbichler, 2011, Austria, 8 min.

Confiseries et jouets Recent documentaries such as Vivement le cinéma (Jérôme Prieur, 2011) and The First Interview (Denis Tupicoff, 2011) recreate pioneering... 0 min.

Cornelis Verolme, Scheepsbouwer Portrait of the everyday life and motives of the self-made man Cornelis Verolme. The film was a breakthrough within the documentary genre by a pioneer of Dutch... Roelof Kiers, 1967, Netherlands, 38 min.

Crumbled Papers, Fragments of Cinema Inspired by Indian film stars on glass plate negatives from the thirties, this video- installation invites visitors to recall personal stories of love,... Madhuja Mukherjee, 0 min.

Day and Night A hypnotising exploration of polarities: stillness and motion, 2D and 3D, positive and negative, colour and black-and-white, day and night. Ken Jacobs, 2011, USA, 3 min.

Dichtung und Wahrheit Discarded takes from advertising films are presented almost untouched, as documents that unwittingly offer valuable and humorous insights into the human... Peter Kubelka, 2003, Austria, 13 min.

Ecosystem-6-A Sort of Mycelium Ecosystems is an extended series of films that work with abstract patterns of extraordinary density and complexity; it is inspired by the elaborate... Koike Teruo, 1989, Japan, 21 min.

Empire of Evil The king of campy avant-garde finished his career with this 600 dollar epic melodrama, with a heck of a lot of nice-looking young people along for the ride. George Kuchar, 2011, USA, 51 min.

Flash in the Metropolitan Artefacts from the Near Eastern, African and Oceanic collections are filmed in the depths of darkness in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Rosalind Nashashibi, Lucy Skaer, 2006, United Kingdom, 3 min.

Flip Collection II, The This group show introduces several young artists who use the playful format of the flip book for surprisingly serious, documentary purposes. With the premières... 0 min.

Forest-Views The astonishingly delicate, computer-generated Forest-Views suggests the processes not only of blossoming and decay, but also, ironically, of the... Bart Vegter, 1999, Netherlands, 17 min.

Four Moves ...Four ways to leave home, four ways to hold time... Four Moves consists of four parts, each of which depicts its own abstract variation on the... Bart Vegter, 1987, Netherlands, 7 min.

Fragments of Kubelka An extremely gentle, patient, careful portrait of an iconic film artist, where the subject matter surpasses the biographical to reveal precious insights in the... Martina Kudlácek, 2012, Austria, 232 min.

Garden of Earthly Delights, The Classic meditative collage film created entirely without the use of a camera by pasting montane zone vegetation such as petals, grasses and leaves onto strips... Stan Brakhage, 1981, USA, 3 min.

gat van Nederland: De nieuwe Rotterdammer, Het Report about the poet Vaandrager who lives an introvert existence, after a turbulent period marked by drugs. An exponent of controversial programmes and the... Hans Verhagen, 1973, Netherlands, 18 min.

Goose Weather A visual oddity: a George Harrison album cover is explored as a visual counterpoint to a choral rendition of the text English Eccentrics. Stephen Sutcliffe, 2011, United Kingdom, 4 min.

Green Wave, The Consciousness reflects on the subconscious, the latter often represented by an ocean. Jacobs plays with our perception of a tidal pool, in a maelstrom of... Ken Jacobs, 2011, USA, 5 min.

hemel is vierkant, De Exposed to light several times, the images of this abstract film are compiled from basic elements that emerge when a cube is cut equidistant from its three... Bart Vegter, 1985, Netherlands, 12 min.

Horizontalen A film without an outer subject. Only light and motion. Like sunlight, reflected by waves of water on a white wall. By moving a surface vertically in front of... Bart Vegter, 1981, Netherlands, 6 min.

HotSpell The latest of Kuchar’s weather-diary series: his libido mixes with the clashing seasons to create a vortex of violent forces, threatening to wipe out the town! George Kuchar, 2012, USA, 26 min.

Hugo 150 years after his birth, the spirit of film magician Georges Méliès still lives on. At once an adaptation of a children’s book and a celebration of the... Martin Scorsese, 2011, USA, 126 min.

Il se peut que la beauté ait renforcé notre résolution - Masao Adachi This tribute to the radical Japanese writer-director Masao Adachi is the first in a series of documentaries that Philippe Grandrieux wants to dedicate to... Philippe Grandrieux, 2011, France, 74 min.

In Memoriam Bart Vegter Compilation of Rotterdam filmmaker Bart Vegter's artistic legacy, interlaced with a number of works by fellow artists. See also the compilation programmes... 0 min.

In Need of Space In Need of Space is inspired by the minimal music of Steve Reich and consists of moving vertical lines and colour surfaces; the ribs and surfaces of a... Bart Vegter, 1982, Netherlands, 6 min.

Interlude A short meditation inspired by the track Interlude by the British band Manyfingers, a Chris Cole project. The film shows a group of ‘Lookdown Fish'... Joost van Veen, 2005, Netherlands, 3 min.

Intermezzo (Notes on Film 04) A director’s fascination for Chaplin’s acting style, takes on the look of an explosive pop promo here. Norbert Pfaffenbichler, 2012, Austria, 2 min.

Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema This portrait of the French filmmaker Jean Epstein focuses especially on the period when he was filming in Brittany. Epstein allowed himself to be inspired by... James June Schneider, 2011, France, 68 min.

Jouer Ponette Based on the original video rushes created during the 1995 shooting of a Doillon film, this minimalist documentary focuses on the talent of a four-year-old.... Jeanne Crépeau, 2007, Canada, 92 min.

Kalah The rules of an old Arab game, Kalah, played by two players with 36-36 stones, works as a ready-found system for generating the film. The filmstrip registers... Dora Maurer, 1980, Hungary, 10 min.

Luma nocturna Luma nocturna uses overlapping dissolves of hand-drawn images to capture the luminescent magic of light strewn across the black city at night, from the... Sky-David, 1974, USA, 4 min.

Lyrische data Digital images enchant us, just like nitrate film in the pioneering days of the cinema, by appearing and disappearing. Incomplete data files bring their own... Elias Heuninck, 2010, Belgium, 5 min.

maleta, La Ruiz started his film career with an almost literal mise-en-abyme story: a man carries another man in his suitcase. When tired, they switch roles.... Raúl Ruiz, 1963, Chile, 19 min.

Maurice Maurice, the semi-sophisticated owner of a porn cinema in Paris, sheds his skin and becomes a die-hard cinephile, who must take leave of his doomed profession. Patrick Kack-Brice, 2011, France, 18 min.

Maya Deren, Take Zero This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew her firsthand: Jean Rouch, Jonas Mekas, Alexander Hammid,... Gerard Gil Fargas, Jaime Ballada Larrasa, 2012, Spain, 30 min.

Méliès (Single Screen) Local residents explain that a mountain near Sierra Blanca has been named Movie Mountain since the early 1900s because of the brother of Georges Méliès. Teresa Hubbard, Alexander Birchler, 2012, USA, Switzerland, Germany, 24 min.

Monologue exterieur Fragments of an interior appear from the dark like pieces of a puzzle that just don't seem to fit. The walls do talk, from whispering to buzzing to a lively... Francien van Everdingen, 2003, Netherlands, 3 min.

Mosaik im Vertrauen In his first film work, Kubelka evokes episodes of flirtation, courtship, and break-ups, played out against a series of non-corresponding audio excerpts. Peter Kubelka, 1955, Austria, 16 min.

Nacht-Licht A computer-generated film in three parts whereby each part has its own, formal starting point. The images consist of 8 to 14 independent elements. On this... Bart Vegter, 2011, Netherlands, 13 min.

Night Hunter This eerie, allegorical homage to silent film star Lillian Gish is composed of approximately 4,000 handmade collages. Stacey Steers, 2011, USA, 16 min.

Pablo More than half a century since his title sequence for Dr. Strangelove, graphic designer Pablo Ferro is still setting the tone, bringing film audiences... Richard Goldgewicht, 2012, USA, 93 min.

Ponskaart polonaise Rhythmic play of light and shadow via holes in the roll of film awakes the suggestion of punch card holes dancing across the image. Formal investigation of... Matthijs Blonk, 1976, Netherlands, 3 min.

Pour en finir avec le cinéma From the waste-paper basket of film history, comic book artist Blutch digs out his favorite quotes and images. As obscure as it is perverse, this mash up of... Blutch, 0 min.

Retour de flamme Film archeologist Serge Bromberg opens a treasure chest of unique cartoons that illustrate how the imagination of animators has been triggered by the 3D-effect... Serge Bromberg, 2011, France, 90 min.

Reversals The earliest work by Jacques Verbeek and Karin Wiertz was an important source of inspiration for Bart Vegter when he became interested in making film.... Jacques Verbeek, Karin Wiertz, 1972, Netherlands, 3 min.

Rodeo Trilogy, The The Mayberry Practice Calf, Second Place and The Wooden Calf are three silent shorts about the practice and patience that lead to great... Kevin Jerome Everson, 2012, USA, 9 min.

Schwechater Supposedly shot as a commercial for an Austrian beer, Kubelka drastically edited the material into a hermetic yet fascinating cinema object. Peter Kubelka, 1958, Austria, 2 min.

silenzio di Pelesjan, Il This portrait brings to mind the lyrical film language of a genius who was silenced for a long period of his career, and now prefers silence himself. Pietro Marcello, 2011, Italy, 52 min.

Space-Modulation Point of departure in Space-Modulation is the discovery of the moment when a two-dimensional image transforms into a three-dimensional space. Vegter... Bart Vegter, 1994, Netherlands, 1 min.

Speech Act A middle-aged man reflects on Avatar, the most expensive and highest-grossing film ever. His soliloquy however turns into a meditation on life at large. Herman Asselberghs, 2012, Belgium, 29 min.

Structuurverschillen van tijd en plaats Very short and formal film by the multidisciplinary artist Peter Struycken, one of the founders of computer art in the Netherlands. Peter Struycken, 1971, Netherlands, 1 min.

tempestaire, Le Steeped in mysticism and regional folklore, a romantic story about a girl’s bedeviled state of mind. The nonprofessional acting is compensated by a majestic... Jean Epstein, 1947, France, 22 min.

tijd, De A flat, monochrome image slowly evolves into a dramatic spectacle; colour allows lines and conical forms to subtly dissolve and solidify. In the end, the... Bart Vegter, 2008, Netherlands, 9 min.

Traité de bave et d'éternité This legendary film constitutes the Letterist manifesto of film. One of the most radical innovators of the art of cinema (physically attacking the film... Isidore Isou, 1951, France, 120 min.

Tributes - Pulse For his latest celebration of decaying film stock, American filmmaker Bill Morrison collaborated with Simon Christensen. The Danish musician conceived of the... Bill Morrison, 2011, Denmark, USA, 65 min.

Unsere Afrikareise Under the guise of a conventional amateur travelogue portraying a safari, Kubelka confronts us with a cunning cultural analysis of the hunt for images. Peter Kubelka, 1966, Austria, 13 min.

Village, Silenced Focus in this short remake is on how sound is used as a means of social control, and the larger historical implications of repetition. Deborah Stratman, 2011, USA, 5 min.

voyage dans la lune, Le The first science fiction film ever (from 1902!) has been restored and can now be seen in colour. Screened together with The Extraordinary Voyage. Georges Méliès, 1902, France, 14 min.

voyage extraordinaire, Le After more than a century, Méliès fans can see his iconic ATrip to the Moon as a coloured spectacle again. A playful documentary on one of the most... Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange, 2011, France, 65 min.

Zwerk Zwerk is an abstract film that depicts an illusionary world. The film was made with the purpose of creating an opportunity to view something as it is.... Bart Vegter, 2004, Netherlands, 8 min.