Favorite Short Films: Live Action
Alphabetical order / ongoing project
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- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsHervé ManganiLouis BecSaskia Cohen TanugiA real estate agent tries to sell a 7-room house with kitchen and bathroom to a young couple even though he had previously sold it to its former owners.
- DirectorRúnar RúnarssonStarsMarie BodaDaniel StampePetrine AggerIn a small Danish fishing village, a young girl faces the challenges of puberty and first love.
- DirectorMaya DerenStarsJohn CageMaya DerenAlexander HammidSilently, a woman wakes on a beach as the tides go in reverse. Her dreamscape unfolds as she tries to locate a chess piece traveling from the beach to a party to a country road and then back.
- DirectorSpike JonzeStarsBeastie BoysAdam YauchAdam HorovitzSet to the song, Sabotage, the Beastie Boys appear in a condensed parody of a 1970s cop show.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsLy AbdoulayAlbourahBoron Sarret is arguably the first film made by a black African. It illustrates poverty in Senegal, particularly for the working man.
- DirectorBruce ConnerStarsToni BasilBruce Conner's 1966 dazzling dance short, "Breakaway", a film poem marrying the rhythm of the editing, movement of the body and the camera to a beautiful effect.
- DirectorAthina Rachel TsangariStarsAriane LabedClémence PoésyIsolda DychaukSeven girls, a mansion perched on a Cycladic rock, a cycle of lessons on discipline, desire and demise-infinitely.
- DirectorJean GenetStarsBravoJean GenetJavaTwo prisoners in complete isolation, separated by the thick brick walls, and desperately in need of human contact, devise a most unusual kind of communication.
- DirectorEdward F. ClineBuster KeatonStarsBuster KeatonEdward F. ClineVirginia FoxA series of mishaps manages to make a young man get chased by a big city's entire police force.
- DirectorJean RenoirStarsSylvia BatailleJane MarkenGeorges D'ArnouxThe family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.
- DirectorWilliam K.L. DicksonStarsWilliam K.L. DicksonThe earliest extant sound film. William K.L. Dickson stands in the background next to a huge sound pickup horn connected to a Thomas Edison phonograph recorder. As he plays a violin, two men dance in the foreground. This film was made to demonstrate a new Thomas Edison machine, the Kinetophone. These machines were Kinetoscope peepshow viewers mated with Thomas Edison wax cylinder phonographs. But the Kinetophone never caught on and this film was never released. The film still exists, but the phonograph soundtrack has been lost.
- DirectorAnders Thomas JensenStarsUlrich ThomsenJens Jørn SpottagJohn MartinusOn his way to the polls, an idealist yet absent-minded voter must endure continuous waves of racist cab drivers and their offensive remarks.
- DirectorPeter TscherkasskyA sunbathing woman has a phantasmagoric vision of ecstasy, derived from various found footage sources.
- DirectorSpike JonzeStarsChristopher WalkenA businessman, overhearing the song on the maid's radio, takes to dancing in the hotel lobby.
- DirectorSamuel BeckettAlan SchneiderStarsBuster KeatonNell HarrisonJames KarenA twenty-minute, almost totally silent film (no dialogue or music, save one 'shhh!') in which Buster Keaton attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye. But, as the film is based around Bishop Berkeley's principle 'esse est percipi' (to be is to be perceived), Keaton's very existence conspires against his efforts
- DirectorCarolee SchneemannStarsCarolee SchneemannJames TenneyAn experimental short in which a couple engaged in lovemaking is superimposed over ocean and beach scenes.
- DirectorMichel BraultStarsBernard ArcandGeneviève BujoldLouise MarleauTwo teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relationship with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love.
- DirectorShûji TerayamaStarsHiroshi MikamiTakeshi WakamatsuKeiko NiitakaA young man, haunted by his past, travels the land in search of the lyrics to a lullaby his mother used to sing to him.
- DirectorEdwin S. PorterStarsGilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' AndersonA.C. AbadieGeorge BarnesA group of bandits stage a brazen train hold-up, only to find a determined posse hot on their heels.
- DirectorHollis FramptonStarsMichael SnowFrampton slowly burning his black and white photographs as he describes and tells the story behind them.
- DirectorGuy MaddinStarsLeslie BaisCaelum VatnsdalShaun BalbarA scientist chooses a wealthy man over her two lovers but must heal the earth's core to save humanity.
- DirectorToshio MatsumotoStarsHiroko HoriuchiAn experimental film that attempts to create through the 'breathing' of visuals and music, the rhythm of Ki, the Japanese ideogram that symbolises the energy permeating the whole universe.
- DirectorLouis LumièreWorkers leaving the Lumière factory for lunch in Lyon, France in 1895; a place of great photographic innovation and one of the birth places of cinema.
- DirectorRobert FloreySlavko VorkapichStarsJules RaucourtVoya GeorgeRobert FloreyA wannabe movie star experiences the surreal horrors of dehumanization at the bottom of Hollywood's social ladder as his hopes for success vanish and his identity is reduced to a number.
- DirectorBill MorrisonStarsEddie PhillipsLola ToddA scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon¹s 7 minute composition. A meditation on the fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of an film.