All Films

Martyrs

2014 • 7 min

Created by Bill Viola and Kira Perov and opened in May 2014, Martyrs shows four individuals, across four colour vertical plasma screens, being martyred by the four classical elements. The work has no sound. It lasts for seven minutes. Martyrs was joined in 2016 by a second piece entitled Mary. The installations have been gifted to Tate, and are on long-term loan to St Paul’s Cathedral. Bill Viola's commission for St Paul’s Cathedral follows the great historical tradition of commissions for spiritual centres that has resulted in a priceless heritage of art around the world. The result of this commission sees St Paul’s Cathedral, which has always spearheaded the engagement of great artists, house a resonant work of art for our times. Martyrs (and later Mary), will play an important role in connecting contemporary issues with the timeless themes embodied in the cathedral.

The Polygon

2014 • 54 min • Kazakhstan, United States of America

The Polygon shines a light on the village of Sarzhal in East Kazakhstan, situated only 18kms from the perimeter of the former Semipalatinsk Test Site, that was home to over 600 nuclear detonations. Between 1949 and 1991 the Soviet Union detonated 116 above ground bombs, whose massive radioactive mushroom clouds were witnessed by thousands of innocent and unsuspecting Kazakh villagers. They gazed openmouthed at the spectacle, completely unaware that nuclear fallout was raining down on them, their children, livestock and homes. 20 years after the closure of The Polygon they are still suffering high rates of cancer, cancer related diseases and mental illness. The Polygon takes us on a journey from the twisted Cold War experiments to those victims who remain today, still suffering despite the emergence of Kazakhstan as a major economic player on the global stage.

Like Shadows Growing as the Sun Goes Down

2014 • 11 min • France, Colombia

Medellin. Tireless car traffic. In the margins of a society launched at top speed, some lurking engines shutdown to make a living; Jugglers at intersections, employees on breaks, whose precise and repetitive work mark the flow of time which is always repeated.

The Girls of the Taliban

2014 • 48 min

An insight into a girls' school in Afghanistan which imposes an even stricter interpretation of Islam than the Taliban.

Guilda: Elle est bien dans ma peau

2014 • 52 min

A portrait of Guilda, the timeless beauty from the golden age of Montreal cabaret culture.

D-Day: Hidden Traces

2014 • 54 min

D-Day - June 6th 1944 : Uncovered by recent archeological digs, traces left behind by soldiers and civilians on the battle ground such as helmets, badges, bullets, weapons, and cans plus findings of underground passages and secret blockhouses provide new insights into WW2 history.

Polka Dot Superstar: The Amazing World of Yayoi Kusama

2014 • 59 min

This film follows Yayoi Kusama during the preparations for Tate Modern's 2012 retrospective of her work, when she undertook the mammoth physical and mental challenge of creating 100 new works for the largest-ever exhibition of her art.

Moonlight Serenade

2014 • 9 min

Juliet reads in her horoscope that a childhood sweetheart could reappear.

A Willing Suspension of Disbelief + Photography and Fetish

2014 • 17 min

A three-channel video installation and a split-screen video installation in response to an 1850 daguerrotype of a young American-born enslaved woman named Delia, who was photographed stripped bare as visual evidence in support of an ethnographic study by the Swiss-born naturalist professor Louis Agassiz, who held that racial characteristics are a result of differing human origins.

Natalia Nikolaevna

2014 • 30 min • Spain

Natalia Nikolaevna lives 400 km from Havana, in the city where the first nuclear power plant would be built in Cuba. He arrived 20 years ago from the USSR, to be reunited with her husband and work as an opera singer. In 1992, he began the great crisis, known as the Special Period. Natalia divorced, and rooted in the place gradually discovered him as the most hostile of spaces. Single mother without job opportunities, invented their own stage-a park-, their own -the spectators tourists- and their own livelihood: what gave him for his arias.

Roosevelt's Operative

2014 • 10 min

A Navy recruiter (Nathaniel Grant) recalls the enlistment of sailors during the Navy Sex Scandal in Newport, RI, during 1919.

Locked in the Whirlwind

2014 • 27 min • Switzerland

“Tell me that story again." "Story? What story, honey?” This playful montage film focuses on the motif of the hat to take us on a short excursion through classic film history. At once, it is also the self-portrait of a cinephile and all that he keeps under his hat: a desire for love, passion, romance.

Mardistan

2014 • 28 min

A documentary by Harjant Gill about four different Punjabi men and their perceptions of masculinity in India.

Afterimage Selves

2014 • 4 min • Canada

animation by Sabrina Ratté

L'alpinista

2014 • 49 min • Italy

Agostino Gazzera, "Gustin", was a worker at a Fiat factory in the fifties. Son of an Italian proletariat who was left battered by World War II but full of hope for the future. A young Gustin, dreams to walk the roads of legendary mountain climbers such as Cassin, Boccalatte and Gervasutti.

Crétacé Parc

2014 • 51 min

A movie director, a jurist and a boho writer are invited to visit a zoo to create a promotional event. Out there, they discover that the owner of this park mixed genetically different species to create real life dinosaurs. The first enclosures are really disappointing until an electrical failure happens in front of the T-Rex pen, which forces them to run away across the jungle and fight for their survival.

Dzisiaj

2014 • 50 min

Garçon boucher

2014 • 49 min

Miguel, 17, becomes a butcher's boy after failing at school. The son of Portuguese immigrants - short, dressed in an urban style - he is the opposite of the image that butchers try to convey.

Project Gelb

2014 • 43 min

Director Francis Luta's revealing documentary, 'Project Gelb' goes inside the minds of gay Asian males as they talk openly about the misconceptions and stereotypes they confront with the gay dating community.

Overcast

2014 • 50 min

Zugar Zombie

2014 • 15 min • Colombia

In a film that is counted from the end and it moves progressively backward, with the main purpose and reason to discover the origin of the events leading up to an event, Zugar Zombie tells a story that from irony portrays a reflection of how things work in a small Latin American society.

I'm Black, I'm Queer and I'm a Whore

2014 • 21 min

In 2012, old friends Cas van der Pas and Hugo Meijer decided to travel to Colombia to find stories that inspired them. They contacted Diana, a transgender prostitute, lawyer and human rights activist. From there they began to develop a film that runs a year in the life of this brave trans woman from Colombia that combines prostitution, human rights activism and her career as a lawyer to turn the world around her into a better one.

Keepsake

2014 • 15 min

An intimate story of a bitter relationship between Naomi and her emotionally distant father who is dying. Naomi has stopped talking to him for years. Her partner Linda must find a way to help them say goodbye before it's too late.

Man's Game

2014 • 10 min

Billy Tompkins, a gay, professional football player, intends to wrap up his 17th-year in the league by leading his team to the playoffs while continuing to keep his sexuality a secret.