Video Album 5: The Thursday People

In the Land of Giants and Pygmies(en)

IN THE LAND OF GIANT PYGMIES, a diary of Aurelio Rossi's 1925 trek into the immense Belgian Congo, preserves a long-gone-Colonial-era wonder at natural resources, "primitive" tribes, customs and costumes in Europe's cast African possessions, and implies that the "dark continent" could benefit from the "civilizing" influences of home.

Begins (โผบิน)(th)

The untold state of mind dealing with an incurable disease. One is wondering if there's still a dream to achieve in life. One is running as if this free spirit of mine has never been taken away.

Eautopsie(en)

An enigmatic glimpse of life through precarious vignettes, propelling a narrative through a nebulous and opaque structure that sutures the filmmaker's home movie footage to archival material—from Hollywood narrative films to political selfie videos. A handmade impression of a time suspended between past and present and the ghosts and places occupying it, contemplating the nature and meaning of vision, memory and image making.

Heart of a Tiger(fr)

Somewhere between a diary and a filmed letter made while Caroline Champetier was shooting Benoît Jacquot's film L'Intouchable in India.

American Teenagers(en)

A short documentary project that attempts to encapsulate what it looks and feels like to be an American Teenager in 2022.

Notes before the Wind(cn)

A loose collection of scenes in Hong Kong shot over a five-year period, this film begins with the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and ends right before the summer of 2019, when large-scale social unrest and violent resistance erupted. The everyday scenes capture the ambience and the landscape of change in the city, standing as a quiet prelude to the ensuing conflicts.

Always/Never (Together Forever)(en)

An unhinged, diaristic examination of devastating friendship breakups.

As Janelas Me Diziam Que Os Carros Cor De Lembrança Ainda Percorriam as Movimentadas Ruas do Esquecimento(pt)

Birth of a Nation(en)

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.

VEREDA(pt)

In the Bathtub of the World(en)

On January 1st, 1999, Caveh Zahedi started a one-year video diary. The idea was to shoot one minute each day. This is the result.

beer cans under my bed(en)

This short, started early on into sobriety, finished about nine months in, is a collage of diaries and notes, collected from within addiction and into recovery.

Layering(en)

This short experimental diary film reveals my struggles with mental illness in my adolescence and queer adulthood while simultaneously reflecting upon my joyous childhood experiences. I investigate when and how my depression began and explain that my relationships with the people I love have supported me through my harder times. The film incorporates footage shot over May and June 2023 and archival home videos. Overall, I aim to resolve my "growing pains" through the medium of diary film and by reconnecting with my younger self.

Shotgun Baby(en)

A personal documentary questioning the ways in which family imposed narratives force us into roles that we spend our lives either rebelling against or conforming to.

Return to Khodorciur—Armenian Diary(it)

Raphael, Yervant Gianikian's father, survived the Armenian genocide in 1915 in Eastern Turkey. In April 1988, while living in Venice, he sat for his son's camera and read an excerpt from his memoirs, translated from Armenian into Italian.

Ventana en Carrer de Badajoz(es)

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty(en)

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Focus | Short Film(en)

An average nobody explores the struggle of self-recognition through the lens of a photographer who has spent his life documenting everything.

Hotel Diaries(en)

Made over six years in the hotels of six different countries, Hotel Diaries charts the 'War on Terror' era of Bush and Blair through a seven-part series of video recordings that relate personal experiences to the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel/Palestine. In these works, which play upon chance and coincidence, hotel rooms are employed as 'found' film sets, where architecture, furnishing and decoration become the means by which the filmmaker’s small adventures are linked to major world events.

this evening out of boredom washed my hands three times in succession in the bathroom(en)

Reminiscences of a trip to Čáslav