For over 30 years, the so-called First Transmission video from Psychic TV, has been the stuff of, well, “snuff film” legend. First advertised in the back pages of Thee Grey Book , The First Transmission was an ultra weird touchstone of the underground VHS tape trading scene of the 1980s.
David Tibet, Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter Christopherson, Jim Jones, Brion Gysin

A mysterious woman returns to her mountain village home to confront her painful past. As she tries to uncover the long-buried truth, the local villagers accuse her of witchcraft and murder.
2022

"Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity" says the bible. The word flows from the tongue naming the pleasure of earthly life and judging it as beautiful, but shallow and useless; vanity is a deadly sin. A female sin. The man painted the woman, put a mirror in his hands and called it vanity. The woman in representation admires herself, but the one who really admires her body is the artist. Whose vanity? In VANITAS, we re-divide the woman in our bodies, showing the depth of what is palpable. If the Father's temple hides after death, clean and perfect, we reject them. We welcome Mother Nature in us, life-death in a perpetual sacred cycle, also honoring her dark face. You may wish to reach heaven, but it is on earth that your knees fall.
2021

A ritual of unknown nature condemns its main participant to a hideous fate.
2021

A young boy inadvertently stumbles upon a questionably familiar house.
2020

Teen girls perform a secret ritual at a Purity Retreat and, when one of them begins to see a supernatural entity, the terrifying question becomes what is more dangerous: the demon they’ve unleashed, or the pressure of their controlling fathers.
2019

How far would you do to get enter a contest? Joe is more than willing to do anything, without considering the consequences ...
2016

A local news crew become horribly involved with a doomsday cult.
2014

In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.
2013

Life and art intersect on a spectacular Newfoundland farm where visual artist Colette Urban mounts thirteen art performances in the fields and barns of her property. Resilient, determined, self aware and funny, Colette embraces the transformative power of art as she restages the significant art performances of her thirty-year career. With the camera as her audience she transforms the quotidian into a playful world of the imagination with elaborate costumes and idiosyncratic self invented rituals.
2009

Three American college students studying abroad are lured to a Slovakian hostel, and discover the grim reality behind it.
2007

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
2004

A woman on the run from her abusive husband encounters a mysterious hitch-hiker.
1992

Seven episodes, each taking place on a different day of the week, on the theme of suicide and violent death.
1990

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.
1971

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.
1971

Bas Jan Ader hangs from the branch of a tall tree, until he loses his grip and falls into a river below.
1971

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.
1971

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.
1970

Bas Jan Ader's first fall film shows him seated on a chair, tumbling from the roof of his two-storey house in the Inland Empire.
1970

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.
1964