Cinema in 2026: Old And New

Director Liu Jiayin casts her parents and herself as fictionalized members of a Beijing family that has fallen on hard times and ekes out an existence by making bags out of oxhide for sale.

Examines the relationship between cinematic portrayals of witches and postpartum depression, utilizing film history footage alongside personal testimony.

A ballet dancer is late for an audition for a show inspired by Plato's Allegory of the Cave. She arrives with her seven-year-old son, Jay, and begs the director to give her a chance.

Surgery is the new sex, 18th-century style. In David Cronenberg’s wry, surrealist miniature, four anatomical female wax models—taken from the collection of Florence’s 250-year-old science museum La Specola—lie in uncanny repose as the camera dreamily caresses their detachable organs, exposed body cavities, and glossy ceroplastic flesh. Under the director’s inimitable gaze, objects created as pedagogical tools take on an impassioned agency, contorting in perpetual agony and ecstasy.

Determined to prove herself, Officer Judy Hopps, the first bunny on Zootopia's police force, jumps at the chance to crack her first case - even if it means partnering with scam-artist fox Nick Wilde to solve the mystery.

After being laid off and humiliated by a ruthless job market, a veteran paper mill manager descends into violence in a desperate bid to reclaim his dignity.

Schum's first exhibition for television featured eight international artists who utilized water and land as both art medium and materia l. The format produced a new framework to present and perceive time and space on TV. Primarily functioning as an invisible witness to a variety of earth-driven art installations in Europe and the United States, the camera captures and disperses artistic process outside the typical studio environment. The broadcast presents Earth Work or Earth Art, "Land Art" was Schum's title, a term he is now recognized as coining with this 1969 broadcast.
The broadcast (transmitted by Sender Freies Berlin/ARD, 10.40pm, 15 April 1969) begins with a studio-recorded opening that has something of the atmosphere of a vernissage. Following short speeches by Schum and Jean Leering, the director of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the artists' contributions are shown with no commentary. The eight artists from different countries (Richard Long, Barry Flanagan, Dennis Oppenheim, Marinus Boezem, Robert Smithson, Jan Dibbets, Walter de Maria, Mike Heizer) co-operated closely with Schum. The filming concentrates on the works of art that are created in rural sites, and there is none of the usual TV portrayal of the artist in a ‹studio atmosphere.› The elaborate productions were shot in Europe and the USA. Schum expanded the message of the emergent Land Art movement, which avoided the conventional ‹studio – gallery – collector› distribution channels: «Art should no longer be made for the privacy or exclusiveness of dealers or collectors. (...) Until now artists have not succeeded in finding a modern system of communication. The only chance I see for the visual arts is the conscious deployment of television.»
1- Richard Long, Walking a Straight 10 Miles Line Forward and Back Shooting Every Half Mile, Dartmoor England, Januar 1969 ; 6:00, s/w
2- Barry Flanagan, A Hole in the Sea, Scheveningen, Niederlande, Februar 1969 ; 3:45, s/w
3- Denis Oppenheim, Time track - Following the Time Border Between USA and Canada, Fort Kent, 17. März 1969 ; 2:05, s/w
4- Bob Smithson, Fossil Quarry Mirror with Four Mirror Displacements, Cayuga Lake Region, New York State, März 1969; 3:05, s/w
5- Marinus Boezem, Sand Fountain, Camargue, Frankreich, Januar 1969; 4:00, s/w
6- Jan Dibbets, 12 Hours tide Object with Correction of Perspective, Niederländische Küste, Februar 1969; 7:30, s/w
7- Walter de Maria, Two Lines Three Circles on the Desert, Mohave Desert, Kalifornien, USA, März 1969; 4:45, s/w
8- Michael Heizer, Coyote - Coyote Dry Lake California, USA, März 1969; 4:20, s/w und Farbe.

A prayer to broken glass and haunted concrete.

Scientists have discovered how to "hop" human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with animals as animals. Animal lover Mabel seizes an opportunity to use the technology, uncovering mysteries within the animal world that are beyond anything she could have imagined.

2020 film directed by Rob Savage

A film about the prison from the places we least expect to find it.

A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.

Maria Felix, the archetypical Mexican movie star, plays one of her bad/good girl roles, with elements of the characters played by Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck and even Marlene Dietrich. (she sings a song by her then husband, the famous composer,Augustine Lara). Arturo de Cordova's tortured lover is reminiscent of his role in Buñuel's Exterminating Angel. There's some extraordinary photography , stylized sets (the furniture designer gets a credit) and outrageous dresses for La Doña, as Maria Felix is still known in Mexico. It's definitely one of the styles that Buñuel expanded in his early Mexican films like the 1955 "Ensayo de un crimen."

“The inmates of an insane asylum take over the institution, imprison the doctors and staff, and then put into play their own ideas of how the place should be run.”

13 year old Lili fights to protect her dog Hagen, and is devastated when her father sets Hagen free on the streets. Still innocently believing love can conquer any difficulty, Lili sets out to save her dog. Failing in his desperate efforts to find his beloved owner, Hagen joins a canine revolt leading a revolution against their human abusers.

The ground shakes periodically and the fumaroles of the Phlegraean Fields taint the air. From the traces of history, memories of the subterranean world, and the concerns of the present, in black and white, a lesser-known Naples emerges and fills with voices, with lives. Below the clouds lies a territory crisscrossed by locals, worshippers, tourists, and archaeologists excavating a past that in museums will give new life and meaning to statues, fragments, and ruins. The train that rings Vesuvius makes its rounds as racehorses train along the shore. A teacher runs a makeshift afterschool for children and adolescents. Firemen in their command center calm the fears of the locals who call in, law enforcement tracks down tomb robbers, while in the port of Torre Annunziata, Syrian tankers unload Ukrainian grain. The land that skirts the gulf is a vast time machine.

2015 film directed by Todd Haynes

The now-reformed Bad Guys are trying (very, very hard) to be good, but instead find themselves hijacked into a high-stakes, globe-trotting heist, masterminded by a new team of criminals they never saw coming: The Bad Girls.

2023 film directed by Jason Yu

The story revolves around a Basque Roman Catholic priest dedicated to committing as many sins as possible, a death metal salesman from Carabanchel, and the Italian host of a TV show on the occult. These go on a literal "trip" through Christmas-time Madrid to hunt for and prevent the reincarnation of the Antichrist.