Movies: Arts Council Of Great Britain

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the me...

In this film an interior landscape is scrutinised, and an apparent rational calm is revealed as suffocating. Milk and Glass is an evocative journey from surface to interior – a black-coated mirror, the hollow of a bowl, a cavernous throat; a brush de...

Documentary profile of English artist, Paul Nash....

The Arts Council commissioned this film to coincide with their major retrospective of Giacometti's work at the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) in the summer of 1965. A similar exhibition was held concurrently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, ...

Documentary on advertising. Investigates the way work has disappeared from advertising images, and traces the phenomenon through archive advertising films from 1897 to 1960. Places advertising in the context of historical events and everyday life, ar...

Toulouse-Lautrec's sketchbooks are turned into an animated short....

Cezanne's Eye is an experiential journey through the body of a unique landscape - that of Cezanne's Provence. Using intuitive and expressionist visual language and a striking specially composed soundtrack (by Stuart Jones) the film is a movement thro...

Vertical Features Remake is a film by Peter Greenaway. It portrays the work of a fictional Institute of Reclamation and Restoration as they attempt to assemble raw footage taken by ornithologist Tulse Luper into a short film, in accordance with his n...

Stabat Mater opens and closes with two sung laments, then launches into a breathless torrent of words and phrases, a re-reading of the eternal feminine of Joyce’s Ulysses, which echoes the exultant/feverish swoop of the camera through a Mediterranea...

A portrait of Salford-born poet, storyteller and comic, John Cooper-Clarke. His poems, a satirical blend of humour and social comment, are delivered at a fast pace, often with musical backing. His style, and that of his contemporary Linton Kwesi John...

Introduces the world of painter René Magritte through an assemblage of the painter's images. Includes statements by Magritte about his intentions and anecdotes from his friends Mesens and Scutenaire....

Oscar Wilde’s famous and eloquent defence of love – made while he was being cross-examined at the trial that led to his incarceration and death – is strikingly illustrated, word by word, with Mapplethorpe-like imagery....

A memory-using location film of a stay with a uranium mining community. Using a kaleidoscopic array of experimental techniques, this film explores uranium mining in Canada and its destructive effects on both the environment and the women working in ...

Experimental essay in film history, associating very early archive material (circa 1909) and studio shot footage in an attempt to provide insights into the way in which "film language" developed during the silent era, with emphasis on the process by ...

A brief look at the life of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy....

It is night and, in the foyer of a small hotel, a receptionist performs her tasks, unhurried and impassive, her face ghost-white, an emotional mask. Like the camera, she gazes steadily, both silent spectator and vicarious participant in the fantasies...

A documentary about the life and works of Margaret Tait....

The film is a continuous, "real time" tracking shot of a stream bed. The length of the track was ten yards. The camera was suspended in a motorized carriage running on steel cables three feet above the water surface. The camera pointed vertically dow...

This version of Artwar builds from performances with paper masks and implements and various sequences of gunfire....

“London artist John Smith uses light-hearted humour to explore theoretical concerns - Gargantuan, for instance, is both pleasantly silly and acutely conscious of how imagery depends entirely on its framing. A voice-over intones the words ‘huge’ and ‘...