ACT OF GOD  1980
Directed by Peter Greenaway
27 Minutes 
In English with English subtitles

Before making feature films the renowned British filmmaker Peter Greenaway made very weird off-beat documentaries that had a bizarre sense of humor. The subject matter of these short flicks could range from bathrooms to telephone booths, but the one we will be screening is particularly exceptional. It is a series of interviews with people who have all been struck by lightning, describing their unbelievable experiences. These wacky stories—which are true—are set to the rapid music of composer and musicologist Michael Nyman. Straight forward and deadpan, but also perverse and hilarious at the same time.

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TETSUO: THE IRON MAN  1989
Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
70 minutes
In Japanese with English subtitles

This film, directed and starring Tsukamoto, is an outlandish and brilliant display of the possibilities of modern day low-budget film making. The science fiction writer William Gibson called it "Primal 21st century cinema with gorgeously deranged energy." One viewer asked out loud "how did this guy get into my nightmares!" Combining body manipulation, bizarre sexual imagery and jet-black humor a dark and disturbing world is created.

Shinya Tsukamoto draws on the marriage of flesh and technology that inspires so much manga-influenced cyberpunk vision. A man awakens from a nightmare in which his body is helplessly fusing with the metal objects around him, only to find it happening to him in real life... or is it? Tsukamoto puts a demented conceptual twist on good old-fashioned stop-motion effects and simple wire work, giving his film the surreal quality of a waking dream with a psychosexual edge. The film is also obviously a commentary on the modern world, and the invasion of haunting technology into our lonely lives.

One viewer's reaction: "If you've never encountered a Tsukamoto film - and few fans of Outsider cinema can not have seen his astonishing debut feature Tetsuo—then try to imagine a marriage between David Cronenberg, David Lynch and a bucket of amphetamine sulphate, colored with a splash of Jan Svankmajer."

This will be a high-definition projection.