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Experimenta

Bringing together films and videos by artists that have transformed our experience of the moving image. Our collection includes films from outside the sphere of experimental filmmaking, including the celebrated surrealists and challenging works of narrative fiction.

But these are works united by their dedication to testing the boundaries and disrupting the distinction between form and content.

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Goltzius and the Pelican Company Goltzius and the Pelican Company

Biopic 2012 117 mins Director: Peter Greenaway

An artist stages a series of erotic dramatisations illustrating sexual taboos from the Old Testament, in this startling and shocking return from director Peter Greenaway.

Rent for £3.50

Rey Rey

Historical drama 2017 90 mins Director: Niles Atallah

Niles Atallah's wild, inspired history of French adventurer Orélie-Antoine de Tounens, told via puppetry, stop-motion and degraded film stock.

Rent for £3.50

Island of the Hungry Ghosts Island of the Hungry Ghosts

Documentary 2018 98 mins Director: Gabrielle Brady

A therapist helps traumatised refugees detained on a remote island where powerful natural and tribal rituals prevail, in this extraordinary mix of fact and fiction.

Currently unavailable

Eisenstein in Guanajuato Eisenstein in Guanajuato

Biopic 2015 106 mins Director: Peter Greenaway

One of Britain’s most inventive filmmakers tackles the story of arguably the most influential filmmaker in cinema history, Sergei Eisenstein.

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The Falls The Falls

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1980 195 mins Director: Peter Greenaway

Following a series of inventive shorts, Peter Greenaway arrived fully formed as a feature filmmaker with this highly confident, audacious epic.

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Decasia Decasia

Documentary 2002 67 mins Director: Bill Morrison

Decasia is an artful collage of found archival footage, shot pre-1950 on a cellulose nitrate base and most of it in advanced stages of decay.

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Un Chien Andalou Un Chien Andalou

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1928 16 mins Silent Director: Luis Buñuel

A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.

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L'Age D'Or L'Age D'Or

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1930 63 mins Director: Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali unite for this masterpiece of cinematic surrealism remains as brilliantly witty and shocking as ever, more than 80 years on.

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Pink Narcissus Pink Narcissus

Fantasy 1971 65 mins Director: James Bidgood

With its highly charged hallucinogenic quality, its atmosphere of lush decadence, Pink Narcissus is a landmark of gay cinema.

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Helen Helen

Thriller 2009 75 mins Director: Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor

An inventive and acclaimed British feature following the transformation of a teenager who agrees to portray her missing college friend in a highly detailed crime reconstruction.

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Further Beyond Further Beyond

Biopic 2016 88 mins Director: Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor

Desperate Optimists' deliriously deconstructed biopic of the extraordinary Ambrosio O'Higgins, who left Ireland to become the captain general of Chile in the Spanish Empire.

Rent for £3.50

Innocence of Memories Innocence of Memories

Documentary 2016 97 mins Director: Grant Gee

A multi-layered melding of fiction and fact, about Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk and his Istanbul Museum of Innocence.


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Laboured Party Laboured Party

Documentary 1975 20 mins Director: Stephen Dwoskin

An unsuspecting Labour Party canvasser stumbles onto an experimental film set and is drawn into a strange atmosphere of uninhibited abandon.

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Central Bazaar Central Bazaar

Drama 1976 142 mins Director: Stephen Dwoskin

Five strangers explore their fantasies over a period of five days in Stephen Dwoskin's remarkable experimental film.

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The Arbor The Arbor

Biopic 2010 90 mins Director: Clio Barnard

Clio Barnard's film about Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar mixes reconstruction, interviews (performed by actors) and scenes from the plays.

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Herostratus Herostratus

Drama 1967 143 mins Director: Don Levy

Helen Mirren makes her film debut in the tale of a young poet (Michael Gothard) intent on turning his suicide into a mass-media spectacle.

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The Nine Muses The Nine Muses

Documentary 2012 92 mins Director: John Akomfrah

John Akomfrah mixes archive material, literary and musical quotations and newly shot silent footage in a wry, rapt meditation on memory and migration.

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Riddles of the Sphinx Riddles of the Sphinx

Drama 1977 87 mins Director: Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen

Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s visually accomplished and intellectually rigorous film is one of the most important avant-garde films of the 1970s.

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Rapunzel Let Down Your Hair Rapunzel Let Down Your Hair

Fantasy 1978 75 mins Director: Susan Shapiro, Esther Ronay and 1 more

An imaginative, experimental and playful look at myth, storytelling and female identity.

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The Gold Diggers The Gold Diggers

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1984 89 mins Director: Sally Potter

The ground-breaking first feature from Sally Potter (Orlando, Ginger and Rosa) is a key film in early 1980s feminist cinema.

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Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Fantasy 2010 109 mins Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong's Cannes prizewinner, about an ailing man revisiting his past, is a measured, lyrical evocation of mysterious beauty and quiet humanity

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Fata Morgana Fata Morgana

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1971 76 mins Director: Werner Herzog

Herzog’s intense, dreamlike mediation on desert life as if seen by an alien.

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The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner

Documentary 1975 46 mins Director: Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog’s moving portrait of a record-breaking ski jumper.

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A Moving Image A Moving Image

Drama 2017 74 mins Director: Shola Amoo

The gentrification of London’s Brixton is examined in this probing and stylistically ambitious debut feature.

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London London

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1994 85 mins Director: Patrick Keiller

The first in Patrick Keiller’s highly imaginative trilogy of films is a photographic trip through London, recounted by our unseen narrator.

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London Symphony London Symphony

Documentary 2017 72 mins Director: Alex Barrett

A poetic journey through the capital, presenting an artistic snapshot of London as it stands today, and a celebration of its rich diversity of culture, architecture and religion.

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Swandown Swandown

Documentary 2012 107 mins Director: Andrew Kötting

Filmmaker Andrew Kötting and writer Iain Sinclair embark on a quest from Hastings to East London by pedalo.

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This Our Still Life This Our Still Life

Documentary 2011 56 mins Director: Andrew Kötting

23-year-old Eden is shown drawing and painting still lifes in her Pyrenean family home.

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By Our Selves By Our Selves

Animation & Artists Moving Image 2015 80 mins Director: Andrew Kötting

The latest psycho-geographical excursion from Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair

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Edith Walks Edith Walks

Documentary 2017 61 mins Director: Andrew Kötting

Andrew Kötting undertakes a pilgrimage in honour of Edith Swan Neck, first wife of King Harold, in this eccentric odyssey in search of English identity.

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Smart Alek Smart Alek

Drama 1993 19 mins Director: Andrew Kötting

Sean Lock is a criminal 'Smart Alek' in this apparently true story of a family holiday turned bloody nightmare.

Rent for £1.00

Forgotten the Queen Forgotten the Queen

Animation & Artists Moving Image 2017 11 mins Director: Andrew Kötting

This short animation intended to accompany Andrew Kötting’s feature-length Edith Walks explores the same themes around the life of Medieval queen Edith Swan Neck.

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Sleep Furiously Sleep Furiously

Documentary 2007 90 mins Director: Gideon Koppel

Gideon Koppel’s charming documentary about a small farming community in mid-Wales, observing the unalterable rhythms of country life and the monthly visits of a mobile library.

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Le quattro volte Le quattro volte

Drama 2010 84 mins Director: Michelangelo Frammartino

Michelangelo Frammartino's quirky, wordless account of rural Calabrian life is elegant, touching and funny, a philosophical poem to enduring tradition

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Silence Silence

Drama 2012 84 mins Director: Pat Collins

Pat Collins' film, following a sound recordist around western Ireland in an intriguing mix of fiction and documentary, makes us really look and listen

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Wind from the East Wind from the East

Drama 1969 93 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin

Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin's radical film deconstructs both a factory strike and the Hollywood western - simultaneously.

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A Film Like Any Other A Film Like Any Other

Documentary 1968 107 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard

The first film in Jean-Luc Godard's 'radical' period finds the director rejecting established notions of narrative and authorship to present a dialectic response to the events of May '68.

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Vladimir and Rosa Vladimir and Rosa

1970 96 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin

Godard recreates the trial of the Chicago Eight (charged with protesting the 1968 Democratic Party convention) in typically playful, anarchic and confrontational style.

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British Sounds British Sounds

Documentary 1969 51 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society, in this experimental documentary.

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Struggle in Italy Struggle in Italy

Drama 1969 60 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin

Godard's case study of an Italian girl's inner struggle to reconcile her revolutionary intent with her ingrained bourgeois tendencies.

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A Century of French Cinema A Century of French Cinema

Documentary 1995 50 mins Director: Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Luc Godard

Six regions, six films appraised for cultural and historical meaning. Produced by Jean-Luc Godard.

Currently unavailable

The Castle of Otranto The Castle of Otranto

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1977 18 mins Director: Jan Svankmajer

Czech animator Jan Švankmajer's adaptation of Horace Walpole's Gothic novel.

Rent for £1.00

The Fall of the House of Usher The Fall of the House of Usher

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1982 16 mins Director: Jan Svankmajer

The first of Švankmajer's 'tactile experiments', chosen partly because the title was on an official list of 'approved' texts. In this version there are no humans, just a glimpse of a live raven as the camera roams around an eerie derelict house.

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The Pendulum, The Pit and Hope The Pendulum, The Pit and Hope

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1983 15 mins Director: Jan Svankmajer

Švankmajer's second adaptation of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, in which a prisoner is forced to undergo trials of torture.

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Lek and the Dogs Lek and the Dogs

Animation & Artists Moving Image 2018 92 mins Director: Andrew Kötting

Andrew Kötting returns with an emotionally affecting and politically resonant multi-genre adaptation of Hattie Naylor’s play.

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Skinflicker Skinflicker

Drama 1973 41 mins Silent Director: Tony Bicât

Tony Bicât’s radical, found-footage record of a revolutionary act, in which three dissidents kidnap a cabinet and torture a cabinet minister.

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Visions of Ecstasy Visions of Ecstasy

Drama 1989 20 mins Director: Nigel Wingrove

Nigel Wingrove's experimental depiction of the erotic imaginings of the 16th Century Carmelite nun.

Film: The Elephant Man

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The Elephant Man The Elephant Man

Biopic 1980 124 mins Director: David Lynch

David Lynch's moving true-life tale of the severely deformed Joseph Merrick and his rescue from the hell of a Victorian circus sideshow.