Self

Working completely outside the mainstream, the wildly prolific, visionary Stan Brakhage made more than 350 films over a half century. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” he has turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were made without using a camera at all, as he pioneered the art of making images directly on film, by drawing, painting, and scratching.

A lone passenger is reflected in the windows of a train crawling through layers of textures towards Minsk. During his absence, the city has not changed: all the streets are frozen, long-gone voices can be heard in the empty rooms and around the corner you can find yourself in a video game from your childhood.

Set against nostalgic analog noise, this is an ultra-processed film which pays homage to lost media and the dead art of videotaped home movies. Taking place primarily in the United States, two strippers look into getting hired at a club in Colorado, a young musician reunites with her family in Missouri, and a German woman flies from Berlin to the U.S. to help her friend finish a film in Texas.