The Year of the Everlasting Storm

A fluorescent tube illuminates an empty playground in the evening. Nearby a flash of light is projected on a makeshift screen. This outdoor movie is a portrait of a village repeatedly struck by lightning. As night falls, the silhouette figures of young men emerge, they are playing with a football raging with fire. They take turns kicking the ball which leaves illuminated trails in the grass. The lightning on the screen flickers amid the fire and the smoke rising from the ground. The game intensifies with each kick that sends the fireball soaring into the air. Finally the teens burn the screen and crowd around it to witness the blazing canvas, behind which is revealed the ghostly white beam of a projector. Phantoms of Nabua is part of the multi-platform Primitive project which focuses on a concept of remembrance and extinction and is set in the northeast of Thailand.

0116643225059 is an early experimental film by Weerasethakul made during his time at SAIC. The work is about a long-distance telephone conversation between the filmmaker and his beloved mother in Khon Kaen, Thailand. Weerasethakul superimposed a photograph of his mother in her youth alongside his own image and his apartment in Chicago. It renders a strong bond between the artist and his family.

Taking the recent tsunami in Asia as its starting point, the filmmakers have used the idea of a ghost seen wandering along the rocky coastline of a Thai island and, in a life-affirming gesture, they have invited some local children to direct the film for them, suggesting and filming the movements of the actor-ghost.

Created in celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this short essay centres on a monologue delivered by a reincarnation of the philosopher in twenty-first century Thailand.

The work is part of the Memoria Project, the first major series of work that is set outside of Weerasethakul’s home country. Given his affinity for the Amazon, of which Thai jungle tales were originally inspired, Weerasethakul has started to explore South America - and since 2017, has been developing a film based in Colombia. He is drawn to its topography, where active volcanoes and landslides ceaselessly transform natural landscapes. The Memoria Project presents both personal and collective memories, while retaining the artist’s fascination with illumination. A vital part of the video and photographic works is the presence of a lone protagonist on the beach. Weerasethakul worked with Canadian actor Connor Jessup who visited him during the filming of a documentary at Nuquí area in Chocó Department, western Colombia. Here, the actor is a spirit that contemplates the artist’s journey, his dream of both real and imaginary films.

Petch, one of the young men of Nabua, composes and plays this song about his village. One evening, he sang a song to Weerasethakul’s film crew regarding an August event when the former members of the Communist Party of Thailand gathered to commemorate the first shoot out in the field more than 45 years ago. Weerasethakul layers Petch’s song with an image of his friend, Kamgiang, whose grandfather was killed by the soldiers in the field not far from his home.

Invisibility displays Weerasethakul’s continued interest in the issue of perception and memory. The installation takes threads from his recent films, Cemetery of Splendor and Fever Room, both of which feature the same actors. Here, he takes them deeper into an imaginary world and ponders the future of shared consciousness. The videos depict a landscape where the protagonists are confined to a room, along with the viewers. With no way out, they infiltrate each other’s dreams. Invisibility mirrors the troubled state of Thailand’s politics. It proposes a decayed vision of the future where one needs to constantly evade reality. The viewing experience shifts between seeing and not seeing, fact and fiction, space and void.

For a Fiery Monkey Year.

In this video diary, Weerasethakul documents the set of Primitive Project in Nabua, Thailand, particularly the scene when teenagers are hypnotized and sleep inside a time machine.

Cactus River is a diary of the time Apichatpong Weerasethakul visited a newlywed couple near the Mekong River.

This is the first fiction short movie of Panahi, who offers us his vision on what it is like to be a young boy and is considered to be an homage to Abbas Kiarostami's 'Bread and the Alley'

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…

When a young Iranian's mother doesn't meet her after school, she tries to negotiate the streets of Tehran by herself.

Jafar Panahi's short film, shot with one uninterrupted long take, about siblings trying to sell a carpet in need of money.

Persian Carpet is an omnibus film produced by Iran's National Carpet Center and Farabi Cinema Foundation where 15 renowned Iranian directors contributed films on the subject of Persian carpet. Carpets are the reflection of the cultural and historical identity of Iran.

Renowned Iranian director Jafar Panahi received a 6-year prison sentence and a 20-year ban from filmmaking and conducting interviews with foreign press due to his open support for the opposition party in Iran's 2009 election. In this film, which was shot secretly by Panahi's close friend Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and smuggled into France on a USB stick concealed inside a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes, Panahi documents his daily life under house arrest as he awaits a decision on his appeal.

A portrait of the Panahi family's matriarch as the pandemic makes it more difficult for intergenerational connection.

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

Roughly titled Where Are You, Jafar Panahi?, it follows the filmmaker and Iranian director Majid Barzegar on a 20-minute drive to Kiarostami’s grave, during which time “the two friends speak appropriately of cinema, but also censorship and festivals, police power and ideology.”

A man, his dog, a young woman and a filmmaker in a house by the Caspian Sea. All three are wanted, but they are also in search of each other. Thus begins an absurd game in which reality and fiction merge.

Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.

Following the life of artist Nan Goldin and the downfall of the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical dynasty who was greatly responsible for the opioid epidemic's unfathomable death toll.

Documentary of the effects of migration of white yuppie gays/lesbians into neighborhoods dominated by minorities. Focuses on disruptive effects to elderly residents.

This is the second channel of Laura Poitras’s double video installation. It is comprised of United States military footage of interrogations, conducted shortly after 9/11, with two U.S. prisoners in Afghanistan, one of whom, Salim Hamdan, is the subject of Poitras’s feature documentary THE OATH.

In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.

Filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans' personal data.

The prologue to a trilogy of films about 9/11 America. Composed of images filmed at Ground Zero in September 2001, two weeks after the 9/11 attacks. The soundtrack is composed of the National Anthem recorded in October 2001 at the Yankees' World Series Game 4 in New York. It is a split screen revision from a double-projection installation.

The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows. The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

A visual study of the investigation by Forensic Architecture into the Israeli cyberweapons manufacturer NSO Group and the use of its Pegasus malware to target journalists and human rights defenders worldwide.

Tells the story of two men, Abu Jandal and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a course of events that led them to Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

A successful young couple finds their happy marriage unhinged by a disturbing secret.

For years, old wood carver Mr. Meacham has delighted local children with his tales of the fierce dragon that resides deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. To his daughter, Grace, who works as a forest ranger, these stories are little more than tall tales... until she meets Pete, a mysterious 10-year-old with no family and no home who claims to live in the woods with a giant, green dragon named Elliott. And from Pete's descriptions, Elliott seems remarkably similar to the dragon from Mr. Meacham's stories. With the help of Natalie, an 11-year-old girl whose father Jack owns the local lumber mill, Grace sets out to determine where Pete came from, where he belongs, and the truth about this dragon.

A father tells his little boy the most epic bedtime story ever.

The true story of Forrest Tucker, from his audacious escape from San Quentin at the age of 70 to an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public. Wrapped up in the pursuit are a detective, who becomes captivated with Forrest’s commitment to his craft, and a woman, who loves him in spite of his chosen profession.

It is all in the title. MY DAILY ROUTINE is a playful visual diary of filmmaker David Lowery's days, from waking in the morning to turning in at night, when his racing mind refuses to let him sleep without working over a new creative project or reading until the wee hours. It is also about the frustrations of creative work and the lure of distraction as a self-employed filmmaker and editor-for-hire in a plugged-in world. Narrated by the filmmaker and illustrated in hand-drawn sketches, it plays out like a mock slide-show (complete with the projector hum and click of changing images) by way of a tutorial. "I made MY DAILY ROUTINE at a point where I was just really frustrated with where I was and I wasn't even making things," explains Lowery. "There was a lot of red tape I was trying to cut through with other projects, but I really wanted to make something. This film is what I wound up making." - Sean Axmaker

A fantasy re-telling of the medieval tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

A woman discovers a series of old letters that lead her to the burial site of a beloved son and brother.

A woman discovers a series of old letters that lead her to the burial site of a beloved son and brother.

A short film produced in quarantine by David Lowery for the 2021 anthology film The Year of the Everlasting Storm.

A woman drifts back to childhood memories of rural Texas where her discovery of the jawbone of a horse in a field leads to a fascination with, in her own words, "dead things." Her natural history collection of insects and bones takes on a supernatural quality when she finds the corpse of a strange creature that she believes must be a faery. Using still photographs, found objects and unsettling creations that briefly come to life via stop-motion animation (which evokes the work of the Brothers Quay and gives them an even more unreal presence), filmmaker David Lowery tells a phantasmagorical story, part fantastical mystery and part nightmare, as a primal memory. A CATALOG OF ANTICIPATIONS weaves imagination and experience into a haunting tale recalled in snapshots of recollection, a dark fantasy with a tactile texture that grounds it in the physical world and narration that frames it as a coming-of-age moment. - Sean Axmaker

Luciano is a special boy. He is 15 years old and he is obsessed with skies. This documentary its an invitation to live his fantasy of being a pilot for a day, and fly a Cessna.

Martin goes on vacation to the beach with his girlfriend. Everything seems normal, until his mother arrives. Lightning strikes and there is a car to disappear.

A group of people gather for a family reunion in a house on an isolated island. They are waiting for the last person to join them, but as the evening arrives and he doesn’t arrive, a strange anxiety overwhelms them. The group dismantles and the family members wander away from the house separately, confronting the sea and an unspoken fear that slowly consumes them.

A woman and her grown daughter attempt to break quarantine in order to see her other daughter's newborn child.

Jose and Manuel are climbing the Montserrat mountain. They have not seen each other in some years, and they are in Spain for a funeral. It is a narrow, winding, uneven path up the mountain that makes communication difficult, until they reach an appropriate place to rest.

Jaime, who’s been away from the city by his own free will, invites his family to watch an eclipse at his house on the mountains. The tensions in the group are apparent, but they slowly vanish, reaching the most transparent moment among the eclipse’s darkness.

A child plays Wii tennis while his parents divvy up and and pack the furniture. One camera angle, one perspective, one situation, with a strong emotional charge. The child is immersed in the virtual world of the game while the real world stays off-screen.

An actress travels to Lisbon representing a film where she has a secondary role, regarding nobody else was available to go. In the Q&A in the Cinematheque she doesn't know how to answer the audience questions.

During a very dry summer in an isolated community far from the city. Sofia, Clara and Lucas face their first loves and fears, while preparing the New Year's party, without knowing that nature threatens them.

Welcome to Lisbon: there are mermaids by the Tagus and birds flying over the old city; there are mad scientists and singing fish; lost tourist guides and lost tourists; fado and sad guitars. What a weird city you may think - but no. Lisbon is about being different, sarcastic, welcoming to foreigners even in an economic crisis. Different directors became fascinated by our strangeness. We became fascinated by these directors. The city is never the same in these four episodes, here in Lisbon.

The lives of three characters intertwine through a ticket-tearer working at the local Indian cinema, who soon develops an interest in the stories of his patrons.

Wet Season revolves around the life of Ling, a schoolteacher who deals with infertility while having to take care of her infirm father-in-law at home. One of Ling's students, Kok Wei Lun, develops a crush on her during remedial Chinese classes. The two become closer as Wei Lun embraces Ling's extra tutoring.

A chance encounter between strangers, a foreigner and a local, results in the possibility of an unlikely friendship.

A global story through the eyes of two women interconnected by a child. Somer is a newly married physician in San Francisco who makes the devastating discovery that she will never be able to have children. The same year in India, poor mother Kavita makes the heartbreaking choice to save her newborn daughter’s life by giving her away and will be haunted by that decision every moment for the rest of her life. Asha, the child adopted out of a Mumbai orphanage, binds the destinies of the two women.

Set in the mid 1990s in Singapore, ILOILO chronicles the relationship between a family and their maid from Ilo Ilo, a province in the Philippines.

The Reunion Dinner depicts one Singaporean family’s celebration of Chinese New Year from the 1960s to present day. They may adapt their traditions to the country’s modernisation, but this does not change: celebrating with loved ones over a shared meal.

On a hot humid day, Singapore is shrouded by the haze from Indonesia. Two teenagers skip school to idle the time away, and an innocent love affair plays out indoors.

A conversation between a divorced couple that took place in London

A young married couple struggle with looking after their young son during lockdown.

A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.

A digital diary of one family forced to communicate virtually long before 2020, and their dreams of being reunited.

A documentary on Bobby Yay Yay Jones and his attempt to reunite with his three children, each in separate foster homes.

On the outside looking in it seems as though Cassandra and Dwayne have the perfect relationship but today a secret is discovered that will change their lives forever.

Cops involved with covering up a murder by getting rid of their body cam video footage find themselves haunted by an evil spirit.