Peter Wollen
This groundbreaking film reveals the truth surrounding Australia’s love-hate relationship with its beloved icon. The kangaroo image is proudly used by top companies, sports teams and as tourist souvenirs, yet when they hop across the vast continent some consider them to be pests to be shot and sold for profit. KANGAROO unpacks a national paradigm where the relationship with kangaroos is examined.
American Masters Series. Documentary on Gene Kelly that gives insight into his dancing, how he formed a style (first "blue collar dancer") and developed different cinematique techniques, such as brilliantly shot dancing sequences.
Milton Rogovin is an 82-year-old photographer in Buffalo, New York, who began taking photographs in the ‘50s. In this programme, Rogovin discusses his work, whilst the subjects of his photographs talk about their lives and attitudes to being photographed.
A robot messenger (Tilda Swinton) is sent to earth to appeal to humans to live in peace. Originally designed to go to MIT, by mistake she ends up in Amman, Jordan during the Black September riots of 1970. Sullivan, a British journalist, (Bill Paterson) comes to her aid when she is found wandering without papers following a bombing and grants her refuge in his hotel room. But there she tells him she is a robot, sent as a peace envoy from another planet. He is not sure whether to believe her story or not, but finds her unusual view of the world appealing. They examine the human condition in a series of incredibly insightful and entertaining conversations.
Jane is the illegitimate daughter of a Scottish landowner. She is disowned and expelled from his estates, but although she setltes down to a new life in London, she is still haunted by the memory of her childhood and her mother's mysterious death. In a trance, she sets out on dreamlike journeys in search of freedom and revenge.
An unconventional portrait of painter Frida Kahlo and photographer Tina Modotti. Simple in style but complex in its analysis, it explores the divergent themes and styles of two contemporary and radical women artists working in the upheaval of the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.
Experimental drama set in London during the Thatcher administration involving four characters: Neil, a science-fiction illustrator, who is accidentally killed in Mexico City; Kim, a woman rock musician; Vermilion, an analyst of satellite photography; and Julian, an old friend of the illustrator who has just finished his Ph.D thesis on the fairy-tales of Charles Perrault. Their four lives are closely interlinked as events happen to each of them.
Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from Great Britain to Australia. Mulvey and Wollen’s experimental documentary combines newsreel footage of the aviator’s arrival, dramatic recreations of events from her life and contemporary discussions by feminist groups on the subject of heroism in this most unconventional biopic.
Mulvey's readings of the myth of Oedipus and the sphinx are layered atop 360º panning shots of various locales; the protagonist appears in elliptically-edited sequences.
Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.
