Neighbours, Norman McLaren, Canada, 1952, 8'
The peaceful life of two neighbours is interrupted by the appearance of a flower on the boundary between their respective plots of land. A dispute over who owns the flower leads to a stop-motion fight that upsets the neighbourhood, revealing the barbarity contained within the supposed order of private property.
Home Stories, Matthias Müller, Germany, 1990, 6'
Matthias Müller has used footage from classic Hollywood films to create a piece that reveals the cinematographic code of the appearance, gestures and fears of the American housewife, isolated in her suburban mansion.
Pièce touchée, Martin Arnold, Austria, 1989, 15'.
Through repetition and changes of speed, Martin Arnold manipulates and reedits a conventional scene, namely a husband coming home after a day's work. The result is a hypnotic choreography that distorts everyday gestures, bringing out their mechanical nature.
Schmeerguntz, Gunvor Nelson, United States, 1965, 15'
An uninterrupted stream of advertising images - women and interiors from magazines; positive, cheerful women; exemplary, perfectly groomed mothers and wives going about their housework - is combined with images that question the former, suggesting that housework and motherhood are not so easy or pleasant, that appliances can break down and need fixing, that pipes can get blocked and require plumbing.
Yard Work is Hard Work, Jodie Mack, United States, 2008, 28'
Jodie Mack offers a musical parable about love in the age of subprime mortgages. The protagonist does everything that's expected of her: fall in love, get married, have children and, of course, take out a mortgage. The film is made up of an animated collage of cuttings from magazines that promote such a lifestyle: fashion, travel and interior design magazines as well as classified ads from newspapers. A satirical romcom beleaguered by the 2008 financial crisis.
