Arts Council of Great Britain

A profile of composer Steve Reich, a leading creator of stripped-down, "minimal" music. The program explores how Reich's music eventually became accessible to the musical audience at large. Included are interviews with the composer himself, and contemporaries, and also performances of some of his works.

A witty, feature-length drama-documentary in which Marcel Duchamp, who once compared his own mind to that of a master criminal, is investigated by Sherlock Holmes. Holmes comes out of retirement, and with the assistance of Dr. Watson, proceeds to delve into the mystery of Duchamp’s major work, the once-notorious Large Glass (The Bride Stripped Bare by the Bachelors, even) 1915-23.

Oscar Wilde’s famous and eloquent defence of love – made while he was being cross-examined at the trial that led to his incarceration and death – is strikingly illustrated, word by word, with Mapplethorpe-like imagery.

Documentary on advertising. Investigates the way work has disappeared from advertising images, and traces the phenomenon through archive advertising films from 1897 to 1960. Places advertising in the context of historical events and everyday life, archive material being juxtaposed with contemporary images.

Follows dub poet master Linton Kwesi Johnson out of the recording studio onto the Brixton streets.

The London Contemporary Dance Theatre perform a fantasy set in the city’s underground system. A boy meets the girl of his dreams, and their journey is followed, against the background rhythms of the train and tunnel sounds. Choreographed by Darshan Singh Bhuller.

A documentary about the life and works of Margaret Tait.

Assesses the contribution made by British avant-garde composer, Cornelius Cardew, to contemporary music. Includes interviews with Stockhausen and other composers, and extracts from Cardew's own works.

A brief look at the life of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy.

Perhaps her name is Maria: A woman with blonde curls listens to a caller in her New York apartment, moving between the couch and the kitchen floor, getting deeper and deeper into her surreal fantasies, in which she lustfully tries out different roles.

Vertical Features Remake is a film by Peter Greenaway. It portrays the work of a fictional Institute of Reclamation and Restoration as they attempt to assemble raw footage taken by ornithologist Tulse Luper into a short film, in accordance with his notes and structuralist film theory. The footage consists mostly of vertical landscape features, such as trees and posts, shot in the English landscape.

Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

Ted Hughes's 1993 novel The Iron Woman is the springboard for this multi-media project by Mikhail Karikis. The video section of the installation features seven-year-olds from Mayflower Primary School in East London discussing the novel's environmental themes.

Documentary on the work of jazz musician Mike Westbrook.

Since 1983, Bow Gamelan Ensemble have inspired generations of artists with their radical practices and explosive performances. Charged with their individual virtuosity in performance art, avant-garde music and kinetic sculpture, their sound installations and performances are immersed in an orchestra of instruments made from scrap metal, electric motors, river barges and domestic objects including glass sheets, light bulbs and fireworks.

As night falls, the receptionist of a small hotel dutifully performs her routine tasks while strange lodgers descend upon the dark corners of the inn.

Toulouse-Lautrec's sketchbooks are turned into an animated short.

“London artist John Smith uses light-hearted humour to explore theoretical concerns - Gargantuan, for instance, is both pleasantly silly and acutely conscious of how imagery depends entirely on its framing. A voice-over intones the words ‘huge’ and ‘strapping’ as a lizard almost fills the screen, then ‘medium’ as the camera zooms out, then ‘tiny’, and finally ‘minute’, a pun on the film’s running time.” Fred Camper, Chicago Reader 2001

A survey of the painting of Henri Matisse, revealing the development of the idyllic quality in his work. Studies pictures from the beginning of his career, and follows the spontaneous flowering of color.

From the idea that glass, even when cooled, is a liquid that changes in appearance over time, an offscreen narrator launches a recollection of the bygone days of manual glassmaking and an observation of the impact of the mass-produced glass on the changing appearance of England over time.