Arts Council of Great Britain

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

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.

Early 90s London gets a vibrant dose of African culture in this mini odyssey fusing dance, music and fashion.

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.

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.

Documentary about the composer Elizabeth Maconchy, filmed during the rehearsal of a new composition

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

Experimental essay in film history, associating very early archive material (circa 1909) and studio shot footage in an attempt to provide insights into the way in which "film language" developed during the silent era, with emphasis on the process by which spectators came to be increasingly "contained" with the space time of narrative.

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.

An engaging and enlightening documentary about Jeff Keen shown on Channel 4 in 1983. Features Keen performing in front of his film projections as well as talking about and showing his work in different media.

Max Eastley uses various musical instruments to create mysterious and hypnotic music, exploring their most basic sound characteristics, as well as incorporating the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges.

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.

Peter Blackman, founder of Steel 'n' Skin, talks about this pan-African group, which takes African culture to British schools. The film follows the group during a ten day workshop in Liverpool.

Introduces the world of painter René Magritte through an assemblage of the painter's images. Includes statements by Magritte about his intentions and anecdotes from his friends Mesens and Scutenaire.

Stabat Mater opens and closes with two sung laments, then launches into a breathless torrent of words and phrases, a re-reading of the eternal feminine of Joyce’s Ulysses, which echoes the exultant/feverish swoop of the camera through a Mediterranean landscape

Leave behind the ugly modern multiplex and step back into the glamorous world of the 1930s picture palace, in this charming documentary about Art Deco cinema architecture. Influenced by Le Corbusier, Oscar Deutsch created an iconic cinema brand and house style for his Odeon cinema chain. Designed by modernist architects Harry Weedon and Cecil Clavering, the distinctive buildings were anything but drab, with their sensual curves, glass, chrome and plush soft furnishings.

In this film an interior landscape is scrutinised, and an apparent rational calm is revealed as suffocating. Milk and Glass is an evocative journey from surface to interior – a black-coated mirror, the hollow of a bowl, a cavernous throat; a brush demarcates a line of lip on a flat surface, a mouth doubles up with the bowl and is virtually spoon-fed till it chokes.

Biographical short about the American Pop Artist by James Scott

The Arts Council commissioned this film to coincide with their major retrospective of Giacometti's work at the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) in the summer of 1965. A similar exhibition was held concurrently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, sealing the artist's reputation as a modern master.