Our skin is a complex organ. It is a membrane, a thin dividing surface between our bodies and all that lies within us and the exterior world without, a protective container for the fluid memory of the seas we carry within us. It is also a direct interface between the two: it conveys tactile information to our nervous systems and identifying information to others around us. Thus it both partitions and connects. Though the skin is undeniably of vital importance, the ways in which it is important shift with social changes: the meanings attached to skin and physical attributes are not fixed. And where lies identity, then, within or on our surfaces? In the brain, the consciousness, or even the microbiome? The films in this issue seek out identity and body as they move back and forth across the barrier of the skin, from our sun-buffering melanocytes to our particular neurochemistries, visiting in the process the many other meanings invested in our bodies: desire and reproduction, health and disease, life and death, yoga class and beach.
Mary lives a lonely and isolated existence, meticulously documenting suspicious activity in the skies. When she connects with a fellow conspiracy theorist, she struggles to open up and reveal her secret: painful and mysterious fibres growing out of her skin. Unravel is a story about conspiracies, ro
"limbic" is a Visual Music clip which reflects the emotional processing of music in the limbic system and the resulting reactions of the body (the so-called "chills"). It has been proved that musical attributes like the violation of expectations, the beginning of something new, a new cue or a recurr
An experimental infrared thermal (IRT) short film about the hormonal transition of Menopause in an abstract approach to the transformation of the female body, as the energy cycle shifts from reproduction to a realization of a new spiritual power. Shot entirely with a military grade infrared rifle sc
A vast expanse littered with stones, a mountain on the horizon. Amidst it all, an earthen figure constantly moving through various topographies and passing bogs, lakes, rivers and moss. In between, the portrait of a woman whose mouth is visited by bumble-bees, and that of a man, whose skin is first
Squame explores the body's sensitive envelope, the skin. The ephemeral animated desquamations, created with the help of sugar casts, evoke fragile landscapes in a world at the edge of abstraction. Somewhere between archeological artifacts and macroscopic observations, the friable frontiers of these
Before there was L'Oreal, there was kohl. Kaltham and Dana met these ladies and filmed them as their senior project Producer: Alia Yunis Camera: Kaltham, Dana,Hajar, Noora, Haneen, Asma, Reem
The dream is the best proof of the fact that we are not enclosed so firmly in our skins as it seems. Jo is working as a trainer at the Fitness Company MIND YOUR BODY. His consciousness is slipping into the body of a customer and he is doing their sports program for them. During this session Jo is no
When future medicine allows people to live past the human body's shelf life, a young woman visits her grandmother in the hospital and is forced to question the value of immortality when you still end up in a box.
Dead. Tissue. Love. is an intimate experimental documentary exploring the individual character of a female necrophile, as she recounts her life experiences and sexual awakening.
Returning to the USA after losing both arms overseas, a young veteran battles phantom pains, prosthetics, and memories of his pre-war life while reaching for a sense of normalcy.
Inspired by The International Museum of Surgical Science collection and the current political climate, this experimental 2 - channel video took its cue from a sign describing 'A New Kind of Ray', within the Museum's X - ray exhibits . Documentation of found objects, simple animation and manipulation
In the year 2076, a cyborg finds moving images made by their great-grandmother in the last years of celluloid. Looking at the images, they are struck by the past, causing them to dig into their own memories, history and identity.
Gavrilov, who in theory manage to overcome death by embalming the body of Vladimir Iljitsh Lenin. Ever since the embalment their entire lives have been attached to Lenin's corpse. The accomplishment makes Abrikosov "A hero of Socialist labor", and as a result he has to live in a Kudrinskaja skyscrap
Our skin both exposes and protects us: it is part of our sense of identity, a witness, like it or not, to the events in our lives, a tool of communication, and plays an important role in how we relate to the world. Awarded the Prix du Jury / Jury Prize at Rencontres Internationales Sciences, Cinemas
What would the world be like if biometrics was used everywhere? Would life really be simpler? Would it be more complicated at times? Here is the story of Little Red Riding Hood reinterpreted for exhibition in a biometric world.
Tim and Claire hoped to fix their money problems with a mind-transfer technology that allows Tim to rent out his body. But Tim goes behind Claire's back for one last transfer and learns he's not the only one keeping secrets.
In Bogotá, Colombia, a charismatic eleven year old named Maria Alejandra struggles to maintain a normal childhood despite the limitations imposed by a rare skin disease. Conflict between mother and daughter arises when Maria refuses to attend school early one morning.
"What Happens to the Mountain" draws upon literary sources, late night radio, and ancient legends to conjure the experience of an afterlife in the sacred landscape of Devil's Tower. A long-distance driver, a drifter, journeys from his tenuous reality into a vision of the afterlife, called forth by t
Bird Watch is a mockumentary mini-series that documents Kuwait and the mean-region from the perspective of peripheral and/or minorities. The second episode, titled "Health", is about a child's point of view of a healthful lifestyle.
The film shows a new life waking up as well as the anxiety that accompanies the transformation of a female body which loses its former shape responding to the internal force affecting it. The physical sensation of another human being inside the body becomes increasingly more distinct until the momen
Skin takes us below the surface as we go on the journey with a young American teacher that is finally coming to terms with how she feels about the way she looks by showing her true self 10 years later. Farah is a twenty-four year-old Lebanese filmmaker, born and raised in the UAE, a fresh graduate f
Jessica explores the inner-workings of our sister planet. Examining the atmospheric composition of Venus, this piece, narrated by Jackie Reynal, exposes a reminder of what could happen on Earth.
Growing a multispecies image of our body-subject. Hybridities: Almost Other seeks to present revealing "biometric auto portraits" evoking both our human face and our invisible evolutionary counterpart, our microbiota, in order to re-evaluate what being human really means.
Penn State University anthropologist Dr. Nina Jablonski walks us through the evidence that the different shades of human skin color are evolutionary adaptations to the varying intensity of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in different parts of the world.
Two actresses are rehearsing a play over a weekend in a country house. While walking in the woods, one unearths something unusual. The creature becomes an object of desire for both women, desperate to own the thing. But what they don't realize is that they've just found "Our lady of hormones."
Wandering through the body puzzling out a system of symbols. The trouble is, affect resists signification outright. The inside and outside become muddled when you start to feel your body in relation to the image. This film is an exploration of the body, specifically the affective register of bodily
This documentary tells the story of nine parts of the body of persons who have suffered irrevocable changes during the year. Animations of body transformations —through growth, aesthetic or pathological changes —are illustrated with testimonies and images of some of the spaces that surro
Anka Schmid recounts her generation's hairy stories. Whether as a body ornament, political statement or even in the soup, hair is omnipresent, even when shaven.
2065. Convinced that sex was "better in the old days", a group of teenagers sets out looking for "Retrosex".
Bittersweet is a half-hour documentary which follows the personal stories of young people who are living with diabetes and their daily struggle to manage it. Over the course of the documentary, we also discover ground breaking research and development in pharmacology and biomedical science, capturin