David Finkelstein

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A symbolic journey through a hypercritical world of continual insults and retaliations.

A young woman is forced to live with an unsympathetic stepmother, and spends much of her time in an outhouse, escaping into books and her own vivid fantasy life.

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Traveling along the path of a labyrinth, the viewer passes through a series of extremely diverse landscapes, which are created through lush animation, evocative orchestral music, and rich dialog, in which words are used as much for rhythm and texture as they are for meaning. A man and woman guide us on this trip, taking us past gently falling Mondrian paintings, violent car crashes and bombing raids, and a pair of dancing, multicolored boxes, among many other settings. Based on an improvised performance, 'Suggestive Gestures' leads us gradually and indirectly towards a mysterious animal, hiding in the center of the maze.

Marginal Understandings is a poetic exploration of the American relationship to space, the soil, and ownership. While the drama of the European invasion and occupation of the American continent was justified as being the “destiny” of white people, there have always been alternative ways of living on the land, practiced by people who have been pushed to the economic margins. A collage of poetic imagery, music, and abstracted, incantatory language, the film follows two men in an excavation of our cultural soil, using improvised dialog. Their words gives rise to unexpected landscapes, populated by bats, conquistadors, and flying fiddles. A postmodern video opera, Marginal Understandings bathes the viewer in music, language, and visual spectacle.

An older woman opens a closet door and finds a key to her confused, fading memories. Hearing and vision loss isolate her, and her mental confusion keeps her suspended in the tactile sensations of the immediate present. The touch of old linen brings back old family history, both pleasant and traumatic. Based on an improvised dialogue.

In a city of dead ideas, dry, brittle conversations, and trembling, crystallized buildings, two men seek the proper approach to take towards the end of the world. Should one sit back, writing notes in a crumbling notebook, or should one rush headlong into the flames?

Shattered mind, shattered images, shattered culture. Fragmented messages bombard us from all directions, like a barrage of letters from every corner of the globe. Should the artist "hold the mirror ball" up to nature, and mesmerize the populace with fractured distractions? Is our decentralized culture doomed to incoherence? Or can the artist build new meanings through the technique of collage? Based on an improvisation.

A collage of poetic imagery, music, and invocatory language, the film follows two men in a series of esoteric experiments. Their words gives rise to desert landscapes, populated by sweat lodges, snakes, and an unusual game of tennis.

Soap is an Illusion plunges the viewer into the volatility of our conflicting attractions to dirt and cleanliness. A collage of poetic imagery, music, and abstracted, incantatory language, the film follows two men in an excavation of our cultural soil. Their dialog gives rise to unexpected landscapes, populated by revengeful toasters, soap bubbles which fly on magic carpets, and other surprises. A postmodern video opera, Soap bathes the viewer in music and visual spectacle.

Language passes through the body, meaty, corporeal, and breathing. Do you adopt the stereotypically "male" strategy of verbally lunging at your opponent, trying to skewer him rhetorically, or do you adopt the "feminine" approach, like the Oracle of Delphi, and open your body to allow voices from the beyond to speak through you? "Marvelous Discourse" uses cave art, shadow puppets, and a visit to a caf? in the Israeli town of Endor, among many other images, to explore the gendered experience of language-in-the-body. The text for the video is completely improvised by the actors, as a spectacular example of language unfolding from an intuitive physicality.