M.M. Serra

For over 70 years, Jonas Mekas, internationally known as the "godfather" of avant-garde cinema, documented his life in what came to be known as his diary films. From his arrival in New York City as a displaced person in 1949 to his death in 2019, he chronicled the trauma and loss of exile while pioneering institutions to support the growth of independent film in the United States. Fragments of Paradise is an intimate look at his life and work constructed from thousands of hours of his own video and film diaries-including never-before-seen tapes and unpublished audio recordings. It is a story about finding beauty amidst profound loss, and a man who tried to make sense of it all... with a camera.

Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov traces the course of experimental film in America, taking the very personal point of view of someone who grew up as part of the experimental film community.

Bitch-Beauty is an experimental documentary paralleling the lives of Anne Hanavan, whose experiences as part of the underground scene in the East Village of the 1980s was contemporary with now-deceased actress Zoe Tamerlis Lund, the actor and screenwriter of Bad Lieutenant, who died of a heroin/cocaine overdose in 1999. Using Hanavan's films, performances, readings, and music as well as footage from Lund's work, Bitch-Beauty is an intense seven-minute time capsule of addiction, the perils of street prostitution, and subsequent renewal or revival through cathartic self-expression.

A series of video letters between José Luis Guerín and Jonas Mekas.

Sound composition by Zeena Parkins. Erotic dance performance by Goddess Rosemary.

A dark and sensual experimental narrative that explores a skilled technical worker's fantasies during her nights as a femme in the lower east side of New York.

Bitch-Beauty is an experimental documentary paralleling the lives of Anne Hanavan, whose experiences as part of the underground scene in the East Village of the 1980s was contemporary with now-deceased actress Zoe Tamerlis Lund, the actor and screenwriter of Bad Lieutenant, who died of a heroin/cocaine overdose in 1999. Using Hanavan's films, performances, readings, and music as well as footage from Lund's work, Bitch-Beauty is an intense seven-minute time capsule of addiction, the perils of street prostitution, and subsequent renewal or revival through cathartic self-expression.

Sound composition by Zeena Parkins. Erotic dance performance by Goddess Rosemary.

A dark and sensual experimental narrative that explores a skilled technical worker's fantasies during her nights as a femme in the lower east side of New York.

Film of Jack Smith's apartment starring Penny Arcade before it was reposed by the "evil landlords."

Ever wondered how to crystallize the body of a cat? Here M.M. Serra's dark and ethereal exploration of counterculture and body manipulation extends to the animal kingdom. Artist Katherine Bauer recites her recipe for Crystallum, her playfully witchy process of growing crystals on the carcass of her deceased feline friend, Pickles. Bauer also quotes "The Torture Garden," the 19th Century French novel by Octave Mirbeau, accompanied by the dirge of heavy rock music. Serra's passion for finding cinematic beauty in the absurd and humor in provocation make her work charming, singular and visceral.

An experimental documentary filmed over a two-year period, NOTES FROM THE LOWER EAST SIDE includes such personalities as Clayton Patterson, performance artist Penny Arcade, Anthology's own Jed Rapfogel, and other amazing HOWL Fest personalities.

16mm / color / sound

Exploration of the life and work of Jack Waters and Peter Cramer.

La Serenissima drifts through the mythic and material layers of Venice, tracing a lineage of women who refused to remain ornamental in a city built on spectacle. Against the shifting tides and mirrored surfaces of the lagoon, the film evokes figures such as Veronica Franco, the Renaissance poet and courtesan who wielded language as power; Luisa Casati, the avant-garde muse who turned her own life into a living artwork; and Peggy Guggenheim, the modern patron who transformed Venice into a sanctuary for radical art.

Spring time in my garden with Francesca, visual variations of green light and shadows.

"... portrays the views of a first generation Italian-American woman though her life experiences as immigrant, factory worker, and as the 'emotional heart of the family.'" – Fabrice Ziolkowski

Colorful, energetic, delicate and sensual, this early short by M.M. Serra presents her unique vision of eroticism and poetic cinema in a fast-paced collage of dreamlike imagery. Fragments of a poem by C. Breeze are read and manipulated in a manner recalling the tape experiments of Steve Reich. Rich reds and deep blues stutter and sparkle along with her descriptions of love and "canine sex." TURNER is a brief glimpse at Serra's roots in the New York avant-garde and the Film-makers' Cooperative.

Delicate fleeting imagery catches the flurry of the city’s changing moods.

Using Pixelvision video transferred to 16mm film, these works map the visual space of emotional investigation.

MARY MAGDALENE is a construct of personal, mythological and political projections of the fluid identity of the individual. This digital representation fragments and layers the profile that is representative of multiple gender identities. These fragments and layers use the reflections of the elements through which gender is culturally established. In the religious community, the name “Mary Magdalene” is the woman as flesh, the wanton woman. This film emphasizes the camera as a weapon for the filmmaker to create her own visual projection.

"Chop Off exposes the dark, fearful recesses of the human psyche by filming the body modification of performance artist R.K. Literally risking "life and limb," R.K.'S body is his medium and amputation is his art. The very act of filming him often stimulates a cascading range of emotions, from disgust to fear to dread." - Tribeca Film Festival 2009

Inspired by Christo, a Christmas celebration wrapping (with red and green ribbons) of a seaside house in Puerto Pinesco, Mexico. (16mm / color / sound)

A curious meditation on the pleasures and terrors of s/m, in which interviews with enthusiasts collide with choice porn clips, Fleisher cartoons, Hans Bellmer poupees and a couple of sphincter-tightening routines. The results are compelling, this film lingers, never once slipping into hype or deadly cool.’ – Manohla Dargis, Reel To Reel, Village Voice, 1992.

A period-style advertisement recontextualized from a feminist perspective.

ART PARADE is a meditation on staring and display, and on the ambiguous energies that emanate from both. Much of the film is dominated by the stunning presence of Kembra Pfahler (leader and co-founder of rock-performance troupe The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black) escorted by a chorus of her Karen Black Girls.

16mm / color and b/w / sound

Filmed on vacation in Hawaii, EYE ETC. explores the light, colors and sensuous movement of the Hawaiian culture.

Premier of Lhasa Club, a small club in L.A. California. It was famous for providing an eclectic program. Jean-Pierre Boccara opened the club in 1982 and started to book punk/new wave band combined with performance artists, cabaret acts, comedians, poets and art-exhibition.

"This is Freud's Dora told by Dora: a fresh revelation, a successful voyeurism. We are allowed to sit on three therapeutic sessions to hear the confessions as M.M. reenacts her past: becomes demure, becomes hurt, disassociates. Her "Mum" is indicted: peasant, barely literate, wanting her daughter to be happy, "to be married" as she says in her last letter. The irony is immense: defining the abuse as secret shame, never confronting "Mr. Goertler," Mum wishes her daughter to attain social liberation in the shape for a happy (mythic?) marriage." -- Abigail Child

Sourced from five 16mm filmstrips found outside of a closing adult bookstore on New York's former 42nd Street sex district.

Sound by Jennifer Reeves Part of the "Ad It Up" series of shorts that are parodies of commercials.

New Tribute to Carolee Schneemann with Peggy Ahwesh. Shot on location at Carolee’s house in 2010. Made in the aftermath of her death, the filmmaker revisited old footage at Carolee’s divine house to resurrect memories of her.

A fantasy ad that infiltrates three leading visionary designers and their boutiques.

Where art & erotica meet! Using a series of exciting sex games in which sadism and punishment are central, dark masturbation tales are portrayed. On the soundtrack, John Zorn & David Shea inter-wires with mastery magician Aleister Crowley with sound of acoustic instruments to an invigorating soundscape.

Where art & erotica meet! Using a series of exciting sex games in which sadism and punishment are central, dark masturbation tales are portrayed. On the soundtrack, John Zorn & David Shea inter-wires with mastery magician Aleister Crowley with sound of acoustic instruments to an invigorating soundscape.