Archived August 15, 2007
FILM CATALOG BELOW contains films and videos in distribution (as DVDs). 16mm film sales are closed.
See DVD Sales for titles currently available. Listings for films - videos no longer in distribution can be found in the
'Film - Video Archive'
Additional readings on avant-garde film subjects:
'These Films - This Site'
Index of Film - Critical Writings
Selections from 'OPSIS'

AVANT-GARDE FILMS AND VIDEOTAPES previously in DISTRIBUTION

All sales of film - video - DVD are concluded.

Further sales, if resumed, will be announced at a later date.

This catalog is for reference only.

Quick lnk to:   'Visual Essays: Origins of Film'

16mm AVANT-GARDE FILMS on DVD

Al Razutis - Major Works

AMERIKA

SINGLE SCREEN 170 min. - THREE-SCREEN 56 min.

1972-1983, Prod.- Dir. Al Razutis

AMERIKA  is a "feature-length experimental film which was created one reel at a time to function as a mosaic that expresses the various sensations, myths, landscapes of the industrialized Western culture (1960's -1980's) through the eyes of media-anarchism and avant-garde film techniques." (AR)

click for 'Amerika' individual films page

"The 'Simulacrum', the 'Spectacle', the 'global village' gone into hyperbole is the 'mediascape' of AMERIKA. Here, the spectacles of ever-changing 'media' employ shifting signifiers (the formal elements) and produce coded and proliferating signifieds (meanings) of consummer truths, world views, historical 'facts', anthropomorphized fears and gratifications.
click for AMERIKA film stills page - separate window
AMERIKA film stills
2006 DVD source
click for VIDEO - Ilmin Museum of Art installation of AMERIKA
AMERIKA 3 screen intallation,
2004 Seoul, Korea (.wmv video)
click for AMERIKA poster by Samantha hamerness-Coombs
AMERIKA poster,
by Samantha Hamerness-Coombs

"The predominant characteristic of the film is that it draws from existing stock footage archives, the iconography and `memory bank' of a media excessive culture (one theme being media 'bank robbery' and anarcho appropriations - interventions), to locate its `subjects'. The techniques employed in rendering the various fragments vary from video-synthesis, optical matte effects, audio-synthesis,time-lapse cinematography, to more conventional 16 mm forms of representation. It formally references three decades of underground - avant-garde - experimental - commercial - documentary cinemas, and the tensions therein." (A.R.)
Click on thumbnails for specific films as individually released
Vortex Bridge at Electrical Storm A Message from our Sponsor WildWest Show MOTEL ROW' - AMERIKA Lonesome Death of Leroy Brown

 

'AMERIKA' was banned briefly in Canada ( see OPSIS ('84) Regina vs... ) and has been featured in international retrospectives in exhibitions and collections in the three-screen format. This film is a Los Angeles Film Critics Award winner and in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Paris - Pompidou.

Produced, Directed, Written, Photographed and Edited by Al Razutis
Appearances by: Samantha Hamerness-Coombs, Lincoln Clarkes, Al Razutis
Soundscapes by: Tony Giancinti, Al Razutis

2002 Film Screening at The Blinding Light!!! Cinema (Vancouver) revued by Bryan Zandberg Amerika....Amerika

Critical discussions on the film 'AMERIKA' and filmmaker:

Note: This film contains brief sequences of extreme (stock footage) violence and graphic sexual (stock footage) subject matter. It is assumed you are an adult when you view this film.

Awards:
Los Angeles Film Critics' Award - 1988
Permanent Collections:
Museum of Modern Art of France (George Pompidou) - Paris (film)
National Library of Australia (VHS, film sections)
Amherst College (DVD)
California Institute of the Arts (VHS)
Simon Fraser University (DVD)

'AMERIKA' available on Dual Layer DVD

DVD and CD sales price list

Reference text:   'Avant-Garde Films and Videos'


Visual Essays: Origins of Film

56 min. color, sound , Prod.-Dir. Al Razutis, 1973-1984                                     only on DVD

click for page on individual films in VISUAL ESSAYS: ORIGINS OF FILM

These six essays on film/image history attempt to reconstruct the vision of cinematic creation occurring in the minds of cinema's "primitives" ; together they comprise a critical/structural investigation of silent cinema. "I thought it necessary to engage the original film texts by creating a process of `discovery' wherein the viewer could partake in the `myth of creation' without being encumbered by the full questions of ideological significance, historical placement, and authorship." (A.R.)

"Both the visual artist and the educator make their appearances throughout Origins of Film,  but it looks to be the poet who has the final say. Informing the overall shape of the project is an argument that is presented at a number of levels. Each film is structured around a distinct set of optical printing and collage techniques [and] ... embodies a `look' which becomes the film's central strategy and metaphor." (Peter Chapman, Independent Eye)

 

In the collections of

National Gallery of Canada (Permanent Collection - film)
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain (DVD

'VISUAL ESSAYS: ORIGINS OF FILM' available on DVD

DVD and CD sales price list

Click on thumbnails for specific films as individually released

VISUAL ESSAYS - Lumiere's Train... VISUAL ESSAYS - Melies Catalogue VISUAL ESSAYS - Sequels in Transfigured Time VISUAL ESSAYS - Ghost:Image VISUAL ESSAYS - For Artaud VISUAL ESSAYS - Storming the Winter Palace

VIDEO ART AND PRAXIS on DVD

Why Don't You Just Leave?

28 min., Ptrod.-Dir. Anne Popperwell and Al Razutis, 1996

WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE?
Abstract images, uncompromising text, and the voices of men from the Family Violence Project in Victoria, BC expose the implications of domestic violence towards women.

Created as a video installation piece for a travelling exhibition of paintings by west coast artist Anne Popperwell, 'Why Don't You Just Leave?'   presents an innovative way of contextualizing and expressing an important subject.


 

WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE?
'Why Don't You Just Leave?' functions both as a single monitor piece and (projected) video-installation.

This tape explores the various 'languages' of domestic violence by presenting text, voice-over testimonials from men who have engaged in violence. The visuals supply segmented and semi-abstracted images of women's bodies bearing text written upon the physical 'sites' of violence. As analysis of violence, the tape deals with the segmentation of our knowlege of violence and is presented in a poetic (non-didactic) manner for both male and female audiences.

This videotape on DVD continues to be distributed and exhibited in a variety of national and international exhibitions.

'WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE?' available on DVD

DVD and CD sales price list


IF YOU CANNOT LOCATE A VIDEO TITLE
check listings for films - videos no longer in distribution:
'Film - Video Archive
Reference text:

'Avant-Garde Films and Videos'
DVD SALES:   DVD PRICE LIST

Sales contact:   alrazutis@yahoo.com

ORDERING INFORMATION

[ VISUAL ALCHEMY HOME PAGE ]

[ TOP OF PAGE ]