La Fille Mal Gardée (The Royal Ballet)

Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardée (The Wayward Daughter) is one of the choreographer's most joyous and colourful creations. Inspired by his love for the Suffolk countryside, the ballet is set on a farm and tells a story of love between Lise, the daughter of Widow Simone, and Colas, a young farmer. It contains some of Ashton's most stunning choreography, most strikingly in the series of energetic pas de deux that express the youthful passion of the young lovers, performed here by Natalia Osipova and Steven McRae. The ballet is laced with exuberant good humour, and elements of national folk dance, from dancing chickens and a maypole dance to a Lancashire clog dance for Widow Simone, performed by Philip Mosley.

Wishing Apple

Magic apples doing magic things.

Destino

Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.

The Puppet Asylum

Otto Baxter, a filmmaker with Down's Syndrome, directs and stars in this musical horror-comedy short based on his life, set in Victorian London.

The Daughters of Fire

The story of three young Cape Verdean sisters upon their arrival at a foreign European port, in an attempt to escape another devastating eruption of the volcano Fogo. In this unknown country, they roam, hand in hand, evoking their secret fears through music and singing.

The West is a Land of Infinite Beginnings

Alone in the woods, a young man is pursued by a horrifying specter and by visions of his deceased sisters. A meditation on the precarious uncertainty of the American Dream and the role that uncontrollable forces play in our lives, The West is a Land of Infinite Beginnings is inspired by a harrowing scene from the opera Proving Up, by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek.

Old Lace

Old Lace is a 1931 Musical short.

On the Forest Stage

The animated film was created based on the fables of Sergey Mikhalkov "Cautious birds" and "Hare in the hops." Drake with his assistants arranges a performance on the forest stage for animals. He tells fables about forest dwellers from the stage.

Corrente

Is You Is, or Is You Ain't My Baby?

The King Cole Trio and Ida James perform the title song in this Soundie.

Cremaster 5

Cremaster 5 is a five-act opera (sung in Hungarian) set in late-ninteenth century Budapest. The last film in the series, Cremaster 5 represents the moment when the testicles are finally released and sexual differentiation is fully attained. The lamenting tone of the opera suggests that Barney invisions this as a moment of tragedy and loss. The primary character is the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress). Barney, himself, plays three characters who appear in the mind of the Queen: her Diva, Magician, and Giant. The Magician is a stand-in for Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874 and appears as a recurring character in the Cremaster cycle.

Stop for Bud

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

The Cat Concerto

Tom enters from stage left in white tie and tails, sits at the piano, gets his focus as the orchestra in the pit beneath him warms up, and begins to play Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody". Unbeknownst to Tom and the audience, Jerry is asleep across several of the high-note keys inside the instrument, so Tom's playing eventually wakes him. Jerry is pummeled by hammers, bounced by wires, and squeezed by Tom as the cat tries to play the concerto while dispensing with Jerry. Jerry's defensive antics add to the brio of the program and answer Tom with Jerry's own skillful musical attack. By the concerto's end, the duet leaves only one animal standing for the audience's applause.

U-turn

When you’re young, some of your strongest and most rewarding relationships are with your friends. The kind who support you to become who you really are. Inspired by U-turn and classic girl crew nostalgia, we want to celebrate those kinds of bonds with this short film from director Emma Higgins.

All Star Melody Masters

Cole Porter times three! Al Kemp and His Orchestra swing "Begin the Beguine," Emil Coleman and His Orchestra sell us "Just One of Those Things," and Skinnay Ennis and His Orchestra love some "(Let's Do It) Let's Fall in Love."

Main Street Follies

A New york producer sends a spy to a nightclub to report back on the musical acts.