Anthem (Marlon Riggs, U.S., 1991): A much-honored media artist and UC Berkeley Professor of Journalism, Marlon Riggs dared to shatter the silence surrounding racism and homophobia in such groundbreaking works as Tongues Untied and Color Adjustment. Anthem, Marlon Riggs's experimental music video, politicizes the homoeroticism of African American men. With images-sensual, sexual and defiant-and words intended to provoke, Anthem reasserts our "self-evident right" to life and liberty in an era of pervasive anti-gay, anti-black backlash and hysterical cultural repression. (9 mins, Color, 3/4" video, From Frameline) The Liberation of the Mannique Mechanique (Steve Arnold, U.S., 1967): From the late sixties through the seventies, photographer, filmmaker, designer Steve Arnold was a central figure in the San Francisco avant-garde. His first film, Liberation of the Mannique Mechanique, presented a fantasy world somewhere between Cocteau and Jack Smith. The costumes, make-up, props would become the signatures of his later work on film and stage. Here, as filmmaker Robert Nelson noted, "all...work in a harmony for this under-dream-world of Eastern magicians. Even the bodies of the actors look as though they were designed for the film. There is odalisque fragrance of 'incense and kief'....behind that, almost imperceptible, the smell of rotting flesh....a film poem that is saturated with Style (capital S)." (15 mins, B/W, 16mm, From Film-Makers' Cooperative) Strange Space (Leslie Thornton and Ron Vawter, U.S., 1992): Ron Vawter was an actor/provocateur from New York's elusively experimental Wooster Group who co-starred in such notable films as Philadelphia and Swoon. A compelling and committed actor, he added his authoritative presence not just to Hollywood features but to a long list of remarkable avant-garde film and video works. His generosity and his interest in artistic vision helped secure the success of many independent projects. "This video was specially produced for Aids Awareness Day, 1 December 1992. In barely three and a half minutes, the makers succeed in creating a penetrating and melancholy image of the inevitability of death. The poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, recited in English, accentuates the sorrow of loosing the future."-Worldwide Video Festival, The Hague. (3-1/2 mins, Color, 3/4" video, From Drift Distribution)