Nowness

A young astrophysicist in a war-torn country watches the stars and black holes, holding a dialogue with her unborn daughter about the nature of light and darkness.

What does it mean to be goth—to be an outsider, to live both on the margins and in the midst of society? Filmmakers Jordan Hemingway and Alban Adam prize open the coffin on a world of darkness and light, exploring its multiplicities and intersections with subcultures and the ever-present experience of queerness.

Two Asian-American teenagers meet in the bathroom of a Chinese restaurant while having dinner with their families.

A moving recording of the late writer and renowned jazz singer Abbey Lincoln is captured in this new film from Brooklyn-born director Rodney Passé, who has previously worked with powerhouse music video director Khalil Joseph. Reading from her own works, Lincoln’s voice sets the tone for a film that explores the African American experience through fathers and their sons.

Lou, a teenage tomboy in a small Californian town, idolizes her single father. When he has a date over one night and she is cast out of the house, Lou wanders to the outer reaches of town and into a new era of teenage identity.

A frazzled adulteress played by Parisian beauty Zoë Le Ber wakes up in the familiar surroundings of Bar Chateau Marmont, only to find herself trapped in a prank at the hands of her restaurant-owner lover, Fred.

In the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into males and females. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” - men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned limbo between the two genders.

Artist and filmmaker Quentin Jones joins forces with Miley Cyrus in a kinky collaboration, stripping away the pop phenomenon's cartoonish persona in "Miley Cyrus: Tongue Tied".

Two girls find themselves locked in an Oslo public swimming hall and bond over school gossip, boys and dancing to the psychedelic sounds of Lindstrøm.

In the first of a new series of Define Beauty, Berlin-based directer Matt Lambert—known for his often-NSFW work exploring sex and intimacy—gets under the skin of our infatuation with sweat. Read more on NOWNESS

There are houses, and then there’s Ricardo Bofill’s house: a brutalist former cement factory of epic proportions on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. A grandiose monument to industrial architecture in the Catalonian town of Sant Just Desvern, La Fabrica is a poetic and personal space that redefines the notion of the conventional home. “Nowadays we want everyone who comes through our door to feel comfortable, but that's not Bofill’s idea here,” says filmmaker Albert Moya, who directed latest installment of In Residence. “It goes much further, you connect with the space in a more spiritual way.” Rising above lush gardens that mask the grounds’ unglamorous roots, the eight remaining silos that once hosted an endless stream of workmen and heavy machinery now house both Bofill’s private life, and his award-winning architecture and urban design practice.

Marking the 30th anniversary of Derek Jarman's passing, close friend and collaborator Tilda Swinton leads a poetic tribute to the late artist and filmmaker with a slow, meditative journey into Jarman’s poem "Chroma" during a visit to Beijing.

Arab-American filmmaker Yumna Al-Arashi embraces the rhythmic rituals that have run alongside Islamic tradition throughout the centuries in this surreal and poetic short film. Piecing together old and new, Al-Rashi's dream-like imagery breathes fresh air to a subject hardly seen in positive light.

Last summer model-turned-director duo Kristell Chenut and Vincent Lacrocq traveled to the Canary Island haven Lanzarote to shoot Thirty-Six Hours with a team consisting of only themselves and their male-model protagonists, Clément Chabernaud and Jon Kortajarena. Arguably the two biggest names in the male model world—you’ll recognise Kortajarena as the young hustler from Tom Ford’s stylish feature A Single Man, and both from countless campaigns for the likes of H&M, Gucci and Prada—the narrative short sees the pair share a surreal day and night amid a crystalline island landscape.

Two young people discover each other as they explore a labyrinthine derelict Glasgow swimming pool. A high-energy contemporary dance piece shot in the emptied Govanhill Baths in Glasgow.

Emerging filmmaker Jade Ang Jackman shares a fierce new film about Olympian fencer Ysaora Thibus and her journey to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The Countdown consists of archive footage of Thibus in training, a stylized sequence that isolates the fencing lunge, and a self-shot video diary that gives viewers an insight into the athlete’s tireless training practice and what it takes to compete at an elite level.

At the edge of Shirahama, a coastal tourist town in Japan, an ageing scientist works to unlock the biological secret of immortality held in the life cycle of a tiny jellyfish. At a temple in Kyoto, a Zen priest contemplates the metaphysical immortality held within a single breath. Some years ago, filmmaker Spencer Macdonald read an article in The New York Times titled "Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?" by Nathaniel Rich. Comprehensive and insightful, the article is compelling not least for its potential to deliver a revelation that defies one of life’s most fundamental truths; that we all live then die. It also shines a light on the arrogance of the anthropocene, the evolving landscape of Shirahama, and a detailed insight into the life and work of the charming and fervently curious Dr. Shin Kubota, a warm and eccentric scientist determined to harness the biological secrets of a jellyfish for humanity.