Following his acclaimed debut Ham on Rye, Tyler Taormina’s hypnotic follow-up is a midnight mosaic that reveals a suburban town steeped in alienation. It’s the middle of the night, but things are far from quiet; as the camera peers into the late-night happenings of various residents, we witness a number of them quietly escape into the dark... on rollerblades. Drawing on 1960’s European art cinema and 1990’s kid’s TV in equal measure, Happer's Comet presents striking individual vignettes that unfurl like a collective dream. Mesmerizing and meditative, the film solidifies Taormina’s gift for transforming everyday banality into uncanny cinema.

Stephin Merritt's distinctive singing voice and witty lyrics about life and love make his band, the Magnetic Fields, a cultishly adored indie rock group. His decades-long friendship with Claudia Gonson, his bandmate and manager, provides fuel for his music, while his eccentric working habits contribute to his image as a singularly talented musician and writer. Interviews with fans like fantasy author Neil Gaiman and pop icon Peter Gabriel provide insight into Merritt's influential career.

The Upsetter tells the wild, weed-fueled story of Lee “Scratch” Perry — a visionary Jamaican musician, artist and all around madman — who burst upon the Kingston scene in the ‘50s with a brand new sound, inventing a genre of music that would come to be called Reggae. He went on to discover a young Bob Marley and gained international recognition as a solo artist and record producer, working with pioneering artists like the Heptones and the Congos. Soon he was being called upon by artists as diverse as The Clash and Paul McCartney to provide his unique sound. Narrated by Benicio Del Toro, the film captures the essence of a complex, enigmatic figure who was at once a mad genius and a mystic.

Sex and Broadcasting is a human, and humorous, look at New Jersey’s WFMU, a radio station that refuses any programming boundaries. Most of its disc jockeys are unpaid volunteers, working for their love of surprising, spontaneous radio. They play everything from flat-out uncategorizable strangeness to every form of rock and roll, experimental music, jazz, psychedelia, hip-hop, hand-cranked wax cylinders, gospel, Inuit marching bands, R&B, C&W, radio improvisations, spoken-word collages, and throat singers of the Lower East Side. Their captain is station manager Ken Freedman, who has spent the past three decades keeping WFMU alive, independent, and one of a kind. The film weaves personal stories of WFMU’s eccentric DJs with an exploration of the 21st-century media landscape that has made the station such a rarity.

Broke and desperate filmmaker Adolpho Rollo (Steve Buscemi) is a Manhattan wannabe in love with the mysterious woman next door, Angelica Peña (Jennifer Beals). He puts out an ad offering to sell his 'fabulous' movie script for $500, and gets a response from Joe (Seymour Cassel), who gives him a thousand and says he'll raise the 250,000 to make the picture. The problem is, Joe is a semi-connected wiseguy with a hemophiliac brother Skippy (Will Patton) and a habit of committing oddball crimes.

October, 2008. Young nun Colleen (Addison Timlin) is avoiding all contact from her family, until an email from her mother (Ally Sheedy) announces, Your brother is home. On returning to her childhood home in Asheville, NC, she finds her old room exactly how she left it: painted black and covered in goth/metal posters. Her parents are happy enough to see her, but unease and awkwardness abounds. Her brother is living as a recluse in the guesthouse since returning home from the Iraq war. During Colleen's visit, tensions rise and fall with a little help from Halloween, pot cupcakes, and GWAR. Little Sister is a sad comedy about family, a schmaltz-free, pathos-drenched, feel-good movie for the little goth girl inside us all.

A bare-boned independent drama with brief but meaningful touches of gentle comedy, Actual People is a poignant triumph, a simple but effective voyage into the mind of a young woman trying to find herself in a world that has somehow become hostile to those who refuse to find a place within its preconceived standards. As a debut, and a film in general, Zauhar’s work here represents an auspicious start to a very promising career for someone who is likely to become an essential voice in contemporary cinema, if this film is anything to go by.

In 1983, acclaimed photographer Avery Crounse made his debut as writer/director with what is considered to be the seminal American folk horror film. Misunderstood by audiences and mishandled by distributors, it has remained virtually unseen until now: On the 18th-century frontier, an adulterous preacher and his followers flee to 'the promised land' only to enter a valley of lust, madness, pagan vengeance and hallucinatory terror. "Bizarrely fascinating... Crounse's visual imagination is extraordinary, as if The Scarlet Letter collided with The Exorcist."—The New York Times

Tessa and Ben are staying in Philly for the weekend to attend Ben's high school reunion. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the couple has to rent a room in a stranger's apartment. That stranger is Adam, whose loneliness is immediately obvious to his new guests. Adam quickly becomes an unwilling voyeur to the most private parts of the couple's life. While Ben seeks validation from old classmates, Tessa is left to find her own affection within the confines of the apartment. When Tessa betrays Adam's trust, Adam goes to great lengths to assert his dominance over his home.

Pushing at the limits of non-fiction cinema, A Man Imagined is a bracingly intimate and hallucinatory portrait of a man with schizophrenia surviving amidst urban detritus and decay. Made in close collaboration with 67-year-old Lloyd, this immersive documentary fable follows the jagged path of a decades-long street survivor, across harsh winters and blistering summers, as he sells discarded items to motorists, sleeps in junkyards and lapses into near-psychedelic reveries.

Celebratory, shocking and raw, this film is as close to the story of the anarcho-punk band as you're going to get... Crass were an art collective and punk band that formed in Essex in 1977, and disbanded in 1984. They promoted anarchism and a movement of resistance that awakened and appealed to many. Director Brandon Spivey tells the tale of Crass's "Reality Asylum," the story and the inspiration behind the band's subversively defiant single through interviews with Crass co-founders Steve Ignorant and Penny Rimbaud, and Small Wonder record label owner Pete Stennett. 

Set in the underbelly of 1980s Modesto, California, Warm Blood uses the real-life diary of a teenage runaway named Red (newcomer Haley Isaacson) returning home to find her father. In his narrative feature debut, director Rick Charnoski’s history as a skate video director informs the frenetic storytelling style, as he combines Red’s nihilist musings with a collage of documentary and B-movie meta-narratives that paint a seedy picture of life on the outskirts of town. Talk-radio bits and punk music underscore the auditory cacophony of doom, while frequent Kelly Reichardt collaborator Christopher Blauvelt (First Cow, The Bling Ring) lends his immersive, naturalist lens shooting on gritty 16mm film.

"Why search the sand for answers? It has told us everything," whispers Roseline, the 173-year old desert nomad narrator of French director Jean-François Laguionie's hauntingly poetic animated feature of life after the apocalypse. Into this desolate science-fiction landscape (part-Dune, part-Fury Road) emerges the story's teenage heroine, Gwen, who refuses to hide in the shadows. A sublime and breathtaking masterpiece of world animation, Gwen... evokes Night Flight-favorite René Laloux's Fantastic Planet as a visually stunning and truly otherworldly experience.

Animated by Vince Collins. Restored by Mark Toscano at the Academy® Film Archive. NOTE: This video contains flashing images. Viewer discretion is advised.

The first animation from Vince Collins, marrying both the simple and complex in a beautiful little animation that gives a window into what the man is capable of. Restored by Mark Toscano at the Academy® Film Archive. NOTE: This video contains flashing images. Viewer discretion is advised.

"Consistent stylistic-thematic structures link and merge throughout the bewildering event chain. The distinction between organic forms and human artifacts is blurred by the visual style which is enigmatic without being ambiguous." - Anthony Reveaux. Animated by Vince Collins. Restored by Mark Toscano at the Academy® Film Archive. NOTE: This video contains flashing images. Viewer Discretion is advised.

A twisted 16mm Gen X comedy disguised as a 1970s drive-in flick, KILL THE MOONLIGHT is the story of Chance, a fish hatchery worker, toxic waste cleaner and aspiring race car driver whose goal in life is to fix up his Camaro and follow his dreams of championship glory. As the film unfolds, Chance unravels in strange ways after getting contaminated by toxic waste.

Cas, an academic assistant and amateur musician, moves into her aunt’s old home. In the bedroom closet, she finds a cache of mysteriously labeled microcassette tapes, containing cryptic recordings of sounds ranging from everyday objects to abstract soundscapes. Cas’s curiosity to discover the origin of these tapes leads her on a meditative journey through unknown verdant Californian landscapes, encountering experimental music performances, eccentric shop owners, and early music treasures along the way. As her adventure progresses, the mystery unravels in equally enigmatic and enlightening ways, reflecting Cas’s own evolving relation with time and sound.

Ralph, a mourning detective, discovers an unwelcome lump and an equally unwelcome partner, Xavier. The investigator contends with Xavier's exuberance as they navigate a partnership between unlikely cases, themselves and a lump.

"Why search the sand for answers? It has told us everything," whispers Roseline, the 173-year old desert nomad narrator of French director Jean-François Laguionie's hauntingly poetic animated feature of life after the apocalypse. Into this desolate science-fiction landscape (part-Dune, part-Fury Road) emerges the story's teenage heroine, Gwen, who refuses to hide in the shadows. A sublime and breathtaking masterpiece of world animation, Gwen... evokes Night Flight-favorite René Laloux's Fantastic Planet as a visually stunning and truly otherworldly experience.

"Dedicated to medicine... and the cold-blooded destruction of men!" Madame O is a classic and controversial tale of revenge from late 1960s Japan. Director Seiichi Fukuda uses widescreen cinematography and a strange mix of both black and white and color imagery to paralyze audiences with gore, nudity and shocking violence.

EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Metal Madness follows the first act of the musical Doctor Dark by The Residents. Mark (Matti Schuldt) lives under the terror of his violent father (Patrick Joswig) and his new wife (Eva Dorrepaal), who try to impose discipline and religious beliefs on the boy, often accompanied by physical violence and humiliation. His only escape lies in metal music and in the friendship he forms with Maggot (Alison Schumacher), the only person who truly understands him. As they roam through bleak suburban landscapes, their rebellious escapades spiral into chaos, leading to a fateful decision that will change their lives forever.

EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Filmmaker and visual artist Marie Losier invites us into the mysterious and unclassifiable world of the Residents, the emblematic figures of the American musical avant-garde for over 50 years and the band perhaps most symbiotic with Night Flight. This playful, intimate portrait celebrates the extraordinary freedom of a band that never followed the rules, with extensive new interview footage with Homer Flynn, president of The Cryptic Corporation, alongside rare archival materials.