Mike Kuchar

The Shadow Glass is roughly based on Ewers' 'Student of Prague'. It concerns a young man who, feeling incapable of surmounting the harsh realities of...

Seadrift is based on a story The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, and was shot partially in Marblehead Mass. Each section represents a...

"A film counterpointing the hard reality of the present with the fantastic actuality or imagining of the idyllic past. This is best realized in the...

A series of vignettes illustrating sexual fantasies.

“PEED INTO THE WIND smears across the screen like one of those dirty underground comic books. It’s loaded with a lot of big scenes and...

A visit with the inimitable Mike Kuchar.

Return to the House of Pain documents my walking through the turf and sludge of the Big Apple and many worm holes... I chomp my way back west and...

In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H....

A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbulent time and place that was to change...

Lost film featuring vignettes of individual couples in a bathtub

A moving tribute to New York icon Mike Kuchar, filmed on his last day before leaving Manhattan to relocate to San Francisco

A trip to Boston to visit a local filmmaker in his studio is followed by a journey to the cinematic facilities of SUNY College in Purchase, NY, and...

"A surreal meditation on a cigarette billboard using a very strange ballerina as an allegory for something or other Indescribably funny." - Seattle...

The comings and goings of the late underground filmmaker, Curt McDowell—and the people and activities that came and went along with...

This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007...

“LUST FOR ECSTASY is my most ambitious attempt since my last film…. I wrote many of the pungent scenes on the D train, and when I...

An early masterpiece by Mike Kuchar, in which Babette tells all, leaving no turgid stone unturned.

Corruption of the Damned might seethe with violence and sex, the two most attractive things you can put on the screen, but beneath them a twisted...

(1962) Color, Sound, 9 min.

A documentary portrait of filmmaker George Kuchar conducting a tour of his apartment where he displays memorabilia and his toys which were used for...

Based on a short story by Charles Bukowski from the collection "Tales of Ordinary Madness."

The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters.

A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.

It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike...

Provides a rare glimpse into the world of George and Mike Kuchar, underground filmmaking brothers from the Bronx. Get to know the Kuchars, casually...

A wide-ranging look at pictures I collect on my walls and in my head. A look at pictures I concoct with my students at the San Francisco Art...

A music-filled tour of Christmas good cheer overtakes this gastronomically oriented excursion through the winter season of discontent and yuletime...

A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him...

This movie was made mostly in Brooklyn during some very hot and empty evenings. Since the evenings were so empty, Jane Elford, the star, urged me to...

In a garden of roses and memorabilia from darkest Africa, a man and woman ponder the joy of cooking and the companionship of cats. Goodies for the...

In this dream-portrait, Mike Kuchar floats through his memories as the sea, space and sky drift past. Wrapped in odd costumes, he frolics with the...

A short film by George Kuchar.

An epic tale of love and loss. Made using voicemails the Kuchar brothers left on her home answering machine, the artist reveals George and Mike in...

A short comedy by Curt McDowell. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

Mike Kuchar'ss lyrical portrait of everyday life, from making art to making love, all as the Vietnam War rages.

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011....

The movie takes a rather negative look at things despite the fact that it was shot in reversal film. It depicts the turbulent relationships of...

Writes Kuchar: "It's New York in the summer and I set out to track down some high school friends who have burrowed deep into the 'big apple.' The...

A behind-the-scenes look at the man behind the trophy and the poisons that taint an otherwise jubilant jamboree.

Sort of a portrait of the videomaker Anne McQuire, who surfaces midway from this waterlogged landscape of El Nino disasters to dispense charm and...

A ritualistic mood piece with colour-rich images

BIRD IN THE SKY is a gritty, poetic tale of a young man’s spiritual struggle on the streets of New York City. Rob has been given a second...

A youth wanders the landscape of grass and sky in search of puzzling impulses.

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild,...

A desperate, married woman meets a mysterious man who she blatantly desires. Through some twists and turns, things do not go over as well as she...

A desperate, married woman meets a mysterious man who she blatantly desires. Through some twists and turns, things do not go over as well as she...

A shady motel manager becomes obsessed with a neglected wife.

In this summerland a path opens for Poets, Artists, ...and the 'Dreamer'.

“It glows with the embers of desire! It smokes with the revelation of men and women longing for robust temptations that will make them sizzle...

[A] cautionary tale about past-their-prime thespians caught up in a typically Kucharian vortex of madness. - Anthology Film Archives

I Was a Teenage Rumpot was made in 1960, when George and Mike, the twin brothers Kuchar, were all of eighteen years old. Though their films would...

A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him...

A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls in love with a mummy he has restored to life.

He made some 'love'....where has it all gone? --Mike Kuchar

...It was time to chase One's shadow back into sunlight. -Mike Kuchar

...They had their source in tangled vegetable matter, countless rapes and invasions and enjoy good wine with the girls.

"Devils"..."Angels," when they sleep they dream not of Heaven, but of us. —Mike Kuchar

A rhythmic flow of image with sound, weaving a mood suspended in time.

A woman discovers her husband cheating.

A woman discovers her husband cheating.

Short gay melodrama.

Short gay melodrama.

His love of Heaven's virtues could not prevent a hunger for God's enticing creatures.

This film powerfully documents New York City's gay community's response to the AIDS crisis as they are forced to organize themselves after the...

AIDS victims and activists cope with hardship and society’s ignorance.

(1959) Color, Sound, 25 min.

The film combines teenage lust and deranged delinquency to create a cautionary tale for the ages.

An insane, deformed killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.

Big…Rousing…Memorable! The incredible war saga of our own boys in a Jap-infested jungle in the Botanical Gardens. Hear Lloyd Thorner...

An early masterpiece by Mike Kuchar, in which Babette tells all, leaving no turgid stone unturned.

Four women in the throes of frustrated sexual desire. Not making fun of them but rather sending up the absurdities of passion and the ways in which...

Earth's "garden" is fragrant with temptations but has far too many "thorns". He got "stung" and fell...got up...and fell, again and again!

Two earthbound bodies soul-surf into a new age of enlightenment.

He is Earth, Sky, and the Universe. He is Creation's creator.

They walk through "life", sometimes with no "compass" in hand and become "lost".

Many a man has tried to leave the prison of his hide; it's no "paradise" living in skin!

One's "softest parts" are "scooped out and eaten alive".

He is mute flesh that the stroking of fingers can bring to sing.

Childhood dolls and adult toys populate this moody yet picturesque lullaby.

A vain, self centered mother competes with her daughter in the world of carnivorous men and sleazy movies.

Part three of Mike Kuchar's Heat Rash: This audio, visual laxative empties the mind of inhibitions to allow the spectator entrance into the whirlpool...

Part one of Mike Kuchar's Heat Rash series: This audio, visual laxative empties the mind of inhibitions to allow the spectator entrance into the...

A high-spirited romp through the (former) campus of San Francisco Art Institute, with two films each from George and Mike Kuchar. Features:...

A high-spirited romp through the (former) campus of San Francisco Art Institute, with two films each from George and Mike Kuchar. Features:...

OverRiped words from the lips of an OverExposed boy decorates this litany in pink with purple bruises.

He felt both dead and alive... having 'died' and having come back to the space of his 'living.'

A "painter" casts out the demons that haunt his canvases and who creep into his bed at night.

Amid the silence of a pastel hued room, a soul, fully-fleshed, gathers secrets whispered by the moon over his cool bedsheets.

Looney thespians run amok in a classroom.

"...Roy has set in and spread across the fabric of their lives."

A naughty romp that is bare, brazen, and "black and blue" too, featuring a playpen of playthings that go on an erotic rampage."

Two souls, one aged, the other young, contemplate flowers, fairies and earthbound angels sent to tempt and tease.

In this thespian workout, a troop of stage actors improvises within a kaleidoscopic zone of warped spaces.

There is more than one way to get 'lost' in the woods.

A kiss can be devine or demonic. A kiss can change your life...alter it.

"...Talking to Oneself in the mirror when down in the 'mental dumps.'"

"No man can stay in bed forever...He must rise up; up the steep steps of perfection."

A 'poet' and a 'painter' discover a malign muse, but their fear and anger keep them young.

Commissioned to be a "promo" for a loud punk rock band, Mr. Kuchar feared that the noise the band made would spoil the mood of his visuals, so he...

Once upon a time in the shelled carcass of a man, the Phoenix will rise and fall... and RISE and FALL!

"...will somebody lend him their sins, because his old worn out ones have become tiresome."

Artists with brushes need light to paint a picture, but human feelings function just as well in the dark.

A bunch of Punk Rockers puke up all sorts of stuff.

"...Deep in the garden of the Artist's heart, ghosts of bygone worlds arise on gothic wings, calling forth delicious languors."

Dan Carbone sings Debbie and the Demons

...Somewhere inside him something slumbers; the myths, the beliefs that flow, fuse and burn through him.

A cavalcade of characters in conflict with consciousness is conjured up within the confines of Studio 8 at the San Francisco Art Institute and...

A lady alone amid the flowers of a garden becomes the target of mischievous elements therein.

A House Wife's hum-drum world dissolves away into a thorny Passion Play of miraculous visions.

"Great woods, you frighten me like some cathedral's gloom, and awaken pastoral pipes on pagan heights."

Blue skies, babbling brooks, and a big book in a field full of flowers is the departure point for this video.

Armed with an overripe script and ample supply of false eyelashes and lip gloss.

Something lies yet unwritten within a poet who lost that 'spark' of having been born brand new onto a sacred stage.

Playwright and performance artist Marc Arthur paves a color-saturated path from 'awake consciousness' to sleeping 'dreamscape'.

Videomaker and spoken word performer David Finkelstein sleepwalks down into subconscious corridors.

...They'd rather climb to the stars, than give their souls to a soulless world

His written letters will fade at the first light; if indeed he is dreaming the world!

A club for misfits who descend into a psychedelic underworld. Made at the San Francisco Art Institute.

A "grand dame's" delirious daydream blooms like a voluptous blossom in spring.

A "birthday boy's" poetic yearnings on paper translate into a quest for perfection."

An evocative 16mm short shot during a visit to Nepal.

He sighs for strange and hidden cities whose walls are pink stone, inlaid with opals, ebony and silver, and for altars where the body is worshiped...

Dark, domestic tensions need the cleansing rays of a bright summer afternoon.

A topsy-turvy romp.

Ripe fruit in sweaty socks; soft eyes, stained and suffering in the origin of consciousness, and a soul needing refrigeration, for it has nearly gone...

Relationships don't end... they linger like ghosts.

This breezy and flamboyant essay about an afternoon rendezvous is pure candy for the eyes.

A ripe lad embarks on a raw correspondence with his mirrored image, and thus: the dialogue is "fleshed out" to its full potential.

There is a garden in the dark hunger of his psyche where forbidden fruit grows.

The dialogue for this production, featuring Cupid, is taken from the pages of a personal diary found under a chair.

Two men and two women attempt to re-assemble the scattered pieces of life's puzzle.

A girl with two male companions in a room is a space where the mind's eye wanders!

The Vagabond...what does he seek? - ask the River, ask the Wind - but don't ask Him!

He hears the whispers of gargoyles in a hall of heavy stone.

Two city dwellers in a relationship grown "tired," are near a deep forest where one hears the lure of Pan's Pipe calling.

It is believed that Life originated in the Sea, and like the Ocean itself, human existance is thus subject to tides and surging currents of emotions...

Be careful when you go out into the surf in a skimpy thong... the current can be treacherous and turbulent as is the human heart!

There was plenty of fruit growing in Eden; mangos, pears, oranges...why did Eve have to pick that Apple!

Nymphs and Satyrs are conjured back into activity when poetry is recited and fluffy clouds sail above the contemporary, domestic landscape.

Obsessive desire can leave an indelible stain on its victim.

Offer a pagan god only simple flowers of spring and the sparkling diamonds and opals of morning dew strung on the threads of the spider... and fear...

Looking for "Mr. Right" in all the wrong places makes for a tragic comedy.

Secret number... secret shape... knower of the secret name... God of the realm of night - I summon you, 'Son of Sin'... arise!

Dialogue taken from the Bible is put in the mouths of three souls in a modern apartment, who must deal with a "fall from grace."

Two strippers decide a walk in the park might lift their spirits, which do get a big boost when they contemplate a park monument dedicated to sailors...

Masked men prowling in the bushes and not touching anything but satin, dandelions and flesh.

A hell of a lot more of you through a keyhole!!

A broken god on the stone slab in a desert, waiting for "he" that will dig for him; wipe the sand from his handsome face.

An angry trollop and a self-doubting college kid collide in his cramped apartment for an episode of claustrophobia and self-analysis.

Sex, sleaze, drugs, blood, and much, much more!

A rose scented breeze enters a young man's, winding its cool arms around him... Together they will roam the darkness of his life.

Like ships in a harbor, men come and go in relationships. But, as one character says to another character who is heartbroken: "You sucked enough...

He peels away layers of secrets to you for what you are, and he likes scars because they tell stories.

...What once was for him "real," is now but a "dream," --for the day comes when we find ourselves stranded with memories.

A mother and daughter, both dressed in "shocking pink", clash over men and money.

Like all Men, he struggles against his nature.

Things "go bump in broad daylight" as archetypical characters romp about in a sunny forest...doll like things and beast men.

A 16mm black and white remake of an 8mm color film done years earlier, this time with students enrolled in a 'dramatic narrative' summer workshop....

'Misery' doesn't like 'company' -- but 'company' does love a 'party', so come join in on a catastrophic celebration, and do 'hang on' tight --...

'Misery' doesn't like 'company' -- but 'company' does love a 'party', so come join in on a catastrophic celebration, and do 'hang on' tight --...

When the body's "primal" urges feel deprived in a "modern" age, a debate about "sex" and "love" ensues to resolve the question — perhaps even...

A contemplative, static walk in the woods.

In the depths of night lurks a beautiful fever that heats a man's blood.

The windy adventures of a dog in a sea of grass beneath blue skies.

High above the far horizon, a beacon burns cold, bright and calm.

Mike Kuchar'ss lyrical portrait of everyday life, from making art to making love, all as the Vietnam War rages.

The stimulus for this dissertation on the reason behind the creative impulse is taken verbatim from an author's preface to his book.

Although too long by half, this documentary is subtitled "A Trip Through Lotti's Life" and that is essentially what it is. Although done in a style...

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild,...

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild,...

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild,...

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild,...

Punk icons Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins star in this cult drama about a pregnant pianist named Hedda whose marriage to husband Neal (Don Bajema)...

Futuristic story of Carlos and Ben who fall in love in high school despite the racism and and homophobia. When Fundamentalist forces threaten to take...

In the serene zone between twilight and dawn, a lullaby of thoughts floats beneath a blanket of stars.

A sensitive soul with skin receptive to the World's natural elements and who has a mind open for expansive contemplation, embarks on an "inner...

This outdoor meditation is drenched with sunlight, carressed by breezes and blessed with a young man who discovers his special "role" in Time's...

“I shall walk softly on the Earth but make the footprints deep”. A young man contemplates the inevitable passing of time, and the...

A young man yearns for a mysterious lover.

Enter a shimmering forest and encounter the Pot Boiling turbulence of pre-history tribes in conflict. See sacrificial virgins, volcanoes, knife...

With lashings of humour and affection, this much-loved filmmaker and his students create a wonderful journey from the chaos of hell to the paradise...

Waiting to die and waiting to live is the same thing to him that chants: "Let me not be mad... let me not be MAD... LET ME NOT BE MAD!"

From the elephant house of Bronx Zoo to the eight story tall Tabonga Terrace apartments on Sedgwich Avenue, living Mammals scream for their place in...

Green spills over purple ridges and into deep cut valleys. Blue surges up from rounds and hollows, blending with incandescent pink plains, revealing...

Paint drips and body fluids ooze in this "tell all" and "hide nothing" documentary about two San Francisco males.

A kaleidoscopic concoction done with improvising actors.

An eclectic compilation of home movies and early cinematic experiments. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film...

"A Tub Named Desire," the first movie with Donna Kerness, does not exist anymore, except for one 8mm print that was in George Kuchar's possession....