From its earliest days, film has relied on spectacle to draw us to the cinemas.

As theorized by Susan Sontag, sci-fi movies are the purest form of spectacle, to the extent that we are rarely inside anyone’s feelings: “We are merely spectators. We watch.” With its brainy story-line and astonishing visuals – a then cutting-edge combination of traditional cell animation and the latest CGI – Ghost in the Shell took the world by storm back in 1995. It endures as one of cinema’s must stunning sci-fi spectaculars.

It’s 2029, and people are using cybernetic bodies (“shells”) as downloadable surrogate selves. Now a female government cyborg, Major Motoko Kusanagi, leads a police unit in hot pursuit of The Puppet Master – a computer virus capable of hijacking host bodies and altering victims’ memories.

Japan 1995 Dir Mamoru Oshii 83 min
Digital presentation
In Japanese with English subtitles

+Lapis

James Whitney was one of a number of American filmmakers in the 60s who sought to construct and explore film as visionary experience. Executed over the course of three years and made using primitive computer technology, this dazzling, mystical, abstract film is a classic work in the field.

US 1966 Dir James Whitney 10 min
16mm presentation