Expedition/Travel

L.A. Screening Workshop

George spends a week in Los Angeles on business and at eating engagements. “I eat in Beverly Hills and do my business behind closed doors for a change....”

Las 3 Muertes de Lupe (The 3 Deaths of Lupe)

"In this antiqued period piece, the morbid star, Lupe Velez, travels to Hollywood, Guanajuato, and Barcelona, seeking her own death."

--Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archives, April 1998

Kings of the Sky

An experimental documentary about resistance, balance and fame. Kings of the Sky follows tightrope artist Adil Hoxur as he and his troupe tour China’s Taklamakan desert amongst the Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim people seeking religious and political autonomy.

Jerusalem Tapes: [Israeli] Black Panther on the Street

David Cort of the Videofreex travels to Jerusalem. This tape contains raw footage of him as he is taken on a tour through a poor neighborhood by a group of young men. There is talk of the Israeli Black Panther Party, and of drug dealers and poverty. Somebody says the tape is being made for the Jewish Museum in NYC. The Israeli guide talks about the movement, and says the bourgeois and the poor can meet through parties and drugs. They visit a woman and her children who are living in poverty, and interview her about the needs of her family.

Jamboree Journey

In this wide-screen travelogue the viewer shares in the excitement of a Texas film festival, the cuisine of the not so rich and famous, and the thrill of attending exclusive enclaves of energized art. The natural world is glimpsed here and there behind an urban tapestry of towering titillations and seductive visualizations. Sit back, relax, and witness a nation in the throes of frenzied festivities to the goods of creation.

Introduction to the End of an Argument

With a combination of Hollywood, European, and Israeli film; documentary; news coverage; and excerpts of 'live' footage shot in the West Bank and Gaza strip, Muqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of an Argument) critiques representations of the Middle East, Arab culture, and the Palestinian people produced by the West. The video mimics the dominant media's forms of representation, subverting its methodology and construction.

Interior Vacuum

Trudging from here to there and beyond, the traveler, weary from the weight of his own body, finds replenishment in boxes both large and small, as the vast wetness of all outdoors offers water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

The Inmate

The splendor of a mountain lake is clouded by the musings of a brain in memory mode. The head relives the heartbreak of suburbia and the vacancies that fill every motel on the edge of nowhere. The body moves through a rainbow palette of indelible stains that color the journey with the hues of heaven and hell.

This title is also available on The World of George Kuchar.

Have a Nice Trip Ibantu!: Indians in Brazil, Part One

Indians In Brazil is an educational series for Brazilian public schools that invites students to experience cultural diversity. Four teenagers are invited to discover a new world and participate in Indian daily life in two different communities. They show their emotions, curiosity and fears, and are surprised by their new friends.

 

When God Visits the Village: Indians in Brazil, Part Two

Indians In Brazil is an educational series for Brazilian public schools that invites students to experience cultural diversity. Four teenagers are invited to discover a new world and participate in Indian daily life in two different communities. They show their emotions, curiosity and fears, and are surprised by their new friends. Part Two of the series, When God Visits The Village, sees the teenagers invited to visit the Kaiowá people in South Mato Grosso. Expecting something similar to the Krahô village they had earlier visited, they are, at first, shocked.

The Paradox of the 10 Acres Square

Through a successful eBay bid in January of 2004, 1975 eteam dollars turned into 10 acres of personal U.S. property. The lot, a generic square within the larger American grid of townships, is located in the desert of Nevada. The closest settlement, Montello, "The town that refuses to die", is eight miles away, and the almost abandoned airbase Wendover, at the edge of the Salt Flats, is located about 30 miles SE. It's the 10-acre lot and its surroundings that started the eteam's search for solutions to problems, which were created by big systems that had made some small mistakes.

Orphans of the Cosmos

Made at the San Francisco Art Institute with my students, this tuneful picture transports the viewer to the planet Mars as three attractive teens seek funding for an expedition into adulthood. Along the way they and we encounter the ups and downs of human relations and otherworldly intercourse. A family picture with timeless values, this foray into fantasy land on a tight budget should please the young at heart or old in body in unexpected ways. Although this trip is short on funding but big in concept it’s really quite a ride and looks like a million bucks for the vision impaired.

NightRise

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

Museum Piece

Made in Germany, October 14th, 2004

While the Iraq war continues, a day's sightseeing and the features of a German hotel provoke a stream of thoughts about events large and small.

Museum Piece is the second episode in the Hotel Diaries series, a collection of video recordings made in the world's hotel rooms, which relate personal experiences and reflections to contemporary conflicts in the Middle East.

Munchkins of Melody Manor

From the fall colors of the Bronx, we travel up the Hudson River to Bard College and chew the fat with some notable faculty in the film department, who live in the shadow of the Catskill Moutains. Then it's down to Sarasota, Florida where we go to prowl the manicured jungles and opulent estates on Tampa Bay. All of the above is punctuated by a symphonic squad of melodic mannequins and cranked-up antiques that spew forth jingles that jangle in jubilation at the bounty deposited in their slots.