Tao films

25/05/2020

🖤 Eli Hayes (1993-2020) 🖤

A Midwestern Lake. Mercury V***r. tao films viewers know those films, powerful and expressive as all of Eli Hayes' films were.

We're shocked and saddened by the news of Eli's passing. Eli was part of a new generation of filmmakers that created breathtaking experimental works, which touched all of us. With him, the world of film, in particular the world of experimental film, has lost a giant.

Rest in Peace, Eli.

15/04/2020

tao films is still showing a free selection of six slow short films, helping you slowly through these very slow times 🙂 And who knows, maybe there will be another selection in the near future?

https://tao-films.com

06/04/2020

Our selection of six short films is now live. Thank you to the directors Lea Triboulet, Frankie James, Edvin Eriksson, Sebastian Eklund, Mauro Santini and André Gil Mata!

You can donate, too, in order to help artists in these difficult times. Take a look and enjoy the slow ride during your confinement!

https://tao-films.com

05/04/2020

From tomorrow, tao films goes live with a free collection of six short films courtesy the artists.

Huge thank you goes to Lea Triboulet, Frankie James, Mauro Santini, Edvin Eriksson, André Gil Mata and Sebastian Eklund.

You will see donation buttons for some of the films. Please do consider dropping a little donation when you have seen the films. Every little helps in those difficult times. Each donation goes directly to the respective filmmaker, tao films is not involved in this process.

Stay Home. Save Lives. Watch Films.

30/03/2020

Shhhh....we'll be back for an intermission to help you keep afloat during your confinement at home....Stay tuned!

01/01/2020

We from tao films wish all of our filmmakers, our supporters and our viewers a happy new year 2020!

It was a genuine pleasure to spend the last three years with you. As of today, tao films takes a break so that we can restructure the platform. The number of submissions showed that there is a true interest in and passion for the platform and we need to tweak it a bit in order to make it sustainable. We cannot wait to bring back the baby!

11/11/2019

Dear all,

it is with immense sadness that we have decided to take a creative pause. On 1 January 2017, tao films, the first VoD platform to focus entirely on Slow Cinema, went online and many of you have seen our selection of wonderful films from around the world.

tao films has never been a company, but a project of passion run by a mere two people. The selection process, the preparation of new additions, the advertising - all of this became too much to handle. The platform developed into a real home for directors who were seeking to find an audience. This is the greatest gift we could have received in exchange for our work, and we'd like to thank every single one of our directors for their trust, their patience and their love.

tao films needs to restructure itself in order to continue its work. With our curator Nadin Mai writing her first book (on Slow Cinema, of course), her work for The Art(s) of Slow Cinema and her joining the Slow Film Festival team, plus the constraints of having to earn money to pay the bills, the lack of free time needed to continue to create the platform has put the breaks on tao for now.

The platform will go into a hiatus on 1 January 2020 and you will have time until then to see all the films you haven't seen yet. We will take the year 2020 to restructure and rethink as to how we can reconcile the increased demand for film viewing and uploads, and the severe lack of time we have for the curation of the platform.

That said, tao films will return. It's not the end of something, but the beginning of a pause in order to create a wonderful and stable platform. We're here to stay, but we need to prepare our takeover of the world 😎

https://tao-films.com

25/10/2019

Our Slow Film Festival special is now online. We're immensely happy to show the festival winner, elephantfish, by Meltse Van Coillie as well as films by Scott Barley, Eli Hayes, Hesam Rahmani, Akash Sharma, and Karen Akerman & Miguel Seabra Lopes.

The films will be available this weekend only. Our festival special ends on Sunday at midnight CET. Please enjoy the slow weekend with tao and its wonderful filmmakers :)

https://tao-films.com/ssff

23/10/2019

This year's Slow Film Festival is over. Sadly. But what a wonderful slow weekend it has been! Congratulations to Meltse Van Coillie for winning the Jury Award with her film ELEPHANTFISH, to Payal Kapadia for winning the Special Mention Award for her film AND WHAT IS THE SUMMER SAYING and for Kaspar Peters whose film NORDIC GRAMMAR won the Audience Award.

Please remember that there will be a Slow Film Festival special running on tao films starting THIS FRIDAY! :)

16/10/2019

It’s eerily quiet around this house in which furniture collects dust. Shadows are hanging over every room, and it is so delicate when, in this feeling and atmosphere of “the past” a young girl lies down in bed next to her mother and whispers “Mommy”. Something has happened, something sinister that has caused this silence, this slow progression of time in Pilar Palomero’s The Night of all Things. Absence and emptiness are taking on the main roles in Palomero’s film. Yet, what or who is absent? This something is palpable, but invisible. What remains in the viewer are simple, but powerful images that speak of pain, of loss, of a catastrophe.

Watch LA NOCHE by Pilar Palomero now on tao films 👉https://tao-films.com/film/la-noche

14/10/2019

Little sneak peek of what's awaiting you in Mayfield this weekend for Slow Film Festival 🙂 Don't forget that tao films is running a festival special from 25-27 October!

The Slow Film Festival returns to Mayfield on the 19th & 20th October. The contemplative, experimental programme explores duration, the margins of society and…

11/10/2019

This week, we present our selection for the online Slow Film Festival, which runs in cooperation with Slow Film Festival on tao films from 25-27 October.

Meltse Van Coillie's ELEPHANTFISH is a documentary set on a cargo ship. Meltse's intimate filming and her contemplative approach to a journey across the seas makes for a beautiful viewing experience.

Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0qTaavOlVw

09/10/2019

Each day this week, we present a film that will be available on tao films as part of our Slow Film Festival weekend special from 25-27 October.

"Light from an unknown universe attempts to break its way into our world through the vessel of plants and trees."

We're already proud distributor of two of Eli Hayes films and couldn't be happier to announce that we will show his new film THE GROWING GLOW for three days this month. We're excited!

08/10/2019

Every year, we collaborate with Slow Film Festival and bring you a handpicked selection.

"How come a somber silence drowns me and my memory? How come the faces lose visage in this dark dungeon of memory?"

A wonderful exploration of loss and of forgetting. We're delighted to announce that Hesam Rahmani's FACES WITHOUT VISAGE will be available on tao films as part of our online special, starting 25 Oct.

07/10/2019

This week, we present to you our selection for the online festival, which we host annually one week after the official Slow Film Festival. Every day this week, we introduce another film, and we couldn't be prouder to announce that Scott Barley's short experimental film HUNTER is included in our three-day programme.

Recently remastered, we cannot wait to welcome Scott's piece on tao films. Take note: 25-27 October! And bring your friends to the online party!

04/10/2019

Pedro Tavares's DARK HORIZON has been listed as one of 19 essential Brazilian documentaries of 2019. Congratulations!

Watch the film here: https://tao-films.com/film/dark-horizon

See the full list of essential Brazilian documentaries here: https://letterboxd.com/guilhermecianfa/list/19-essential-brazillian-documentaries-of/

30/09/2019

❤️

27/09/2019

If the internet was a country, it would be the third largest CO2 emitter in the world.

As a streaming platform, we know that we contribute to this and have gone offline today as part of the global .

Thank you for your understanding.

P.S.: If you head to our website, you can see our founder's cat. We try to make up for the lack of films today 😃

26/09/2019

A true master of Slow Cinema: Pedro Costa gets better with each film. For Cinema Scope, he spoke about his latest film VITALINA VARELA.

I See a Darkness: Pedro Costa on Vitalina Varela By Haden Guest In CS80, From The Magazine, Interviews By Haden Guest Interview by Mark Peranson A moving study of mourning and memory, Pedro Costa’s revelatory new film offers an indelible portrait of Vitalina Taveres Varela, a fragile yet indomitab...

23/09/2019

Not long anymore and this year's Slow Film Festival will kick off. The programme is gorgeous and contains special screenings of films by Scott Barley and a film by Chantal Akerman collaborator Babette Mangolte. Haven't got your tickets yet? Click below and join the slow party!

The Slow Film Festival returns to Mayfield on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th of October. The contemplative, experimental programme sheds light on the margins of society, and reflects upon duration and our relationship with nature and the city. Alongside the usual screenings of international short fil...

20/09/2019

"Suffering doesn’t make films; filmmakers do. This is my only credo."

After it has toured the world with stops at Kinomorphia Film Festival in Bulgaria, at Festival internacional de cine de Chiloé in Chile, at the Stockholm Independent Film Festival, at the Portoviejo Film Festival Portoviejo in Ecuador, and many more, the new film by Mark John Ostrowski has finally arrived on tao films!

Please enjoy!

https://tao-films.com/film/le-vrai-film-est-ailleurs

18/09/2019

We're delighted to announce that tao films will bring you a selection of this year's Slow Film Festival next month.

In cooperation with the festival team, tao will offer you a special weekend, starting Friday 25 Oct through to Sunday 27 Oct.

The full line-up will be announced next month. We don't know about you, but we are excited! 😉

17/09/2019

Coming this week to tao films: LE VRAI FILM EST AILLEURS by Mark John Ostrowski!

Watch the trailer to get yourself ready: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=graaY-aOzMU

13/09/2019

More news from this year's Slow Film Festival 2019. Congratulations to the directors chosen for the festival's experimental cinema strand!!

Circulación en la corteza' by Francisco Álvarez
'In a Foreign Country' by Karen Akerman and Miguel Seabra 'Nordic Country' by Kaspar Peters
The Growing Glow' by Eli Hayes.

11/09/2019

There are many reasons to join us at this year's Slow Film Festival 2019 in Mayfield. One is a special screening of Babette Mangolte's THE SKY ON LOCATION, a 16mm film from the early 1980s. Mangolte was a collaborator of Chantal Akerman, notably working with her on JEANNE DIELMAN and NEWS FROM HOME.

09/09/2019

More news from this year's Slow Film Festival 2019 in Maryfield! On top of the already announced competition titles, we're happy to announce three more shorts that have made it into the competition:

ELEPHANTFISH by Meltse Van Coillie
THE STOP by Bartosz Reetz
WEDDING PREPARATIONS IN THE COUNTRY by Akash Sharma

Congratulations!

08/09/2019

We cannot get enough of Aleksandra Niemczyk's work, and you?

You can stream three of her films on tao films: CENTAUR, BABA VANGA and INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG. Don't miss them, fi you haven't seen them yet!

https://tao-films.com

07/09/2019

British filmmaker Scott Barley, whose magnificent film SLEEP HAS HER HOUSE we're proudly distributing on our platform, will have a retrospective dedicated to him at this year's Slow Film Festival 2019. Five films of his will be shown as part of the festival: Sleep Has Her House, Closer, Hunter, Passing, The Green Ray. You should not miss this if you're around in October!

05/09/2019

"I wanted experiment through a silent language, constituted of mysterious gestures of the protagonist that every day is swallowed up by this austere architecture that surrounds her and the constant presence of the technology that represents his memory."

We're delighted to announce the latest addition to our online library: Monte Amiata by Tommaso Donati, the director's second film on tao films. We hope you enjoy this superb short film!

Watch here 👉https://tao-films.com/film/monte-amiata

04/09/2019

We are delighted to present the first three documentary shorts confirmed for the Slow Film Festival 2019: RUSSA by João Salaviza & Ricardo Alves Jr., 'AND WHAT IS THE SUMMER SAYING by Payal Kapadia and SEC ROUGE by Kate Tessa Lee and Tom Schön.

Congratulations!

03/09/2019

Voilà, the trailer for Roy Andersson's long-awaited film ABOUT ENDLESSNESS ❤️

Roy Andersson's new movie premieres at Venice Film Festival 2019.

02/09/2019

This summer, Nang Magazine was calling for contributions to a special online issue of Nang in memory of film critics Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc, who were killed in 2009. The special issue is now available to read online, including texts by Tioseco and Bohinc themselves, written in their lifetime.

A special online Issue of NANG organized in memory of Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc

30/08/2019

A new film by Tommaso Donati will become part of our film library next week. This is already the second film by Tommaso we will distribute and we're proud to follow the development of the director.

Watch his short film A SONG FROM THE FUTURE now on tao 👉 https://tao-films.com/film/a-song-from-the-future

27/08/2019

Lea Triboulet is a filmmaker from Montpellier, France. She studied in Strasbourg before she moved on to join Béla Tarr's film.factory in 2013. Her short films have screened around the world: Rotterdam, Hamburg, Montreal, Sarasota, and more.

Watch her poignant short THE BROTHER now on tao 👉 https://tao-films.com/film/the-brother

25/08/2019

Gorgeous. Beautiful. Powerful.

Watch Scott Barley's SLEEP HAS HER HOUSE no on tao films 👉 https://tao-films.com/film/sleep-has-her-house

23/08/2019

"There is a road that brings you from one place to another in about eight minutes. A place wrapped in a landscape where nature manifests itself in an atmosphere of permanent renewal, where I arrived after a short car journey, whose path leads to a lake that merges with the immensity of a grey blue sky. It was during this journey that I became aware of the existence of two times that come together in the same image, which allowed me to adopt the concept of “double time”."

Watch ESTRADA now by Rogério Paulo da Silva!

https://tao-films.com/film/estrada

21/08/2019

Denmark is well-known (in Europe) for its output of great Nordic Noir TV series. But there are also directors, whose films circle around the festivals and we're immensely happy to hev one of those talented Danish directors on board.

Sebastian Cordes, born and based in Copenhagen, impresses with his view for the extraordinary ordinary. In A PLACE CALLED LLYOYD, which we stream for free on tao films, he follows the workers of a bankrupt airline, who return to work every day despite the lack of work, the lack of pay.

Watch now 👉 https://tao-films.com/film/a-place-called-lloyd

19/08/2019

Two new films this month and more than 80 films overall. Join us at tao films and enjoy the wealth of contemplative cinema ☺️

http://tao-films.com

17/08/2019

Congratulations to a true master of Slow Cinema: Pedro Costa!

16/08/2019

Aleksandra Niemczyk is a visual artist from Poland, but is at home in Norway. She was a student at film.factory and was mentored by Béla Tarr. Apart from living her passion for films, Aleksandra is also a fantastic painter. We're immensely proud to show three of her films.

Watch CENTAUR here 👉 https://tao-films.com/film/centaur

Watch BABA VANGA here 👉 https://tao-films.com/film/baba-vanga

Watch INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG here 👉 https://tao-films.com/film/investigations-of-a-dog