The Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual nonfiction showcase, founded on the most expansive possible view of documentary film, returns with new work from around the world and in a variety of genres. This year’s festival includes a retrospective of a titan of the avant-garde film world, Bruce Baillie; New York premieres of new films by Roberto Minervini, Ben Rivers, José Luis Guerín, and Thom Andersen; as well as the usual eclectic, globe-spanning host of discoveries by artists who are reenvisioning the relationship between cinema and reality. With many filmmakers appearing in-person with their work, Art of the Real continues to be one of the essential showcases for boundary-pushing nonfiction film.

Light Movement returns to Spektrum this month, and in more ways than one! Colour Spaces presents a collection of films in which colour is a key factor, either in forming the works concept, its formal structure, its depiction of space, or simply an atmosphere. This screening groups together a wide range of works by some incredible filmmakers and artists, all using colour in ways unique to their respective practices.

Wolfgang Lehmann's Dragonflies with Birds and Snake is a powerfully vibrant film based on zoological and educational footage of insects, birds, and amphibians. The structural montage of the film, with small repititive variations and flicker effects, creating its own spatial and temporal essence.

”A menagerie of semiotic editing techniques employed during this exercise allows the marshy world of the dragonfly to unfold before us: dragonfly larvae hatch, whilst mere frames later, a bird slowly devours an adult specimen. We see bird and prey gradually merge forms, holding a constant value of image as all other areas of the frame flicker between positive and negative image, blue sky or green grass.”