From the little theaters of the 1920s to the ad hoc film societies of the 50s, avant-garde cinema knew no established form and held no predictable position. The boundaries of its history are still hotly debated, but its rough sensibilities informed and peFrom the little theaters of the 1920s to the ad hoc film societies of the 50s, avant-garde cinema knew no established form and held no predictable position.

In the latter half of the 20th Century, Raymond Rohauer was one of the nation's foremost proponents of experimental cinema. This two-disc collection continues Kino's tribute to the Rohauer Collection, including the early works of Stan Brakhage and influential films by Willard Maas, Gregory Markopoulos, Marie Menken, Dimitri Kirsanoff, Jean Mitry, Sidney Peterson and others. The pièce de résistance is Jean Isidore Isou's passionate manifesto of film aesthetics Traitéde Bave et D'eternité (Venom and Eternity), which sparked a riot when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951. This edition of Venom includes 34 minutes of footage never seen in the United States.