Arthouse films dominate Chelsea

Allison Schulnik’s “Eager” is an eight-minute claymation film now showing in Manhattan’s artsy gallery nabe, Chelsea.
Credit: Provided

Branch out from your limited Netflix repertoire and those Oscar-buzz blockbusters to experimental films in Chelsea:

“Platonov, or The Disinherited” at The Kitchen

Performance and film collide in Jay Scheib’s “Platonov, or The Disinherited,” a live performance with video footage simulcast on a large screen above the stage. An adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s first full-length play, this story is about vices in dizzying proportions: Boozing debauchery, incessant adultery, intoxication, nudity and reckless violence fuel rifts between a group of down-and-out Russian gentry. This provocative performance’s video footage (“The Disinherited”)is also being broadcast at AMCEmpire 25 and Brooklyn Academy of Music, so you can enjoy some popcorn as the shocking solipsism unfolds.

Stan Douglas’ “Luanda-Kinshasa” is a rock-mockumentaryof a 1970s jam band studio session set in a reconstruction of the legendary Midtown Columbia 30th Street Studio “The Church,” where recording legends like Miles Davis and Bob Dylan made timeless records. In the film, contemporary musicians portray Afro-centric musicians playing an accoutrement of instruments to lay downfunkadelictracks. Douglas’ video is six hours long, so prepare to rock out to this marathon viewing party.