Ben Van Meter Trailers
Apropos of San Francisco TrailerHe's Here Now TrailerMe & Bruce & Art Trailer
Ben Van Meter began making films and light shows in the mid-1960s in San Francisco and soon became a leading figure in Bay Area-underground filmmaking. His films, especially S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening (1966) and the epic Acid Mantra or Rebirth of a Nation (1968), are compelling attempts to visually and sonically inscribe psychedelia, as experience and philosophy, in the medium of film. Van Meter’s films were unavailable for many years, but their ongoing restoration by the Academy Film Archive and their inclusion in the de Young Museum’s 2017 exhibition, The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, has gained them a new audience.
Most Popular Ben Van Meter Trailers
Total trailers found: 28
04 May 1979
Personal diary-style documentary of German Gay rights activist Von Praunheim's sojourn in the US.
05 May 1965
First experimentation with in-camera multiple exposure as a technique of self-expression.
01 January 1965
A joyous, chaotic and colorful romp through nature; A psychedelic dance troupe rehearses in a studio.
08 May 1966
This film follows a young man's adventures from his arrival in the big city, till he passes out in an apartment having been kidnapped and abandoned by 5 voluptuous hippie maidens.
23 May 1969
Colored lights and lovely ladies.
Snatches of kinetic beauty.
27 November 1965
One of the most powerful, thought-provoking collage films produced during the New American Cinema Movement.
24 August 1974
Alexandra Jackonetti recounts the building of a children's playground of macrame in Bolinas, Calif., including her conception of the project and the process of obtaining community financial support, knotting of macrame, and erection of the structure.
31 December 1970
Hilariously terrifying satire of an interrogation session by the thought police.
01 January 1967
Filmed and sound recorded at the Human Be-In during the summer of love, 1967.
02 November 1968
Steve Miller Blues Band sequence by prominent San Francisco filmmaker Ben Van Meter.
01 January 1971
Rathyahatra Festival San Francisco 1970.
30 June 1968
Experimental documentary about the San Francisco scene.
01 January 1970
Created in 1968 by Robert Comings and Ben Van Meter in Bolinas, CA. Original sound & music performed on homemade acoustic instruments.
31 December 1971
Magic is alive and living in Bolinas. A folkfilm, a personal poem about my family and my town. Includes "Bear-Hunt," Bolinas 4th of July," "Rummage," "Oilspill," "Horseplay," "Lila's Birthday," and "Benjamin's Bath.
01 January 1968
(After or for Jean Vigo). A study in visual rhythms and structure, using the same basic element repeated with variations.
01 January 1964
The Poon Tang Trilogy (1964, B/W, sound) is a brief film composed of three 3-minute segments: in the first tableau, footage of the Hindenburg disaster is projected on the nude body of a young woman; in the second section, Civil Rights protesters are dragged away into police vans to the accompaniment of the '50s r&b hit "I Just Love Your Sexy Ways"; in the final portion of the film, another young woman attempts to remove a floating black bar which seeks to obliterate from the spectator's gaze various portions of her anatomy.
10 April 1974
Cinematic magician, legendary provocateur, and author of Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger was a unique figure in post-war American culture.
10 October 1969
The shadowing forth of Our Lord Lucifer, as the Power of Darkness gather at a midnight mass. The dance of the Magus widdershins around the Swirling Spiral Force, the solar swastika, until the Bringer of Light—Lucifer—breaks through.
26 December 1967
Make Love, Not War, or Brown Rice, uses three projectors, and takes advantage of all the possibilities.
01 January 1974
A chicken farmer takes LSD.
06 June 1966
Van Meter had three camera rolls of 7242 Ektachrome EFB, which he fully ran through his camera each day of the 3-day Trips Festival.
01 January 1967
Bay Area filmmakers and Canyon Cinema co-founders Ben Van Meter and Bruce Conner were invited to L.A.
15 June 1965
A film exposing the staged commodification and banality of the American "beauty contest" with color overlays of fireworks in reverse-motion.
01 January 1967
A color sound meditation on the erstwhile Warhol superstar.
08 June 1967
Through the veils of multiple exposure at an "Acid Test" party in San Francisco (toward the end of "He's Here Now" ) one might catch a brief glimpse of Ken Kelsey and Neal Cassidy.
30 January 1967
First shown on January 30, 1967, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR was an open-call, collective statement from American independent filmmakers disparate in style and sensibility but united by their opposition to the Vietnam War.
20 November 1969
The astrological signs of 12 young women.
18 October 1968
Nymphs in the woods... exotic... sensual. Featuring two lovely pregnant young ladies doing centuries old dances in green woods with see through veils.
