Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid • USA • 1943

A flower on a sunny sidewalk. A woman in black enters an empty house, the record-player spinning, the telephone off the hook. Out the window, a shrouded figure strides out of view as the woman chases after her. Witness to herself, the woman embarks on an eerie journey of looped temporality and disassociation.

Produced for a mere $275, and exploring the elasticity of physical space and time through jump cuts, high-speed cinematography, and superimposition, Meshes of the Afternoon challenged contemporary notions of cinematic continuity, influencing generations of filmmakers to come.