Basil Wright and Harry Watt’s influential 1936 documentary Night Mail.

This 1968 German TV advert is quite something. Even if it’s easy to be nostalgic about yesteryear’s trash, I think this advert is beyond crazy and awesome for something aired on broadcast television. I’d love to hear whoever pitched this. (via Boing Boing [earlier])

Here’s a very short documentary about generative art. It’s also worth checking the rest of PBS Arts’ playlist, which contains short documentaries about other really contemporary art subjects. (via Boing Boing)

Here’s another video I’ve worked on recently — a short study about a local architectural landmark, the Miradouro hotel and restaurant, which is the highest spot in Porto (we don’t have many impressive or tall buildings around here). I did the camera work and the post-production for my architect friend Alexandra Areia, and I’m happy to report the video is one of the finalists at the creative video contest we submitted it to.

Tomorrow the first public showing of Damião* will take place at 6:30pm in the Teatro Nacional S. João, here in Porto. The short film is a ‘mockumentary’ about the watchman at an abandoned shopping mall. It is an adaptation of the play Damião das Chaves by Pedro Estorninho, who also plays the title character.

I’ve just finished a trailer. The song is Dandy by Carlos Gardel, and, despite what YouTube’s bot police tells me, it is very much in the public domain.

* If you don’t speak portuguese, do us a favor and please pronounce it ‘Damien’.

Logorama, by François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, won the Oscar for best animated short in 2010.

During my short holiday last August, I spent some time wondering about those planes that fly over the beaches all day, towing all kinds of advertisements. I figured out some kind of weight ensured the banner would fly upright, but couldn’t really guess how would a plane take off while dragging a giant banner behind it. Turns out pilots will ‘catch’ the banners from the ground after being airborne! (via Neatorama)

At Last, from Plaid’s new album Scintilli. I like it. And doesn’t the video have some kind of Minecraft aesthetic? Is that even a thing?

Every single trivial task in life is hard.

Q.: How do you actually launch a ship?
A.: You drop it on the water. (via Boing Boing)