Films

The Theatre of Apparitions

Year: 2022
Running time: 3:08 minutes

Roger Ballen was chosen as one of the three artists to represent South Africa at the 59th Biennale Arte 2022 titled “The Milk of Dreams”.

Roger the Rat

Year: 2020
Running time: 25:43 minutes

‘Roger the Rat’ is Roger Ballen’s latest short film which was conceived and completed during the lockdown period in South Africa.

No Exit (Wiesbaden)

Year: 2018
Running time: 5:24 minutes

Film produced for the Roger Ballen installation at the Wiesbaden Biennale August 2018.

A Good Picture Comes From Nowhere

Year: 2018
Running time: 4:39 minutes

In this film Ballen appears to take us on a journey deep inside the Earth’s core to explore of the shadow side of the mind and the underbelly of life itself. We meander through his work as he points out the essence of a good picture and how it can lodge itself deep within the psyche. What is there, what is really real?

Ballenesque

Year: 2017
Running time: 5:12 minutes

Ballenesque portrays the world of artist/photographer Roger Ballen. In eight segments, the video reveals important elements that predominate his aesthetic. This video was released simultaneously with the Thames and Hudson publication Ballenesque, Roger Ballen: A Retrospective.

House of the Ballenesque

Year: 2017
Running time: 9:04 minutes

Roger Ballen revisits Arles in France after an absence of 15 years and transforms an abandoned house that he visited in 2012.  Join Roger on his rediscovery and allow your mind to be transformed.  The House of the Ballenesque is featured in Arles at Les Recontres de la Photographie until 24 September 2017

Roger Ballen’s Theatre of Apparitions

Year: 2016
Running time: 5:00 minutes

An animated theatre of dismembered people, beasts and ghosts, dance, tumble, make love and tear themselves apart, a nightmarish subconscious world, in black and white.

Roger Ballen’s Theatre of the Mind

Year: 2016
Running time: 2:09 minutes

A psychological thriller set in a zone between sanity and insanity, dream and reality, the film takes Ballen’s work to the next level.

Roger Ballen’s Outland

Year: 2015
Running time: 4:49 minutes

Film maker Ben Jay Crossman takes us on a journey to the Outland to show us the mind inside the mind.

Roger Ballen’s Asylum of the Birds

Year: 2014
Running time: 6:22 minutes

To mark the publication of his long-awaited new monograph, Asylum of the Birds, photographer Roger Ballen, with director Ben Crossman, has produced this psychologically powerful, unforgettable film that follows Roger into a world synonymous with his photographs, as never before seen on film.

“I Fink U Freeky” by Die Antwoord

Year: 2012
Running time: 3:55 minutes

I Fink U Freeky is a music video which features a collaboration between Die Antwoord and Roger Ballen. Die Antwoord consists of Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er and DJ Hi-Tek, who have been together since 2008. They describe themselves as a “fresh, futuristic, flame-throw-flow-freeking zef rap rave krew from the dark dangerous depths of Afrika.”

Memento Mori

Year: 2005
Running time: 15 minutes

Memento Mori is a compelling visual experience that parallels Roger Ballens award-winning photography book Shadow Chamber. Filmed in a darkened space it is not clear whether we are encountering the insane, imprisoned or if we are in a fictional environment. The viewer is left guessing about this world and questioning their own psyche, the dark and even the lighter side.

Platteland

Year: 1995
Running time: 24:23 minutes

Platteland, by photographer Roger Ballen, was born of the profound irony that despite the political privilege apartheid had bestowed on whites, in the physical heart of the land there is inescapable testimony to the failure of the regime even to secure the well-being of the privileged minority.

Dorps

Year: 1986
Running time: 9:20 minutes

Dorps: Small Towns of South Africa, by photographer Roger Ballen, is about a part of “Old Africa” that is quickly disappearing.

Ill Wind

Year: 1972
Running time: 26 minutes

Ill Wind is Roger Ballen’s first film and was shot in 1972 in Berkeley, California.  It depicts a Samuel Beckett-like character (played by actor Larry LePaule), wondering from place to place.

It is already clear in this film that Roger Ballen’s interest in the Outsider is already present.

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