The Secret World (2024)

Josiah McElheny · 90 min · Letterboxd ↗

An experimental portrait of the New York gallerist and publisher Christine Burgin told through her Borgesian library of strange and visionary books by such eclectic figures as Dinshah Ghadiali, Eva Carrière, Charles Ford, Richard Shaver, and Wilhelm Reich. Seen through 16mm film, VHS tape, 35mm slide sources as well as the full spectrum of visible color, The Secret World invites us into a self-contained universe of mystical, even crackpot thinking and imagining, as Burgin's longtime friends and "documentarians" Jeff Preiss and Josiah McElheny leaf through "images of lost Atlantis found in a rock, perpetual motion machines or manifested ectoplasm in historic performances." – Museum of Modern Art

The Secret World screens once in London: Close-Up Film Centre, Monday 12 October at 19:30.