The AmputeeMovies like The Amputee
- Key Features:
- Disability, Loneliness, Existentialism, Minimalism, Experimental film, Black and white, Short film, Monologue, Letter writing
- Tone:
- restrained, serious
- Target Audience:
- Film students, Experimental film enthusiasts, Minimalist art lovers
- Emotional Arc:
- Isolation → Reflection
The Amputee

A double amputee attempts to write a letter while her nurse gets in the way. (Note: The Amputee was produced in order to test two different black and white video stocks for the American Film Institute. There are therefore two different versions of the film, each using the same script but shot on different stocks and differing in other incidental ways in terms of performance, sound design and duration. This is Version 1.)
The Amputee
A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.

A terminally ill woman opts for a cloning procedure to ease her loss on her friends and family. When she makes a miraculous recovery, her attempts to have her clone decommissioned fail and lead to a court-mandated duel to the death.

The life of a woman is transformed after she is diagnosed with a terminal disease, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she throws caution to the wind to pursue her dreams.

Unable to face his new reality in a wheelchair, Ángel develops a deadly obsession with the woman who left him and unleashes a sinister revenge plot.

Follows the life of a young woman who has become reserved and indifferent to the world as a result of her chronic illness deformed hand and quietly portrays the unconventional, yet endearing relationship between mother and daughter as well as the development of Min-ah as she is befriended by the high spirited and carefree photographer Young-jae who moves into their apartment complex.

After hitting a breaking point, Hannah's inner thoughts physicalize into a monstrous creature that threatens to upend her life.

A lonely typographer with a cruel speech impediment but an eloquent inner voice must face his greatest fear.

A gentleman deals with the consequences of a car accident, which has left him with a spinal injury that means he has a permanent smile on his face.

A nameless drifter navigates a barren landscape punctuated by satellite dishes, radio towers and droning airplanes. Stopping periodically in anonymous hotel rooms, she makes attempts to connect to an unidentified second party.

Molly McKay is a profoundly autistic twenty-something woman who has lived in an institution from a young age following her parents' death in a car accident. When the institution must close due to budget cuts, Molly is left in the care of her neurotypical, older brother, Buck McKay, an advertising executive and perennial bachelor. Buck forces her to undergo an experimental medical treatment, with unexpectedly drastic results.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

A young medical student struggling to pay tuition is drawn into the shady world of underground body-modification.

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?

Jon Lansdale is a comic book artist who loses his right hand in a car accident. The hand was not found at the scene of the accident, but it soon returns by itself to follow Jon around, and murder those who anger him.

A woman trying to recover from a sexual attack is locked in a posh apartment with a corpse of the very man she's been dreaming would murder her. She tries to hang on to reality when objects around her seem to come to life.

A small suburban town receives a visit from a castaway unfinished science experiment named Edward.

A mother, unable to confront the heartbreak of her son leaving for college, delays his departure by making him sick. Unfortunately, she goes too far.

A criminal psychologist loses his arm in a car crash, and becomes one of three patients to have their missing limbs replaced by those belonging to an executed serial killer. One of them dies violently, and disturbing occurrences start happening to the surviving two.

A beautiful film which is basically about a man, a piano player, who meets and falls in love with a beautiful and voluptuous woman, who, by some strange procedure, leaves the man unable to move but with a permanent priapism! After some time he becomes sick of it and she relieves his paralysis. Eventually she gets bored and decides to leave, but he can't take it because he loves her…

A story of a group of humanoid rabbits and their depressive, daily life. The plot includes Suzie ironing, Jane sitting on a couch, Jack walking in and out of the apartment, and the occasional solo singing number by Suzie or Jane. At one point the rabbits also make contact with their “leader”.

Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother, embarks upon the creation of a film that becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her project take on a life of their own.

A mentally challenged girl proves herself to be every bit as capable as her "perfect" sister when she moves into an apartment and begins going to college.

When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.

A young man walks into a meticulously clean and sterile bathroom and proceeds to shave away hair, then skin, in an increasingly bloody and graphic bathroom scene.

Suki is a young woman confronting her destructive mental illness using "The Siamese Burn," an experimental machine designed to eliminate multiple personalities. The closer Suki comes to being "cured," she's haunted by a thought... what if the last unwanted identity turns out to be her?

A woman discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which she's suffering.

A group of physically disabled lowlifes plots the the perfect heist, but things go south as each reveals an agenda of their own.

A woman is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where she is confronted by her greatest fear.

After being thrown away from home, pregnant high school dropout Maria meets Matthew, a highly educated and extremely moody electronics repairman. The two begin an unusual romance built on their sense of mutual admiration and trust.

A kindly occupational therapist undergoes a new procedure to be shrunken to four inches tall so that he and his wife can help save the planet and afford a nice lifestyle at the same time.

In a remote woodland cabin, a small town doctor discovers Nell — a beautiful young hermit woman with many secrets.

A brutal mugging leaves Grey Trace paralyzed in the hospital and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure — an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body. Now able to walk, Grey finds that he also has superhuman strength and agility — skills he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life.

In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.

While he's receiving an enigmatic phone call from his girlfriend Francine, Thomas remembers the milestones of their relationship, from the very moment they met in a really strange way. A segment of “Paris, je t'aime” (2006).

Shy teenager Megan moves to a new town with her widowed mother and quickly becomes the most unpopular girl in high school. But when she starts to communicate with a mysterious mirror, her tormentors begin to meet with a horrifying series of 'accidents'. Is the mirror a reflection of Megan's own inner demons... or has she unwittingly opened the doorway of the damned?

In a strange world where people share numerous deformities, the same problem we all face challenges each of them: to find someone who accepts you as you are. Sometimes, that means finding yourself first.

Yuma, a 23-year-old comic book artist with profound cerebral palsy, has been emotionally stunted by her well-meaning but overprotective mother. As she begins to seek independence and sexual awakening on her own terms, she discovers an unexpected path to love and forgiveness.

Vincent, a young Parisian uncomfortable with his appearance, installs a brain chip named Reality+ which allows users to see themselves and fellow users with their dream body. However, Reality+ only works over 12-hour intervals, proving infuriating for Vincent as he falls for Stella, another user.

A mentally unhinged factory worker must decide whether to listen to his talking cat and become a killer, or follow his dog's advice to keep striving for normalcy.

Paralyzed after a terrible accident, Dana struggles to regain her life and family when she encounters a malevolent ghost in her hospital room.

When Jane is rejected by life, she spirals into a chaotic, schizophrenic world where love and normality collide with humorous consequences.

Though a childhood bout with polio left him dependent on an iron lung, Mark O'Brien maintains a career as a journalist and poet. A writing assignment dealing with sex and the disabled piques Mark's curiosity, and he decides to investigate the possibility of experiencing sex himself. When his overtures toward a caregiver scare her away, he books an appointment with sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene to lose his virginity.

Chloe, a teenager who is confined to a wheelchair, is homeschooled by her mother, Diane. Chloe soon becomes suspicious of her mother and begins to suspect that she may be harboring a dark secret.

Florence wants to introduce David, the man she’s madly in love with, to her father Guillaume. But David isn’t attracted to Florence and wants to throw her into the arms of his friend Willy. The four characters meet in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

Su-hyeon, a patient with terminal cancer, gets a wig as a present from her sister, Ji-hyeon. Strange things happen as Su-hyeon wears the wig and horror starts to sweep over Ji-hyeon as she watches her sister getting slowly possessed.

After a wisdom tooth operation, a man decides to let his friend pull out one of the stitches.

A man wakes up in an alley, bleeding and with no memory of who he is. He stumbles into a coffee shop and is befriended by a charitable ex-nun who is failing in her attempts to write marketable pornography.

A part-time employee in a mahjong parlour runs across a young woman, who is unable to walk, in baby carriage. He becomes friends with the woman and begins to feel enamoured with her.

A purely observational non-fiction film that takes viewers into the ethically murky world of end-of-life decision making in a public hospital.

First-time father Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Two people, a man and a woman, wake up naked and with their abdomens attached to each other.

David is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients. Dedicated to his profession, he develops strong relationships with the people he cares for. But outside of work, it's a different story altogether.

Medical-school dropout Wallace has been repeatedly burned by bad relationships. So while everyone around him, including his roommate Allan, seems to be finding the perfect partner, Wallace decides to put his love life on hold. It is then that he meets Chantry, an animator who lives with her longtime boyfriend Ben. Wallace and Chantry form an instant connection, striking up a close friendship. Still, there is no denying the chemistry between them, leading the pair to wonder, what if the love of your life is actually your best friend?

A South Korean woman in her sixties enrolls in a poetry class as she grapples with her faltering memory and her grandson's appalling wrongdoing.

When troubled musical prodigy Charlotte seeks out Elizabeth, the new star pupil of her former school, the encounter sends both musicians down a sinister path with shocking consequences.

A blind concert violinist gets a cornea transplant allowing her to see again. However, she gets more than she bargained for when she realizes her new eye can see ghosts. She sets out to find the origins of the cornea and discover the fate of its former host.

Shy, straight-A student Ellie is hired by sweet but inarticulate jock Paul, who needs help wooing the most popular girl in school. But their new and unlikely friendship gets tricky when Ellie discovers she has feelings for the same girl.

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.

Don Anselmo, a retired old man, decides to buy a motorized disabled stroller since all his pensioner friends own one. His family strongly refuses him to purchase the vehicle, so don Anselmo decides to take extreme measures to achieve his goal…

Lynch's first film project consists of a loop of six people vomiting projected on to a special sculptured screen featuring twisted three-dimensional faces.

The film tells the story of two good friends who live together, Andrew, an agoraphobic travel agent who works from his home, and Dave, a loser who works in an office where he is treated with contempt. Just when it seems things can't get any worse for the two, the entire world outside of their house disappears and is replaced with an endless white void.

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

A simple, domestic love story about a man who takes his skin off for his girlfriend, and why it probably wasn't the best idea...

Love for the same woman causes conflict between an over-achieving blind athlete and the brother who made him that way.

A humanoid robot deliverywoman muses on the mystery of human nature as she drops off parcels around the galaxy.

Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.

A single mother and a childless morgue technician are bound together by their relationship to a little girl they have reanimated from the dead.

With dreams of diving abroad, Tsuneo gets a job assisting Josee, an artist whose imagination takes her far beyond her wheelchair. But when the tide turns against them, they push each other to places they never thought possible, and inspire a love fit for a storybook.

After receiving a patch, a blender suddenly gains consciousness. As it grapples with existential questions, it becomes the sole companion to the grieving wife of a missing man.

A one-time (and now one-handed) master film editor toiling in the cinematic sweatshops of 1970s Italy becomes the prime suspect in a series of brutal murders.

A field surgeon suffering from PTSD after combat in the Middle East creates a living human out of body parts in his Brooklyn lab.

In a climate change-ravaged world, a utopian society optimizes life, including parenthood assessments. A successful couple faces scrutiny by an evaluator over seven days to determine their fitness for childbearing.

Phillip is a wealthy quadriplegic who needs a caretaker to help him with his day-to-day routine in his New York penthouse. He decides to hire Dell, a struggling parolee who's trying to reconnect with his ex and his young son. Despite coming from two different worlds, an unlikely friendship starts to blossom.

A portrait of Zion Clark, a young wrestler who was born without legs and grew up in foster care.

A man, crippled in an accident, returns to the woods after rehabilitation, certain that he'll not see Bigfoot again.

Violinist Sydney Wells was accidentally blinded by her sister Helen when she was five years old. She submits to a cornea transplantation, and while recovering from the operation, she realizes that she is seeing dead people.

A blind teacher breaks the rules to help a female student rediscover the pleasures of life.

A once-esteemed psychiatrist helplessly watches her life spiral into a nightmarish maelstrom of supernatural hysteria and gruesome deaths, all linked to a seemingly unstoppable ancient curse.

A woman escapes from the man who is about to rape her, but leaves her purse behind. Afraid that her attacker might come after her, she goes to the police, but with no proof of the incident, they can do nothing. In fact, the man does use the information in her bag and comes to her apartment with the intent of rape, but she sprays him in the face with insect repellent, and then holds him captive. She is then faced with deciding whether to go to the police who might not believe her and release him, or to kill him.

A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.

A woman grows increasingly fascinated with her body after suffering a disfiguring accident.

Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.

Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.

An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.

With his career on the skids, a Hollywood screenwriter enlists the aid of a modern-day muse, who proves to test his patience.

David, an orderly at a hospital, tells his horrific story of being kidnapped and forced to play a vile game of survival.

The local disability support group visits an involuntary member, not realizing that it will bring them to a critical mass.

Melody Brooks, a sixth grader with cerebral palsy, has a quick wit and a sharp mind, but because she is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair, she is not given the same opportunities as her classmates. When a young educator notices her student's untapped potential and Melody starts to participate in mainstream education, Melody shows that what she has to say is more important than how she says it.

As a writer named Mike struggles to shepherd his semi-autobiographical sitcom into development, his vision is slowly eroded by a domineering network executive named Lenny who favors trashy reality programming. The irony, of course, is that every crass suggestion Lenny makes improves the show's response from test audiences and brings the show a step closer to getting on the air.

Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.

After a serious sport accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets with other handicapped persons (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. They go through impotence, despair and resignation, with their daily struggle to learn how to move a finger or to hold a fork. Some of them slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties.

Waging war against all things glamorous and beautiful, crippled terrorists Acción Mutante plot a series of attacks on society's elite, and attempt the kidnapping of a wealthy socialite at her elaborate wedding reception.




