“Experimental Grab Bag,” one of the final competition shows of the Athens Film Festival, kept viewers’ minds active and alert. The unique pieces left ample room for the audience to use their own imagination to interpret the films’ purpose.

The experiments began with Richard Wiebe’s “Aliki,” which features a day in the life of violent flamingos. As the camera follows a lone flamingo around a vast salt lake in ancient Cyprus, the audience sees several bloody, dead flamingos. The 5-minute film is perplexing, but open to interpretation. The camerawork is crafty and well angled but gets lost in the mind-boggling effect of the film.

Johann Lurf’s “The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Dog” requires immense concentration as well. The film provides 3 minutes of rapid, flickering pictures of various objects, landscapes and people. The fleeting frames are rhythmically synchronized with the soundtrack, adding a creative touch, but the scenes are too quick for the viewer to visually and mentally enjoy.

The film “A Horse is Not a Metaphor,” directed by Barbara Hammer, continues to encourage viewers’ critical thinking ability. Hammer, an ovarian cancer patient, takes the audience away from the hospital and into a dreamlike setting. She blends beautiful landscapes and wild horses on her journey to recovery. The film is artfully shot and offers the audience a peaceful viewing.

Three specific films add a particularly artistic flavor to the competition. “Beam Drop Antwerp,” directed by Michael Rudnick, is a documentation of Chris Burden’s artwork, during which a multitude of beams fall into wet cement. The concept is interesting but unnecessarily drawn out. Jean-Luc Godard’s “Une Catastrophe” skillfully reveals the trailer Viennale 2008 through visions of war and love. “Body Trail,” directed by Michael Palm and Willi Dorner, is based on an outdoor art routine performed in Vienna in October 2007. Shot in black and white, the piece emphasizes the beauty of architecture as numerous performers adapt and shape their body positions to fit certain areas of the city. The film attracts interest as it leaves the audience pondering the show.

Two films spin hilarity into the mix as they incorporate sarcasm and satire. Jakub Vrba pokes fun at critics in “That’s Very Good.” The piece involves a comical and heavily accented German man watching a movie. He enthusiastically raves about the movie, making the picture an amusing experience. In Michael Rudnick’s “Claude’s ‘Justice,’ ‘Interrogation,’ and ‘The Shower,’” several common movie themes are mimicked by a comic man in a woman’s wig. The character’s humorous appearance and dramatic female vocals keep the audience laughing.

The final film, William Noland’s “Memory Leak,” provides visual aid to the classic 2003 confrontation between Republican Alan Greenspan and Socialist Bernie Sanders. The film cleverly shoots the houses of the wealthy and middle class in a way that reveals how much more desolate the receding economy’s effect is on the middle class than the rich. Though highly intelligent and educational, the film is still able to entertain.

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Speakeasy Rating: B