Stills for Arhat Taming The Dragon - a film installation by artist and filmmaker Philip Haas.

Arhat Taming The Dragon is vertical in format, like the 14th-century scroll that was its inspiration, and projected on a screen inside the wooden temple that appears in the film. We first see a diminutive Buddhist monk fishing in a river, which in his fantasy becomes the churning, stylized river in the scroll. He is indeed the artist painting his work.

Directed, written and produced by: Philip Haas 
Co-Produced by: Hannah Ireland 
Cinematography by: Sean Bobbitt

Commissioned by the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, Philip Haas’s series of film installations interpret and elaborate upon selected works in the Museum's permanent collection. At the heart of each installation is a short film, between 5 and 20 minutes long, that gives form to ideas and feelings suggested by the piece in question—an essentially poetic and sensuous response rather than the more purely factual, informative one of a documentary. In most cases, the film is projected on multiple screens within a specially designed environment and enhanced by original music, surrounding and immersing the visitor in the experience. On occasion, the filmed images form themselves into an uncanny re-creation of the given work from the collection.

The film was made with a cinemascope camera turned on its side to make a tall thin vertical image with moving cut-out waves, wind machines, live Cranes, puppet dragons and objects animated by fishing wire.

​It was projected onto a vertical screen hanging in the pogoda which was re-constructed in the museum as part of Butchers, Dragons, Gods, and Skeletons: An Exhibition of Film installation by Philip Haas.