All Films

Charging Back: A Rhino Story

1997 • 60 min • South Africa

This film uncovers the intriguing mystery of the return of the African rhino. In the 1800s there were more than 500,000 white and black rhinos in Africa. But by the 1990s, ivory poaching had left less than 7,000 animals alive. Remarkably, today their numbers have risen to 11,000. But there is now a new, deadly threat. Charging Back starts at the Pilansberg Game Reserve, where mysterious, unseen assailants were killing rhinos. Poachers could not be blamed, as the horns remained intact. Unexpectedly, the perpetrators prove to be relocated adolescent elephants, orphaned in culls. Lack of family structure has turned them into aggressive delinquents - a problem which conservation authorities now address by importing the steadying influence of older bulls. In astonishing scenes, the attackers are captured red-handed. Without the least provocation, elephants launch vicious assaults on unsuspecting rhinos.

All the Colors of the Earth

1997 • 6 min • United States of America

Inspired by her own two children's multi-ethnic heritage, Ms. Hamanaka uses soaring text and beautiful art to celebrate the glorious diversity of children laughing, loving and glowing with life.

The 10000th Day

1997 • 18 min • United Kingdom

A Japanese girl expects that the ten thousandth day of her life will bring a momentous event. So she buries herself up to the neck in sand on a beach…

Litany for an old woman

1997 • 17 min • Brazil

Last ride of an old beggar woman around the old São Luís city revealing the helplessness of both under the sign of an unjust time.

Magical Maho

1997 • 22 min • Japan

A children's musical VHS about a magical girl and her family who move the Earth and encounter issues transitions to a life that isn't focused on magic.

U・o 5

1997 • 30 min

Experimental film by Hiroyuki Sekine.

Bach Cello Suite #2: The Sound of the Carceri

1997 • 55 min • Canada

THE SOUND OF THE CARCERI explores the deep relationship between music and architecture through a high-tech 'virtual confrontation' between Bach and his contemporary, the architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Using a striking visual style, director Francois Girard ('The Red Violin' and 'Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould') places Yo-Yo Ma within a series of computer-generated, three-dimensional recreations of Piranesi's well-known prison etchings. Through Yo-Yo Ma's and music producer Steven Epstein's struggle to recreate and interact with the imaginary space that Ma performs in, the film examines the complexity of illusion, of representation and reality.

Tots TV: Big Treasure Adventure

1997 • 51 min • Australia, United Kingdom

Join Tilly, Tom and Tiny as they enjoy a life on the ocean waves in this musical adventure movie. While on the deck of 'The Bounty', Tilly spots a message in a bottle, and Tom catches it in his crabbing bucket. On opening the bottle, the Tots discover a treasure map, so they set off on the adventure of a lifetime.

Sophia's Homecoming

1997 • 26 min

Sophia's Homecoming reminds us that the devastating personal effects of the massive social dislocations caused by apartheid can never be erased. Sophia, like so many other women, becomes a self-reliant provider for her family, working as a domestic for a white family in Windhoek for 12 years. When her husband Naftali finally finds a job, she returns home with the dream of resuming her former family life. She quickly discovers that during her absence her sister Selna has replaced her in the affections of her children - and her husband.

Sexual Intercourse Camera #4

1997 • 7 min

GIRLS or FU MI KO #4.

Perspective of Power

1997 • 20 min • Japan

There is no dialogue or explanatory scenes at all, and the visuals unfold endlessly as information that appeals directly to the emotions rather than the feelings. The screen is divided into two halves and twice the usual amount of footage is shown, or the same image is shown one after another from different angles. As a result, the audience's brain comes to judge that the corpse is as beautiful as the body of a young woman who has just climbed out of a swimming pool. This film lets us experience a new relationship with images.

sperm

1997 • 3 min

3 min 40 seconds made in 1997

Divinity Gratis

1997 • 58 min

"DIVINITY GRATIS explores time and space, starting at the beginning of the world, with molten rock and water in sequences that are exquisite in their sensuousness. Bromberg’s ability to meld ideas and images is perhaps best exemplified in this work, which is truly breathtaking in its conceptual sweep. One line seems to unify the film – a voice repeats on the soundtrack, ‘A girl, blind from birth, saw the flash.’ The flash references an atomic blast, and thus links the film’s beginning section, which is all about origins, and the film’s suggestion of apocalypse, death and the infinite sweep of time.” –Holly Willis, LA WEEKLY

Tracey Emin C.V. Cunt Vernacular

1997 • 8 min

Emin's video CV is an accompaniment to her work on paper, Tracey Emin CV 1995 (Tate T07632), which is a potted history of the artist's professional and emotional life from conception until 1995. This CV, read aloud by Emin, constitutes the sound-track to the video and provides contrasting background to the visual information on display. As Emin narrates her story of trauma and abuse, mixed with pleasure and success, the video takes the viewer on a journey through the artist's home. The artist is not visibly present in person until the last frames when she appears curled up naked on the floor of her sitting-room at the feet of her mother (who wears black sunglasses and looks away from both her daughter and the camera). Like Emin's handwritten CV, the video constitutes her self-portrait, in this instance adding the component of a journey around the space of her apartment to her narrating voice. -Tate

Don't Run, Johnny

1997 • 8 min

This short film was inspried by the work of B-movie director Ed Wood (Plan 9 From Outer Space, Glen or Glenda). It's the story of an 'average gay male's' panic-stricken run through the city streets after learning that he is HIV-positive. It's also a comedy. Really. Shot in just two days with a budget of just two thousand dollars, 600 feet of b&w 16mm film on a Russian hand-crank camera, with no filming permit and a skeleton crew. Ed Wood would have been proud.

The Drop of Stone

1997 • 60 min

A cinepoetry about the demolition of University of Tokyo’s student residence (known as “Komaba-ryo” [駒場寮]) after it was closed down. In this film, Sekine metaphorically depicts the record of the demolition as “passage of time” through some images (many of which evoke “stream”) and the phantom. As a side note, the phantom is played by experimental filmmaker Erice Matsui [松井エリセ]. She ran an art gallery in the place and held independent screenings called “Theatre Moon” [テアトル・ムーン].

Johnny Bravo and the Amazon Women

1997 • 7 min

Johnny Bravo goes an a whale watching trip to meet girls, but when he falls overboard, he washes up on an island of beautiful Amazon women, who don't take too kindly to him.

The Cake

1997 • 8 min • Croatia

A group of people are celebrating, sitting around the table. The celebration cake is served but unevenly divided among them...

Winner

1997 • 1 min • Russia

An animated film about how a group of frogs defeated an evil dog.

Out at Work

1997 • 56 min

In 1992 Cheryl Summerville, a cook at a Cracker Barrel restaurant outside Atlanta, received a termination paper stating that she was fired for "failing to demonstrate normal heterosexual values." She was shocked to discover that in more than 40 American states it was legal to fire workers simply because of their sexual orientation. OUT AT WORK chronicles the stories of a cook, an auto worker and a librarian as they seek workplace safety, job security and benefits for gay and lesbian workers.

Historias Breves II: Telephones Lines

1997 • 18 min • Argentina

A young man have telephone conversations with a woman because they seem to share the same line.

Electric Light Orchestra Part II: Access All Areas

1997 • 55 min

Live performances and interviews with Bev Bevan's ELO follow-up act, ELO Part II.

Adieu monde ou l'histoire de Pierre et Claire

1997 • 27 min

Short film about the fable of a young shepherd who had disappeared and the girl who followed him in the forest, told by French villagers in the Pyrenees. Each version told reveals the universal fascination of the novel and the unattainable. This film plays with the taste that some tourists have in searching for legends in mythical places, criticizing the authenticity of the facts as they are being told.

Driving the Dream

1997 • 29 min

Harrod Blank, who took us into the world of art cars with his epic first film, Wild Wheels, now focuses more in-depth on a few select art vehicles, the Grass Bus, the Hamburger Harley, and the Camera Van. As with his previous film, and the following one (Automorphosis) Blank takes a dauntless look at American car culture.