All Films

Prelude 9

1996 • 1 min • United States of America

...again, is "plein-aire abstraction" as defined above (painted in New York City) – with, for example, even a correctly toned green impression of The Statue of Liberty – and, then, impressions of Toronto with its architectural particularities appearing, midst hurrying people – shapes (almost as if photographed at times). This segment is Double-Printed (i. e., two frames for every painted one).

Twisters! Nature's Fury

1996 • 58 min

Join storm chasers, scientists and video camera amateurs as they film the fury of tornadoes. In the first part of the video, it features scientists using "Project Vortex" as they place instruments around the twisters to record data and following storm chasers with their best video sequences on the dangerous cyclones. In part two, watch as amateurs capture video sequences and witness the damage after the storm is over. It also features a countdown of the top ten most destructive video sequences.

Ruth Orkin: Frames of Life

1996 • 18 min • United States of America

A short documentary about the life and art of photographer Ruth Orkin.

From Unfinished Tales of Jerusalem

1996 • 26 min

The film is like an essay. During spring, the village is soaked in flood. It’s Easter Eve. The villagers are gathering for a strange old ritual in order to watch over The Crucified until the dawn. However, the stillness is being shaken by performers/villagers who are trying to steal The Crucified, as well as a nearby factory noises that remind of space rocket take off site. The film is based on a strange old pagan tradition, which is still preserved only in one village in Samogitia (a part of Lithuania). The tradition goes back to the archaic space of the magic’s of folk theater.

Today We Are Going to Build a House

1996 • 28 min • Russia

This movie is about one day on the construction site.

Prelude 17

1996 • 2 min

Double-printed thinnest possible lines and multiple dots of pale color interwoven with sweeps of linear tones in swiftly transversing motion, all deepening from this almost white field of flitting activity to some solidification of forms.

Acrobatics

1996 • 16 min

Jim Loves Jack

1996 • 52 min

A documentary telling the story of Jim Egan, an outspoken champion of gay rights in Canada since the 1940s and 50s. Egan and his partner, Jack Nesbit, took the Candian federal government to court in a historic attempt to win legal recognition for same-sex partnerships. An intimate and moving portrayal of a relationship that spans nearly 50 years of gay history in North America.

Moda

1996 • 8 min • United States of America

Hauntingly beautiful preparation for the fashion show followed by the show itself.

Island Adventure

1996 • 40 min • France

A journey through the most inaccessible and amazing places of a volcanic island. Three characters are looking for a "missing photographer", confronted with the wildest rainforest, giant waterfalls and unexplored canyons, the adventurers end up right in the heart of a volcanic eruption.

Time Out For Sport

1996 • 18 min • Australia

A short piece of found footage is optically reworked as text versus imagery versus the spoken words of a 'narrator' telling the audience a story of a famous golf player.

Public Astaire

1996 • 3 min

"The gesture of making a film is as simple as that of appropriating what one has at hand, including the old principle of recovery that is practiced here shamelessly (...)".

B/Side

1996 • 37 min

B/Side is a poignant and intelligent exploration of the urban homeless, combining sensitive footage of their exterior situation and entering imaginatively into interior deliriums. Framed by footage of the encampment locally known as Dinkinsville on New York's Lower East Side, where some of the homeless of Thompkins Square Park settled after the riots of June 1991, the movie begins with the encampment's first night and ends with the fire and subsequent destruction of the lot in October of the same year. Applying rhythmic construction, poetic license and a generous eye to bodies in poverty, B/side documents beautifully a gritty vision of late 20th century urban life. —Kurzfilmtage - international short film festival Oberhausen

Nous voulons du chômage

1996 • 6 min

Oi! The Video - Part Two

1996 • 60 min

Part two of an insight into the underground music that was 'Oi!', a derivative of Punk that stayed mainly unheard. Presented here is a collection of promos and live performances from The 4-Skins, Blitz, Vicious Rumours, The Oppressed, Condemned 84, Section 5, Boisterous, Another Man's Poison, Braindance, The Warriors, Argy Bargy, and The Business.

The Five Suns, A Sacred History of México

1996 • 59 min • United States of America

"The Five Suns" tells how Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca create heaven and earth, journey to the underworld to create humans and find sustenance for them, and finally create the sun and the moon. Like all creation stories, this one provides mythic answers to life's most perplexing questions and offers an ethical vision of how we should live.

Rain – Memory of Cloud.1

1996 • 4 min • Japan

A psychedelic animation that starts with an irregular ink spread and develops while increasing the degree of confusion.

Henry Miller Is Not Dead

1996 • 42 min • Canada

In this artistic exploration of the life and work of writer Henry Miller, filmmaker Joe Kishton skillfully weaves clips of films and interviews of Miller with the music of Laurie Anderson. From Miller himself we hear of his difficult relationship with his parents, and of his need to create, even (or especially) when his message abrades social mores.

New York Composers: Searching for a New Music

1996 • 58 min • United States of America

A look at six young virtuoso composers at the forefront of contemporary music. Featuring: Tan Dun, Michael Gordon, Phil Kline, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Lois V Vierk, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. With the participation of the Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All Stars, Reigakusha, and others. Filmed in the composers’ studios and at rehearsals and performances.

Michel, the Magisterium of the Body

1996 • 16 min • France

A barocco environment inspired by shared desires and fantasy (that led to the co-writing of Corptrass, a scenario by Michel Journiac and Stephane Marti in 1980) shelters fragments of the story, passion and doubts of the master of Corporal Art.

O Happy Day: The Early Days of Black Gay Liberation

1996 • 6 min • United States of America

The seminal short film O Happy Day imagines the early days of gay liberation for black gay men. Lofton juxtaposes images of black men from late 60s and early 70s films with images of Black Panther Party demonstrations, as a way of intentionally revising history. The soundtrack is punctuated by a 1970 quotation from Black Panther leader Huey Newton: "There's nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. Quite on the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary..." O Happy Day blurs the difference between the Black Power movement and the Gay Power movement, and instead focuses on the similarities between the two.

Sweden

1996 • 6 min • Sweden

A number of figures, as clay animations with cartoon elements, pronounce absurd and sometimes morbid views on the state of Sweden.

Estrecho Adventure

1996 • 6 min

Estrecho Adventure (“estrecho” refers to the Gibraltar strait) analyses immigration coming from northern Africa’s coasts and the visual format he adopts to do so is that of videogames. The first part of the video focuses on Abdul, who must overcome a series of obstacles in order to cross the border -the Strait of Gibraltar-, and enter the Europe of his dreams. In the second phase of the game, once in Spain, he collects vegetables in southern Spain’s greenhouses in order to obtain the prize: his residence permit. -laboralcentrodearte.org

The POXIOX Study: Tales of the End of the World

1996 • 26 min

The POXIOX Study: Tales of the End of the World is a layering of narratives which describe the moment of rapture at the end of the world on New Years Eve at the dawn of the Third Millennium. Consistent crawling text and voice over provide the primary narrative of multiple characters as they prepare for the blast of the post dimensional afterlife.