All Films

Amada Anime Series: Super Mario

1989 • 36 min

Super Mario's take on three classic fairy tales - Momotaro from Japanese folklore with Super Mario as Momotaro, Issun-boshi, a tale similar to Tom Thumb, with Super Mario as Issun-boshi and Show White with Princess Peach as Snow.

Film For...

1989 • 8 min

Film For... is a collage of camera original footage, educational film and other amusing snippets of found footage, interlocked with dialogues and statements (some from the found footage itself), documenting gender politics and the lack of substantial change inspite of our perceptions to the contrary.

The Roof

1989 • 20 min • Soviet Union

In the Volyn region, in a monastery of the XVI century, an old people’s home is located. However, mental patients and former criminals also live there.

The Legend of Ségou

1989 • 9 min • France, Mali

The wise masters tell the King of Ségou of the birth of a boy constituting a threat to his power. In Macina, not far from Ségou, Fatoumata consults the witch doctor...

The Dragon Boat Festival

1989 • 27 min

Chinese anthropological film shot between 1986 and 1989, in the township of Gukou, by Professor Zhuang Kongshao. The film is intended as a representation of the traditional customs observed on one of China's most important folk holidays -- and also doubles as an act of preservation, capturing the last celebrations of a village that would be completely relocated following the construction of a hydroelectric dam in 1990.

The Serbian Tradition

1989 • 48 min

Documentary features Serbian traditions: Baptism, Marriage, Slava, Christmas, Easter and Funerals. Produced in Serbian communities in the United States, Canada and Australia in 1989.

Wassa

1989 • 3 min

Shot in Burkina Faso, Wassa, which translates “come out and play”in Wolof, is a transcultural music video that unfolds with lush imagery and the evocative music of Moustapha Thiombiano. Jones creates a dreamlike vision, capturing the vibrancy and sensuality of the everyday. This rhythmically textured work is part of his exploration of African diaspora culture through nonverbal storytelling and a transcultural language of sound and image construction — the development of codes based on what Jones terms "emotional progressions and an African sensorium."

Nevada-Kazakhstan

1989 • 10 min • Soviet Union

The feeling a nation undergoing change through the movement to close an atomic testing and dumping site.

Dreamkeeper

1989 • 5 min

A document of the artist's three-channel audio/video installation of the same title, Dreamkeeper is the second part of Jones' ongoing transcultural dialogue, a commentary on the emerging global African diaspora culture. Here he uses a drum to signify the link among diaspora peoples, stating, "The drum, the sound, is the translator of the unseen, to guide the seeker." Using footage and ambient sounds recorded in Angola and Burkina Faso, he explores what he terms a "narrative structure based on emotional progressions." Dreamkeeper continues Jones' search for images and sounds that speak to African diaspora cultures throughout the world. The drummers and music in the tape are indigenous to Bobo-Diolaso, Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Zapach Islamu

1989 • 10 min • Poland

Documentary about the life of an elderly Tatar couple who live in Kruszyniany village in Podlasie. While Islam and the proximity of a mosque are still important to older people, youth are fleeing from the countryside to the city.

Songs of Pasta'ay

1989 • 58 min • Taiwan

The Pasta’ay, which means "the festival of the legendary little people," is a significant ritual held every other year in the Saisiat aborigine group in Taiwan. Every ten years, they hold the Great Ritual. This film focuses on the Great Ritual in 1986. It tries to convey the Saisiat people’s affection for and belief in the legendary little people. At the same time, the film brings into light Saisiat people’s ambivalence towards tourist invasion, and their dilemma of being caught between tradition and modernization. Structured by the Pasta’ay songs’ movements, the film breaks down to 15 chapters. It carefully juxtaposes the visual with the aural elements, which are conveyed in the conceptual dichotomy between “the real” and “the artificial.”

The Herders of Mongun-Taiga

1989 • 52 min

Examines the life of nomadic herders-hunters-farmers in a remote region of an automous republic of the former Soviet Union. Mountainous terrain forms the dramatic backdrop against which a state farm operates. Modern influences are changing the lives of the young people.

Cravings

1989 • 6 min

A performance film of Lee Bul and company moving around the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea museum lobby, wearing Lee’s white, red, and black soft sculptures. Microphones hidden inside the costumes amplify the sound of the performers’ movements.

Along and Lili

1989 • 10 min • China

Tea for Two

1989 • 16 min

"It is only an alternation of energy that operates here" is the visible inscription on a man's grave where another man can be seen lying on his back. The man, professor of Physics, is explaining the theory of relativity "One of the most important concepts used in the description of natural phenomena is that of energy ..." In physics, this is always associated with some process or some type of activity: " it can change shape, but nothing is lost… ". During the explanation, he traces, outside of chronological conventions, in an alternation of situations and thoughts, even paradoxical ones, part of that path lived with his man, abruptly interrupted by death.

Obataleo

1989 • 11 min • Cuba

The music band Síntesis recreates the Yoruba music, a key part of Cuban cultural heritage, and fuses it with rock sounds. The result is a new rhythm with a contagious dancing character.

Mirror Mirror

1989 • 21 min

Mirror Mirror depicts an intimate friendship between two gay Chinese-Canadian men in Toronto, Lloyd Wong and Paul Cheung. Over food and intimate conversations they discuss family, identity, culture, friendship, and dating.

Hum-Hum Show

1989 • 4 min • Bulgaria

A guard looks after the Golden Apple, protecting it from creatures that try to eat it.

Wolf Suite

1989 • 10 min • Bulgaria

In a village, wolves threaten the herds of sheep. Shepherds kill animals. The clerk comes and shows them the Red List of Threatened Species. It turns out that wolves are on this list. The villagers begin to take care of the only surviving pair of wolves. They even protect them from sheep that have gone berserk and become bloodthirsty.

Morris Goes To School

1989 • 14 min

Morris (a moose) decides to go to school so he can learn how to count and read. He is a big hit with the children there. His takeaway from his experience there: "He never knew how much he didn't know."

Plutonium Nightmare

1989 • 9 min

Short film by George Snow.

Structure

1989 • 6 min • Poland

An experienced prison guard, who also gives talks at a primary school, shares his thoughts on such topics as upbringing, order, young people, freedom and Solidarity.

Between Dog and Wolf

1989 • 7 min

Short film.

Dream

1989 • 5 min

A short film by Abdullah Habib, shot in New York City.