All Films

Celebration!

1988 • 29 min

This joyous, upbeat film explodes with color, music, and pride of tradition as America's largest Caribbean community puts on their annual festival to celebrate their vibrant culture.

The Strong One Bites the Hook

1988 • 3 min • China

The black fish is violent, devouring fish and shrimps, and grabbing bait hooks with the tortoises, vying to cook in the cauldron.

Faint Echoes

1988 • 17 min • Australia

“A friend had given me some old footage shot in Germany pre-WWII...during the ‘30s. Among all the images of sport, and people dancing, were images of Hitler making his early speeches. So this film is about the terrible tension of that period...jitterbugging on top of the volcano, the frentic activity to have a good life in the face of the brewing horror of Nazism. I used all kinds of techniques...travelling mattes, optical printer, rotoscoping and hand colouring, and scratching the film. The physical mutilation of the film frame, of Hitler's image...scratching out his eyes, brought fantastic relief. But I'm still not finished with Hitler, because no-one is. History never will be.” (Paul Winkler)

It Takes All Kinds - The Concert, The Bathtub, The Artist

1988 • 5 min • Iceland, Sweden

3 short films in a series based on ideas from an exhibition of 100 drawings in Gallery Langbrók in Reykjavík, 1983. The Concert: A devil is playing the piano. The Bathtub: Jesus is taking a bath. The Artist: An artist is painting out in the open and gets a nasty surprise.

Tránsito

1988 • 7 min • Spain

A train journey is hypnotically transformed into a kaleidoscope of alternating images of the idealised female body being repeatedly assaulted and decomposing, as the enactment of a psychotic drive.

The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler

1988 • 40 min • United Kingdom

Dramatisation of children's book by Gene Kemp.

The Toy

1988 • 2 min • Poland

A board with moving squares shows a picture of a locomotive in a chaotic manner. It turns out that the squares fit together outside the frame. The animated short film is a praise of unconventional thinking.

Computer Symposium: The Journey Begins

1988 • 37 min

"What seems to be a boring tape about learning computers is a truly amazing fever dream involving a woman on the verge of a complete mental breakdown when she realized she'll have to learn computers for her job. What follows in her decent into madness, including systematic patriarchy, literal fever dreams, black box theater, Microsoft Paint-esque graphics, hallucinations, horror movie music, bad acting, mirror work, vintage brooches, attempts at humor, and meeting the ghost of 19th century computer programmer Ava Lovelace..."

under a malicious sky

1988 • 10 min • United States of America

"The images mix fragments of the real and imaginary in a hermetic effort to express the [Breder's] quest for a visual text that is at once personal reflection and cultural criticism." - John Hanhardt, 1989

XIX/88 4 x 8

1988 • 3 min

Filmed with a double-8mm camera that exposes one strip of 16mm film in two passes, which is then cut in half in the laboratory. The two independently filmed parts are visible here as two film strips on the left and right of the screen, each with two images. The four image fields sway slightly against each other due to the inaccurate transport of the film in the camera, an effect reminiscent of moving train wagons on rails, and the different recording rhythms of the two film tracks combine to form a polyrhythmic montage.

The Floating Apple

1988 • 10 min • Soviet Union

A gopher experiences misfortune due to his excessive greed and passion for hoarding.

Breathe

1988 • 42 min

In the autumn of 1987, the air in the Bulgarian city of Ruse contains more than ten times the normal ammount of chloride. The reason is apparent - the Romanian factory "Verahim", situated on the opposite shore of the Danube river. This documentary film showcases the local outcry and the political stance that the ruling body takes.

Blue Mask Offering

1988 • 33 min

Early TV documentary short film by director Duan Jinchuan about traditional Tibetan opera performances.

Magnetic Notes, 1986-1987

1988 • 40 min • United States of America

Auder's reminiscences from 1986 - 87.

邂逅への幻想

1988 • 38 min • Japan

On August 9th, the glasswork was distorted. On the dead land, the glasswork was beautiful in the sunset. In it, a girl is trapped. The glasswork that was bathed in the sunset reflects the happiness of the girl. The glasswork that was bathed in the sunset is itself... Happiness has melted away together. And now that I cry again.

Hoshi no Jidai

1988 • 3 min • Japan

Wolfmachine

1988 • 1 min

A man intent on tinkering with two kinds of lasso.

The Twin Insect

1988 • 47 min • Japan

A woman who models hands is suddenly kidnapped and her right hand is amputated by a mad scientist who wants to take the beautiful hand for himself. When the scientist's assistant realises that the woman will die if he leaves her alone, he takes steps to save her... In the end, the film ends up as a profound love story. The film ends with a profound love story. The filmmaker's attention to detail and taste is astonishing.

The Life

1988 • 13 min • Japan

An uptight man and the woman he picks up. A salesman and a maniac who plans to kill indiscriminately. The film is a microcosm of "life" in which four strangers, who have nothing to do with each other in the first place, end up in one house, struggling with instinct, greed, madness and sheer luck. It's a theme that could easily be found in a TV drama. This is a black comedy in which you can enjoy the characters of the actors.

Where are You?

1988 • 33 min • Japan

She is a very ordinary girl of today. Her father is an ordinary salaryman, and she has grown up without any problems. But when she turns 18, her feelings are complicated. Things have been a bit weird lately. "I don't think I'm naturally compatible anymore. The film lyrically portrays the true feelings of a lonely, pretty girl who doesn't want to grow up yet and wants to be spoiled more by her parents. The tasteful cutting captures the girl's eroticism in a refreshing way.

The Pan

1988 • 28 min • Japan

A heartwarming comedy about three university students who come of age around a pot dish in a flat. The same room, a camera fixed there throughout, and a cast of only three people, and only men. The idea shines through in its ultimate simplicity and low-budget setting. The idea itself is simple, but the calculated direction and the precise atmosphere created by the actors, which response to it, make the viewer feel even more intelligent.

The Wall

1988 • 20 min • Soviet Union

Documentary about the destruction of the Wall of Memory, the monumental avant-garde reliefs at Kyiv crematorium that artists Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnichenko had been working on since 1968, after local authorities concreted them over in 1982.

Me and Plastic Figures

1988 • 5 min • Japan

As the earnest narration at the beginning of the film suggests, this is a film that, in a nutshell, looks back on a page of my youth at university by revisiting the few sculptures I made during my two years there. However, the viewer gradually realises that the narrative and the simplicity of the setting are in fact a cynical gag. This is a unique short film that is at once infinitely endearing and profound.

Eyes On the Road

1988 • 11 min • Canada

A disembodied video eye floats over the road, from side to side, exterior to interior, watching, waiting, moving inevitably ahead.