All Films

Home from the Hill

1987 • 40 min • United Kingdom

Documentary about Colonel Hilary Hook, formerly of the Indian cavalry and leader of extravagant safaris in Kenya. Hook returned home to England after being evicted from his home in the Kenya Hills, and is finding it hard to readjust to the English way of life.

Don't Nag Me

1987 • 18 min • United States of America

A WWII vet who wins the lottery kills his wife so that he may live what's left of his wasted life in peace and quiet.

Rhinoceroses

1987 • 10 min

It is at the end of this film that the rhinoceroses occupy center stage and perform mundane activities such as moving from left to right within their zoo pens. And it is right at the end of this that these archaic beasts will slowly and imperturbably cross the threshold of their cage, the door of which will have slid open mechanically. At that moment, gestures attain their intrinsic timelessness, with the camera recording what takes place in front of it in real time. This relative calm for the spectator (nothing is more peaceful than a rhinoceros in its everyday life) contrasts in a spectacular way with the previous frantic minutes. As his work is based upon using time freely, the filmmaker has done his utmost to organize sequences of images according to an acceleration which is external to the animals in the zoo, but coherent within the process of cinematographic creation.

Time for Table Manners

1987 • 6 min • United States of America

Time for Table Manners is a 1987 Disney educational animated short featuring classic animation re-edited to a modern story. It teaches about the importance of table manners.

Foit Yet Cleem Triavith

1987 • 2 min

An experimental short by Peter Rose.

Artbreak, MTV Networks, Inc.

1987 • 1 min • United States of America

1987, 30 sec, color, sound Produced for an Artbreak segment on MTV Network, this dynamic "thirty-second spot" presents an abbreviated history of animation according to the representation of women, from the cell imagery of Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series to the contemporary digital effects of television. In Birnbaum's vision, Fleischer's spilled inkwell releases cartoon bubbles containing images of women from MTV music videos. With wit and panache, Birnbaum reverses the traditional sexual roles of the producer and product of commercial imagery: The final image is that of a female artist on whose video "palette" we see a glimpse of Fleischer.

All Orientals Look the Same

1987 • 2 min

Briefly explores the title phrase, taking a common misperception and turns it on its head. It hopefully provokes the viewer to confront his or her own prejudices and misconceptions about Asian Pacific Americans and the contradictions inherent in those beliefs.

Triumph and Tragedy: The Story of the 1985-86 Philadelphia Flyers

1987 • 35 min • United States of America

Documentary about the Philadelphia Flyers' 1985 - 86 season. Following their loss in the Stanley Cup finals the previous season and the death of their All-Star goalie, Pelle Lindbergh the team rebounds. Features highlights & interviews with the players and coaches.

Trekkerriff

1987 • 9 min • United States of America

This remained in limbo for 24 years. The only people to have ever seen it were a few handfuls of Hindle's and, later, Shellie Fleming's students. Working from the only surviving print and Will's original magnetic sound masters, the Academy Film Archive has restored the film. Additional Will Hindle films are also in the process of being restored. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

National Geographic In the Shadow of Vesuvius

1987 • 60 min

Documentary explores the history surrounding the destruction of Pompeii and its inhabitants in 79 A.D. by the volcano Vesuvius.

Four Moves

1987 • 7 min

Cut-out animation consisting of four parts, each of which depicts its own abstract variation on the themes of colour and movement.

Undefeated

1987 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Based on the episodes about Gavroche from Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables.

Why Is It So Fine on the Rhine?

1987 • 18 min • Germany

Film by Telscher.

Late Summer

1987 • 32 min • Germany

Film by Telscher.

Alternative Conceptions

1987 • 36 min • United States of America

Lesbian motherhood through artificial insemination is the subject of this supportive tape about a controversial subject. Alternative Conceptions makes sense of the medical, social and legal issues surrounding insemination: Is it difficult to become pregnant using this method? Does a sperm donor have any legal rights to the child? How do the mothers explain the "facts of life" to their children?

The Land of the Lightning Brothers

1987 • 27 min

In the sandstone country southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory lies a spectacular concentration of Aboriginal rock art. Ancestral beings, the Lightning Brothers, feature in this art. For the Wardaman people, the Lightning Brothers are an important part of their living culture. The Wardaman perform traditional songs and ceremonies associated with special Dreamtime places where their art is found. Like many rock art sites, the Wardaman's Dreamtime places are extremely vulnerable. This fascinating and educational program, featuring the music of Australian group Gondwanaland, looks at the way these valuable sites are being preserved.

Where the Forest Meets the Sea

1987 • 9 min

Using relief collage animation, artist Jeannie Baker has created a beautiful short film depicting the wilderness area between the Daintree River and Bloomfield in North Queensland, as seen through the eyes of a child. As he wanders through coastal rainforest, he marvels at its ancient magnificence and, without speaking a word, ponders the future of the area.

What Isabelle Wants

1987 • 3 min • Canada

Utilizing human pixillation, Isabelle's demand to nurture conjures a variety of sensations... perverse, kitsch, sweet witch voodoo?

Report - Commentary of a Commentary

1987 • 7 min • East Germany, Germany

Lewandowsky's 'Report' is a collage on the eroticism of power. The film consists of 4-5 basic motifs that repeat themselves in cyclic montage. Television images of politicians, ecclesiastical dignitaries, the East German army, military combat jets, and wrecking balls are cut against each other, underlaid with martial industrial music. Again and again, an image is faded in of a woman exposing her breasts. Originally created as accompaniment to a theatrical staging of Shakespeare's tragedy "Titus Andronicus".

Pexer

1987 • 5 min

Survival of a Small City

1987 • 58 min

Shot in the US between November 1979 and September 1980 in Connecticut's South Norwalk region, this documentary focuses on the city's economic downturn and its collapse under such difficult conditions. Through raising perplexing questions about the sustainability of the then relevant popular solutions for the prevalent conditions, the film brings forward the conflicting perspectives of the local residents, former and current shopkeepers, artists, politicians, environmentalists, urban planners, and developers.

Her Dream

1987 • 18 min • Israel

Time’s Wake (Once Removed)

1987 • 12 min

Described as "a collection of 'windows' on a personal past" "Time's Wake (Once Removed)" incorporates material from an earlier version. On the earlier version: made from material I collected through the years when I went back to visit my parents at L'Ile d'Orleans, Quebec. It includes both home movie and other types of footage. In this film, the camera "I," in extension with home movie reality, is a living participating entity. The film represents an endearing but removed artifact, a strange contradiction between liveliness and frozenness. (VG) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Hungers

1987 • 28 min

Emshwiller introduces this work as a "tapestry of images and sounds suggestive of the hungers that human beings all share for food, love, sex, power, security and so forth." With collaborator Morton Subotnick, the noted electronic composer, and performer Joan La Barbara, Emshwiller weaves together sophisticated electronic and digital technology in conjunction with live performance and music, bringing his distinctive sensibility to a work of contemporary electronic theater.