All Films

Lilith

1987 • 9 min • United States of America

Against a field of swaying and halting yellow vegetation, another processed field: the image of the eponymous subject (performed by painter Doris Cross) riles and emits unintelligibly to the viewer. Conjuring the mystical biblical character Lilith, Steina's video layers both sound and image to produce an ever-shifting, frustrated presence.

Wagon Pars

1987 • 29 min

Shirdel made a fertile production of highly praised industrial and educational films. "Wagon Pars" is a fine example of his industrial documentaries.

Cantus Firmus

1987 • 10 min

The traditional proscenium arch plays no part in this dance video that takes place in an electronic space which extends beyond the screen's boundaries. A dynamic and colourful digital 'haze' reveals glimpses of the movements and contours of abstracted dancing figures. The music, which has been specially composed for Cantus Firmus, consists of fragments of existing 'classical' ballet music that relates to various of the dancers' movements. This work surpasses the traditional recording of dance because the medium of video functions as an active part of Cantus Firmus and has been integrated into its presentation.

Ocean Symphony

1987 • 47 min

An amazing visual experience that takes the viewer from the ice-strewn waters of the hostile Antarctic to the coral-colored streams of the Caribbean, featuring the film of the Emmy-winning underwater cinematographer Al Giddings.

Lament of the Sugar Bush Man

1987 • 12 min • Canada

Sulfur dioxide and acidic precipitation have added stress to the forest ecosystem and is the unofficial cause of the decline of the Sugar Maple. This is the lamentation of a world slipping away. A farm here, a person there.

An Inside Job

1987 • 11 min • Ireland

A man in a dentist chair finds himself helpless in the clutches of a schizophrenic kleptomaniac.

Tom & Jerry Halloween Special

1987 • 58 min

A 1987 animated/live action television compilation special that aired on TBS. The special includes live action segments hosted by Josh Jarboe and Audra Lee in various Halloween costume in a haunted house, where they would introduce the show's animated shorts.

The Ballad of the Monstrous

1987 • 1 min • Netherlands

Short animation film in which a dancer is beset by a dragon. In avoiding the huge monster's mouth, she changes into a little monster.

Concert

1987 • 12 min • Poland

An angel appears above a gray, large-panel housing estate. He is noticed by a violinist and a party dignitary. For the musician, the angel is a source of inspiration; for the man of power - a pretext for a cynical political game.

Today is Sunday

1987 • 18 min

Today is Sunday is both a still life and a landscape film in which the characters are described by nature. The clouds, the wind, the waves, articulate their presence. A dialogue is established between the external environment, the sound, the weather, and the internal musings of the female character.

The Chekhovs

1987 • 20 min • Soviet Union

The film is based on the letters and memoirs of Anton Chekhov and members of his family and reconstructs the details of everyday life and of the writer's relationships with his brothers and sister.

Narcolepsy

1987 • 7 min • Japan

8mm short by Yuko Asano.

The Exhibition of Mr. Kant

1987 • 35 min • South Korea

Shear

1987 • 4 min

Using associative imagery, Seaman creates an unsettling world of buildings and objects, devoid of people. Juxtaposing static shots of stone buildings on "sheer" mountain sides with images of empty rooms, a ladder tilted against a wall, and a reflection of a car rounding a curve, Seaman suggests absence, unbalance, and the mystery of the everyday. A pair of hands clasped together, folding and unfolding, links the images together much as Seaman juxtaposes them for the viewer. Scissors on a table echo the "cutting" that is prevalent in Seaman's work, and provide another allusion to the title.

Strange Pop

1987 • 2 min • Japan

夜の瞳

1987 • 3 min • Japan

Owl

1987 • 9 min • Soviet Union

An owl must help an ungrateful old man take back his livelihood from an army of greedy mice.

Tomorrow It's A Holiday

1987 • 20 min • Soviet Union

Reflection on the way the Soviet production system turns workers themselves into commodities.

A Man Playing Movie

1987 • 10 min

"Jun'ichi Okuyama is a cinedoer." Jun'ichi Okuyama plays making a film from the material and accidents that gradually disrupt the natural recording of the camera. It all starts and ends with the noise of the projector. Landscape sequences gradually undergo interference and rhythmic interruptions of one hand, of a reel in motion and then of a crack passing through the photogram from one side to the other, are all tangible signs of the presence of the filmmaker. The universe breaks up and recomposes in this back and forth between reality and its "in the movie" reflection.

Itinerary

1987 • 6 min • Canada

A modest employee, who has become an artist-painter, projects his existential anxieties into his paintings, which are appeased by familiar faces. The technique used: photographs juxtaposed with pastel drawings.

I'm Still Alive! A Person with AIDs Tells His Story

1987 • 58 min • Germany

In a series of intimate talks, Peter S., the subject of the documentary, reflects with insight and reverence on dying, loving and living with the disease that has altered the course of our lives. I'm Still Alive! is a testament to the wisdom and resilience of the human spirit.

Electron

1987 • 5 min

Electron was originally an installation commissioned by TSWA for Bellever Forest on Dartmoor and comprised a circle of seven monitors encased in steel boxes. Its images are of pylons, the Thames bank with its "seats of institutional power" including Big Ben (Goddard's early work often contains public clocks): a fly caught in amber and an electrical spiral. She describes the piece as "a combination of mythology and technology" relating ancient objects like stone circles, and on the soundtrack are Blake's Jerusalem and a Celtic lament to the physical means of relaying electricity. An apocalyptical view of society and its discontents is underpinned by her idea of an invisible force - this time a physical one - the charged particles of electricity, a kind of natural chaos.

Cakchiquel Maya of San Antonio Palopó

1987 • 52 min

The documentary shows how Cakchiquel Maya of a village on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala adapted to changes that took place in the decades before the film was made, when the lake became a favoured spot for holiday homes, and the village was filled with streams of tourists. While the filmmakers were officially welcomed and given permission to film, in practice many people hid their faces and did not co-operate. Some even threw stones at the camera crew. The film team tried to find an explanation of the Maya hostility to the camera.

Auf der Kät

1987 • 16 min • East Germany, Germany

The Annaberger Kät is one of the most traditional folk festivals in the GDR. The film conveys humorous observations and the atmosphere at this fairground, with the camera capturing scenes at the boxing machines, the bumper cars, the lottery and shooting booths from an unusual perspective.