All Films

The Well

1987 • 9 min • Soviet Union

How a Hedgehog dug a well in the desert, although everyone around assured that no one needed it.

Electric Blue: The Best of Electric Blue 09

1987 • 46 min • United Kingdom

The Best of Electric Blue Volume 9

Young at Heart

1987 • 29 min

Filmmakers Sue Marx and Pamela Conn document the romance between Sue's father Louis Gothelf and Reva Shwayder, each in their mid-80s. Both artists and residents of the Detroit suburbs, they met on a group tour of England after being widowed, and quickly formed a strong connection over shared interests. The two discuss concerns over living together without being married; Louis also talks about his caring for his first wife during her ten-year struggle with Alzheimer's disease, while Reva talks about the deaths of two sons several years after her husband's death.

Sex - An Instruction Manual for the Youth

1987 • 18 min • Denmark

An animated short from the 80s telling teenagers about puberty, sex and protection.

Rapture

1987 • 17 min

'Rapture' is a fierce vision of a Dionysian experience, a tightly controlled visual statement about the abandonment of self to heightened transportive states. It is also an exploration of the similarity between 'religious' and 'visionary' ecstasy and psychotic states.

Revolutionary Sketches

1987 • 8 min

The brothers Aleinikov lay out turgid governmental speeches about "the rearing of a new man" under footage of dudes goofing around in space-alien costumes. They roll footage of apple-cheeked future Stakhanovites upside down and backwards. They crudely animate - in a certain South Parkian way - CCCP (USSR) icons in a goofy manner.

How to Shoot a Crime

1987 • 28 min

In How to Shoot a Crime, Chris Kraus constructs a quasi-documentary with police crime footage, interviews with two dominitrices, and an ersatz mystery sub-plot. Sadomasochism finds its analog in a “plot” where gentrification and crime documentation are two versions of aestheticized death.

Engram

1987 • 12 min • Japan

Engram is a three-part piece revolving around a few good old ideas such as photos inside of photos, movies inside of movies, photos inside of movies, movies inside of photos, and (even) a film director inside a TV set.

Sharon and the Birds on the Way to the Wedding

1987 • 20 min

This is a film about the language and perception of love and romance. The film blurs the line between fact and fiction, personal and cultural experience.

Turner

1987 • 2 min

Colorful, energetic, delicate and sensual, this early short by M.M. Serra presents her unique vision of eroticism and poetic cinema in a fast-paced collage of dreamlike imagery. Fragments of a poem by C. Breeze are read and manipulated in a manner recalling the tape experiments of Steve Reich. Rich reds and deep blues stutter and sparkle along with her descriptions of love and "canine sex." TURNER is a brief glimpse at Serra's roots in the New York avant-garde and the Film-makers' Cooperative.

The Scavengers

1987 • 1 min • United Kingdom

Be warned, this campaign from the now defunct anti-fur trade pressure group Lynx fully deserves its 18 rating, as it starts out in a genuinely unsettling mood of David Lynch weirdness, then triumphantly embraces the sort of gut-level revulsion Lucio Fulci and David Cronenberg utilised in their most effective shockers to hammer the point home.

Mnemosyne Mother of Muses

1987 • 16 min • United States of America

Christened for the Greek mythological personification of human memory, MNEMOSYNE, MOTHER OF MUSES is Larry Gottheim's facsimile edition of how one reflects on life and experiences (namely, in flashes and excerpts of sound and imagery). Typically known for his avant-garde, single-shot meditations on nature, Gottheim here provides a palindromic quotation of his own memories, including street corners, movie quotes, family members and Johnny Hartman tunes.

Toy Mystery

1987 • 10 min • Soviet Union

It's not good to turn your back on old friends.

Fascinating Doll's House

1987 • 9 min

Short experimental film about family and childhood. Features intertitles and a soundtrack of music and effects.

Outside Your Window

1987 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Paper airplanes and... an eagle sometimes arrive in a gray, well-fed, thoroughly predictable world.

Essay on Grandfather

1987 • 9 min • Soviet Union

Doing homework, the student writes an essay about the early years of the life of his grandfather, who was accompanied by his faithful friend, the horse Grey. Together they attended courses of cab drivers and being newcomers they got acquainted with the urban way of life. Description of ancient streets, interesting people and unexpected events before the revolution were the focus of the story.

However Odd, But Khokhlova

1987 • 33 min • Soviet Union

The film is about Russian silent movie star Alexandra Khokhlova. She was the first Soviet blacklisted actress. In her 90es, Khokhlova acts in this extraordinary documentary: she acts herself. Film critics recognised her appearance here as the last and brilliant role of great actress.

Dream

1987 • 20 min • Soviet Union

The first Surrealist film perestroika years.

Spiral

1987 • 12 min • United States of America

Out of time, out of reach of voice, fuzzy and without logic, skeletons dance with raw meat spinning. A horse race within the walls of Berlin. And two halves that leave a gaping hole.

Milroy: Santa's Misfit Mutt

1987 • 30 min

A truly canine Christmas adventure with Milroy, a loveable klutzy pup, who is adopted by Santa and Mrs. Claus

Moon Spell

1987 • 49 min • Mexico

Teenager who's afraid of his sexual impulses and change it all to a disease named Licantrophy instead of being gay.

Out of the Ashes

1987 • 12 min

Out of the Ashes is a powerful and evocative work which utilises pagan and christian images to explore the mythologies of blood and fire, taboos around menstruation and the persecution of witches.

Between the Light and the Dark

1987 • 5 min

A reading by the artist of his spoken word/new music composition Between the Light and the Dark forms the backdrop for this experimental video. Sounds are obtained by bending and shaping sampled voice signals and non-traditional instrumentation. Layered and processed images of his solitary figure and the sea, of open hands and gravestones, flow into and through each other in a dreamlike tableaux of richly evocative colour.

Temple

1987 • 60 min • Soviet Union

One of the first films, truthfully telling about the ministers and believers of the Russian Orthodox Church - from the highest hierarchs of the church to ordinary parishioners.