All Films

The Cup and the Lip

1986 • 21 min • United States of America

The Cup and the Lip is a complex and challenging picture that will stimulate adventurous filmmakers for years to come. Although its imagery is too dense, varied and fast-moving to be thoroughly parsed after one viewing, the film appears to be a regretful and perhaps sardonic essay on human frailty--and on the effort to stave off chaos by means of political and religious institutions, which carry their own dangers of social control and mental manipulation. - David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Estate Project for Artists with AIDS in 1998.

The Tao of Physics

1986 • 39 min

An interview with Fritjof Capra, the author of “The Tao of Physics” published 1975. Capra based his work on the Danish theoretical physicist Niels Bohr, who included the Chinese t’ai chi symbol in his coat of arms.

Colorful Story

1986 • 9 min • Soviet Union

An animated film about a girl who draws various characters from famous fairy tales, who come to life on the canvas and create their own colorful story.

Tale of the Tenth Floor

1986 • 9 min • Soviet Union

About a boy who had to answer for his actions on the tenth floor of a nine-story building.

A Safe Distance

1986 • 27 min • Canada

The short documentary looks at some innovative approaches to providing services and accommodation for battered women in rural, northern, and Native communities. Filmed in Thompson and Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, and West Bay Reserve, Ontario, the film introduces the women who operate and use various types of accommodation such as transition houses, transition apartments, and safe houses. The shelter on West Bay Reserve is singled out as a project that was built by women for women to stand as a reminder that the Reserve will not tolerate violence against women. A Safe Distance is part of the The Next Step, a 3-film series about the services needed by and available to battered women.

Paddington's Birthday Bonanza

1986 • 24 min

Mr. Brown's birthday is drawing near and Paddington is worried because he can't afford to buy him a present. His efforts to raise some money lead him into a series of misadventures, first as a waiter at a society dinner, then as the dancing partner of the hostess, Mrs. Smith-Cholmley, in a televised dance competition at the local charity ball.

And the Lighthouse Made Three

1986 • 5 min • Australia

A plasticene animated film about a lonely lighthouse, a craggy old lighthouse keeper and a mysterious dark figure that moves in the fog. A delightful song ends this tale of unrequited love.

Doremi

1986 • 9 min • Soviet Union

Educational film for kids about musical literacy.

1/4 Moon

1986 • 9 min • Canada

A musician plays a violin to a black dog, a white horse, a sheep, lamb and chickens in a barn yard while it is raining at a small farm yard in Clam Harbour, Nova Scotia. The handheld camera wanders, documenting the violin player and the animal audience.

Cinq films d’août

1986 • 13 min • France

Hideo, It's Me, Mama

1986 • 27 min • Japan

HIDEO, It's Me, Mama is a psychological melodrama that introduces narrative and structural devices that are integral to Idemitsu's work. Exploring the flawed universe of the contemporary Japanese family, she focuses on a woman's identity as mother through mother-child and husband-wife relationships. Hideo, a young man living away from his parents, is kept under constant surveillance by his doting mother via an omnipresent television monitor. In a cogent metaphor for familial relations in the media-saturated culture of contemporary Japan, Mama can only communicate with her beloved, absent son through the video screen. Idemitsu's poignant irony is embodied in the scene in which Mama, blind to her husband's needs, caresses Hideo's video image. (Electronic Arts Intermix)

The Box

1986 • 10 min • United Kingdom

Feelings of fear and isolation felt by an elderly woman navigating the new urban environments that had increasingly replaced traditional working class communities in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Drag Queen Marathon

1986 • 5 min

A dragumentary about a day in the life of a score of drag queens on the lookout for photo opportunities at Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, Tiffany’s, and in SoHo. A tripped-out Hapi Phace shares her haiku, and The “Lady” Bunny pouts about the concept of unisex clothes. Also featuring Sister Dimension and Dagmar Onassis.

Emergence

1986 • 18 min • United Kingdom

Four Black and Third World women artists, among them African American feminist poet Audre Lorde and Palestinian performance artist Mona Hatoum, speak forcefully through their art and writing.

UzPasaka

1986 • 9 min • Soviet Union

An animation film by Roze Stiebra and Imants Ziedonis

The Charm

1986 • 45 min • Kenya, United States of America

A Nairobi businessman struggles for success. He depends on fetishes and charms to help him. His wife rebukes him. Both of them are regular church members. He must choose whether he truly trusts his charms or Jesus.

Les Conquérants de l'Impossible: Portrait de Groupe

1986 • 55 min • France

“The Conquerors of the Impossible: Group Portrait” is a documentary on free climbing which takes place in the Verdon Gorges and Toulon. It was directed by Bernard Dumont in 1986 and produced by Les Films du Soleil. It is part of the series The Conquerors of the Impossible (3-3). There we find Patrick Berhault, Patrick Edlinger, Eric Escoffier, Christophe Profit, Laurent Chevallier, Jean-Paul Janssen and other pioneers of free climbing.

Le singe fou

1986 • 25 min • Gabon

Río de sombras

1986 • 21 min • Spain

Journalists investigate a crime on the border with Portugal. Based on an argument by X.L. Méndez Ferrín.

My Little Baby

1986 • 2 min

35mm experimental short film. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

It Was, It Was, as if It Never Was

1986 • 6 min • Soviet Union

A colourful, fun children's film about a little girl who observes the strange, funny, interesting and even scary things that are happening around her.

A Singing Stream

1986 • 58 min

A Singing Stream highlights the importance of religious faith and music in the Landis family, and shows the impact of tenant farming, Jim Crow, the New Deal, civil rights, Black Migration, and issue of land inheritance in this extended family.

The Promised Land

1986 • 17 min

A non-linear narrative starring Nick Zedd as a neo-nazi.

The Work They Say Is Mine

1986 • 49 min

A film about the plight of the women in the Shetland Isles who had to rely on knitting to make a living.