All Films - Short Movie Database

This Is Not an Advertisement

1985 • 5 min

In a project sponsored by the Public Art Fund, Muntadas installed the fifty-second message This is not an Advertisement on the electronic Spectacolor lightboard that then dominated New York's Times Square. Every twenty minutes, between commercial advertisements, the sign broadcast the text: "This is not an advertisement... subliminal... speed... fragmentation," alluding to the surrounding media environment of marketing and billboards. With each successive signal, the message became more distorted and abstract, until it was rendered virtually illegible.

The Impossible Decade

1985 • 51 min

One of many films commissioned by the U.N. to commemorate the Decade For Women, which began in 1976, The impossible decade assesses what has actually happened to women in those ten years.

The Kiss

1985 • 6 min • United States of America

In his film work from the early 1980s, the artist used an Apple computer hooked up to a laser disc player. He scratched the laser disc, creating a stammering image, and a disconnection between time and space.

Ten Cents a Dance: Parallax

1985 • 30 min

Confusion, underlying meaning and unspoken truths are often associated with the dialectic of sexual communication. Mingled with the intensity and unpredictability of a “one night stand,” they generate unique sensations – mixed emotion, risk, and excitement. The film employs formal devices in a manner that is exceedingly simple, yet very effective. Its subject matter, sexuality and communication, gains depth and poignancy through the artist’s decision to shoot the film’s three scenes for projection in a “double screen” configuration.

The Maintenance of Silence

1985 • 22 min • New Zealand

On November 18 1982, a 22-year old Aucklander, Neil Roberts, daubed a washroom wall with the graffiti slogan: ‘WE HAVE MAINTAINED A SILENCE CLOSELY RESEMBLING STUPIDITY’. He then placed a bomb outside the State Security Computer Centre at Whanganui where files are kept on all citizens. The bomb blew him to pieces.

Clouds

1985 • 25 min

A synthesis of documentary, dramatic, and experimental styles, this film follows two women recollecting their personal and familial experiences from World War II. One woman recounts the story of an aunt from story Hiroshima whose father had been a member of the peace party when the militarist government forced its way to power. Exiled from Japan they were then interned with Canadians of Japanese descent. The other woman recounts the details of her experience as a young nurse on the morning of August 6, 1945.

A Song of Ceylon

1985 • 49 min • Australia

A formally rigorous, visually stunning study of colonialism, gender and the body. The title echoes the classic British documentary and evokes a country erased from the world map. The soundtrack enacts a Sri Lankan anthropological text observing a woman’s ritual exorcism. Visually, the film brings together theatrical conventions and recreations of classic film stills, presenting the body in striking tableaux. This remarkable film is a provocative treatise on hybridity, hysteria and performance.

Rhonda Goes to Hollywood

1985 • 23 min

Rhonda Goes to Hollywood functions in a similar fashion, exploring the very existence of Hollywood's stars as merely social constructions. The film follows Rhonda Zwillinger as she reenacts glamour poses in her camp/trash bedroom, and as she walks down Hollywood Boulevard. This is intercut with found footage (depicting various stars, such as Elvis, Bardot, Marilyn etc), which, like that in Play Boy, is re-photographed and fucked up so that the celluloid itself is as much of the film's theme as the images it depicts. The film thus positions the ironic glamorous stances of Rhonda as part of a series of repetitious gestures which serve to signify glamour and stardom (for example Rhonda's star on the Boulevard), while film stardom itself is shown to be a transient myth.

Union Jack Up

1985 • 18 min • United Kingdom

The Union Jacking Up is an ode to friends, including Trojan and Leigh Bowery who feature in the film among others, as well as a collage of news footage of 80s Britain. The film’s haunting soundtrack is composed similarly to the video and 16mm footage that fades and dissolves on screen, often montaging two sources to create abstract combinations and juxtapositions. - ICA

Visit Israel with Dr. W. Cleon Skousen - The Ministry & Miracles of Jesus

1985 • 30 min

You will hear the master storyteller, Dr. W. Cleon Skousen, and see the Holy Land right in your own home with this exciting production! Imagine, actually being able to see the sights and hear the sounds and story of the land where Jesus and the ancient prophets walked. From Cana where Jesus performed His first recorded miracle, to the sea of Galilee, where He calmed the storm and walked on the water, you'll see the beauty of the places where these and many other miracles took place. You'll also learn about how Priesthood power controls matter through intelligence.

The Wedding

1985 • 3 min • France

The event and its (on) taken on the live. The marriage of Sandra and Thierry, surrounded by their friends. Direct cinema, without retouching.

Roundtrip

1985 • 2 min • Soviet Union

How a monkey became a human, and then a monkey again because of his addiction to alcohol.

America Censored

1985 • 60 min

Documentary tracing the history of censorship in American comedy, movies, music and television from the early 20th century, showing how what society concerns taboo has changed during the last 100 years.

True Life Romance

1985 • 6 min • United Kingdom

Performance video about a holiday romance at St Ives, Cornwall.

Städel

1985 • 7 min • United States of America

“Peter Kubelka…was teaching at Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule (Städel) at the time. His classes, filmmaking and cooking, were very unique, and this film was made around the time I was studying with him at Städel… This is a single-shot film, moving along the passageway using a handmade dolly. I used an Arriflex 16ST camera, and I changed the filming speed from 48fps to 4-6 fps while shooting.” - Yo Ota

Voices of the Gods

1985 • 60 min

The resilience of Traditional African Religions Practiced in The United States.

L'ange frénétique

1985 • 5 min

An epicene angel flutters its wings and smokes a cigarette in this ejaculatory study of frustration, torment, stupidity and insolence. With Cerith Wyn Evans as the angel and music by Michael Nyman. Made at the Royal College of Art.

Obituary

1985 • 6 min • East Germany, Germany

Obituary for a young man.

Little Angel

1985 • 9 min • East Germany, Germany

A sequence showing the killing and subsequent skinning of a rabbit is followed by a reclining nude and the symbolic image of a woman devouring a sausage.