All Films

Le Vaillant Petit Soldat

1984 • 25 min

Growth

1984 • 12 min

Directed by Ian Breakwell

Witness to Revolution: The Story of Anna Louise Strong

1984 • 28 min

The daughter of a Nebraska minister, Anna Louise Strong earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Chicago. But it was in the Pacific Northwest, where she witnessed the 1916 Everett massacre and chronicled the 1919 Seattle General Strike, that her political vision took shape. In Moscow she helped found the first English language newspaper, in Spain her many visits resulted in her book, Spain in Arms; and in China she interviewed Mao in a Yan'an cave in 1946. She is buried in Beijing in a special cemetery for martyrs of the revolution.

Abhängig

1984 • 23 min • East Germany

Eberhard Kunstmann, a shipbuilder at the Neptune Wharf in Rostock, counsels collegues who are struggling with alchohol addiction.

My Urban Garden

1984 • 26 min

In this short film, Halifax gardener Carol Bowlby harvests a mouth-watering crop from her small backyard plot. In considering soil quality, lack of space and a short growing season challenges rather than obstacles, she offers a wealth of practical growing tips for urban gardeners. By heeding Bowlby's advice, bountiful organic gardens work equally well on apartment balconies, in small or large city lots or in a rural setting.

Dévotion

1984 • 18 min • France

An auspicious day to fill as Paris wakes up under a thick layer of snow; Dévotion is wandering to the Palais de Chaillot through a paralyzed Paris.

Hit the Turnpike!

1984 • 2 min • United States of America

The ultimate rejection film. A compilation of many of the rejection notices and letters that I have received during my fifteen years of making films. "Films that offer an intelligent glimpse of the personal struggle and/or foibles of their creators seem destined for a warm reception in any festival. In the world of independents, a short like HIT THE TURNPIKE! is the finest way to end a lengthy screening. For those unfortunate enough to have suffered the agony of rejection or decision, HIT THE TURNPIKE! is the kind of film that encourages you to leave the disappointment behind.

Les tribulations de saint Antoine

1984 • 40 min

Evokes the life of 3rd century hermit Saint Antoine via the paintings of Bosch, Rops, Ensor, Ernst & Dalí.

Tortured Dust Part 2

1984 • 20 min • United States of America

While ill and experiencing some difficulty in completing the editing of this film, Brakhage was reading the Marguerite Young novel, "Miss MacIntosh, My Darling." Coming upon the following passage in her book, he found renewed energy to continue and complete the work: "Why should she give birth, though she had worked in a pottery, to an urn, to a stone angel, to the face of a cracked sundial? Why should she be, she screamed, this common clay, this tortured dust?" From "Miss MacIntosh, My Darling" by Marguerite Young... to whom this film is gratefully dedicated.

The Witness or Timid Expectations

1984 • 9 min • France

In her approach as a close observer of certain creators in the Letterist Movement, which has revealed CREATION as the central value of a new philosophical system, and as a witness of the multiform creations of an important creator of this movement, and his efforts to help building a richer and happier world, in order to leave a trace upon the world of silence imposed on contemporary artists, the author has selected here lively, peaceful scenes showing a happy life. This is a chiseling letterist film, in which image during the accelerated montage, disynchronising image and sound, has been itself chiseled by drawing on the views, abstract, symbolic figures which reinforce its meaning.

Chutes de Graal

1984 • 27 min

OdilonOdilon

1984 • 21 min

ODILONODILON is a portrait of an adolescent boy coming to know himself and his place within his family and society. It uses historic sound: Edward R. Murrow's Christmas Eve broadcast during World War II to the parents of the young children of London's families, urging them to send their youngest to the country to save their lives as a protection against the nightly bombing raids. The "Yanks in December" recording is ironically echoed in the baseball motif in the film. Odilon's love of baseball, eating and cooking and his growing awareness of adulthood's responsibility, ambition and judgement create a brooding tension. Playfulness and intellectual rigor struggle to remain part and parcel of his daily life against the larger backdrops of Alcatraz and World War II.

East Meets West

1984 • 11 min • China, United States of America

Tseng Kwong Chi (1950-1990) was part of an intimate circle of artists, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, and Cindy Sherman among them, who took center stage in the New York art world during the 1980's. As a Hong-Kong born, Paris-trained artist, Tseng viewed himself as a citizen of the world and eschewed labeling himself or his art as "Chinese." However, his ironic self-portraits posed in a Mao suit in front of American landmarks found their way to Communist China and were profoundly influential for China's avant-garde, including conceptual artists Song Dong and Zhang Huan, who were exposed to Tseng's images through western magazines smuggled into the country in the 1980's. Tseng's photographs not only satirized relations between the United States and its emerging rival, China, but also broadcasted his freedom of movement - a privilege denied most Chinese artists at the time.

Chutes de Michel Nedjar

1984 • 17 min

Outtakes from the movie

Sans titre 84

1984 • 14 min • France

Jaune et bleu II: les îles

1984 • 7 min • France

On Land Over Water (Six Stories)

1984 • 60 min • Canada

"In cinema one extracts the thought from the image; in literature the image from the thought" (Levinson). This reflection was the catalyst for the photographic and narrative strategies of "On Land Over Water." "On Land Over Water..." was born out of an image-notion of a skid mark on a highway, photographed in close-up, revealing texture and form. The image would be positioned with a voice-over narration, telling the story of a young boy witnessing a fatal auto accident and its ensuing aftermath. Over the following winter months I meditated on the cinematic potentials of that notion, "On Land Over Water..." is the product of working out variations of that meditation. In story discourse, "On Land..."experiments with the possibilities of adopting the characteristics of the short story to the forms of cinema. (RK)

New York 10010

1984 • 9 min

New York 10010 uses footage from the New York underground and cut ups of different configurations of the ETC studio incorporating the audio oscillators as both sound and image. The element of living and frozen (dead) time permutes the work, and points towards later involvements with the topic of time perception in my work.

Home, Return To

1984 • 18 min • Japan

Last year, my grandfather died. The film begins with the words "Last year, my grandfather died," and the filmmaker turns his attention to his grandmother, who is left behind. She says she could die at any time, but she lives on. The artist's fingers crawl over the grandmother's face, caressing the wrinkles. Her mother supports her as she gives her a bath. The artist, who says that one cannot avoid one's own blood or family when thinking about oneself, tries to question one's own existence by looking at the grandmother.

Coalfields

1984 • 39 min

West Virginia industrial landscapes are collaged on an optical printer through a series of jagged shapes that transform the photographed scenes into a semi-abstract kinetic field. The technique developed by Brand in his earlier films, extends the already complex visual idiom by inlaying social, sexual, personal and political subject matter. Woven into the fabric of the film is the story of Fred Carter, a retired coal miner and black lung activist who was framed by the Federal Government in its effort to undercut the black lung movement and to stop his bid for president of the United Mine Workers Association. His story is told through fragments of documentary interviews and by a poet whose narrative forms a counter theme within the film. The film’s thematic content and formal visualizations sit in precarious balance.

Fellowship

1984 • 14 min

In this new film loop from Robinson’s 1984 film Royal Fellowship, reflections on memorialising and narrativising war and on the possibility of resistance, seep through into the contemporary world… along with the women’s voices: shaking the fence, undercutting the military presence as they took on the might of the biggest military-industrial complex in the world.

Lucerito, vacaciones

1984 • 50 min • Mexico

Mexican feature film

Para vencer el olvido

1984 • 59 min • Mexico

Mexican feature film

All our Lives

1984 • 54 min

Documentary about the organization -Mujeres Libres- that narrates, through interviews, their participation in the Spanish civil war and their day-to-day struggle as anarchists and as women, in war and in the revolution. The protagonists talk about how they got involved in the war, about their relationships with other anarchist organizations and about their lives since then. Decades later, Mujeres Libres is still a model of revolutionary feminism.