All Films

A Special Letter

1984 • 5 min

This gentle tribute, in animated form, celebrates the courage and enduring faith of a mother. The filmmaker resolves her feelings of impatience towards an aged mother while recalling their shared wartime experiences in a concentration camp. Through shimmering sepia images and an evocative musical score, the film shows that the gift of life can be reciprocated as the aging parent becomes the child.

Ma'loul Celebrates Its Destruction

1984 • 33 min • Belgium, Palestinian Territory

Since the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, countless Palestinian villages have been erased from the map. This film uses poignant images of bombardments, destroyed buildings, and disfigured people to illustrate this. All that remains are ruins, bearing silent witness in the landscape. Ma'Loul, just west of Nazareth, is one such ruined village. It was inhabited principally by Palestinian Christians, who were forced to leave in 1948 during the Israeli War of Independence. A detailed painting still bears testimony to the existence of the village, which had seen Jewish, Roman, Ottoman, and Palestinian rulers come and go since ancient times. But Ma'Loul also lives on in the memories of its former -- now elderly -- inhabitants, who tell the story of exactly what happened.

Lucy

1984 • 47 min • Germany

Lucy, the alleged missing aunt of the filmmaker Verena Rudolph, emigrated from a village in Lower Bavaria to America in 1934. Since then, she has never heard of her again. Fifty years later, Rudolph, armed with a Bolex camera and a tape recorder, heads to New York to search for her aunt.

Quadro a Quadro - Newton Cavalcanti

1984 • 10 min • Brazil

"The artist's statement, in his studio, where he traces the different phases of his work. Newton Cavalcanti speaks of his foray into painting, his concern with subtleties and color variations, the variety of themes he addresses and the vehicles he uses. is valid to manifest your art."

Hooray for Sandbox Land

1984 • 12 min

Animated short by Marv Newland

The Music of Satyajit Ray

1984 • 51 min • India

Based on interviews with Ray himself, and packed with clips from his films, as well as rare-to-come-by footage of his recording sessions, the documentary follows Satyajit Ray’s journey as a music director and composer of his own work on screen.

Kamenné varhany

1984 • 10 min • Czechoslovakia

Guided by a mysterious pink butterfly, a teenage boy discovers a gigantic organ hidden in a cave full of strange creatures.

Flower of the Night

1984 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Rudi Dörfert

1984 • 14 min • Germany

Short film by SCHMELZDAHIN

Juego decisivo

1984 • 10 min • Spain

Two pairs of young desnoyed 'yuppies' meet at the house of one of them for the weekend. Wanting to break with the usual monotony, they decide to play a game of chess, but with an incentive, the winner will sleep with the other's wife.

House No.42

1984 • 8 min • Yugoslavia

A yellowish black and white photo of a city square from the late 19th century. At one point everything in it comes alive – people at café tables, women in windows, passers-by. They all become part of a lively street scene.

Razor Head

1984 • 4 min • United States of America

One man shaves another in this highly charged erotic performance.

Back Inside Herself

1984 • 4 min • United States of America

A visual poem on identity. Crafted from one of S. Pearl’s poems, it encourages women to reject imposed beauty standards and invent their own identity. Featuring actress Barbara-O. The version has an audio remix with vocals by Sharp and Dwight Trible. 1984 & 2009 4 min.

American Dreams (Lost and Found)

1984 • 55 min • Canada, United States of America

Scrolling excerpts from the diary of George Wallace's would-be assassin Arthur Bremer at screen bottom, Hank Aaron cards and ephemera from his entire career up top, and alternating audio clips of popular songs and highlights from the news throughout Aaron's career.

Stadt in Flammen

1984 • 5 min • Germany

Film material is subjected to biochemical processes by burying it in the garden, storing it in a pond, or overheating it. The results of these natural processes of decay or aging are then copied back onto film and thus conserved in the state of their dissolution. - Lightcone

Highway Hypnosis

1984 • 60 min

The Los Angeles freeway killer takes a drive to Las Vegas—and back. This video by Ken Camp is both trancelike and troubling, taking the viewer across the desert of California, through Nevada, and into “the frightening zone where lay the genetic codes and memories that make us all killers.”

Our Travel

1984 • 20 min • Soviet Union

Amateur footage of a young couple on a trip.

Madness the Pilot

1984 • 12 min

The ska band is elected as the new British government and they move the cabinet to Camden.

Powell Peralta: The Bones Brigade Video Show

1984 • 30 min

From 1979 to 1983, skateboarding went though its first “dark age”. Popularity plunged, and most skaters ditched the sport. Then came the first of the famous Bones Brigade videos by Powell Peralta. It was filmed at the beginning of the 1980's skateboard boom and intended to show new skaters what had been going on in the sport. The Bones Brigade Video Show is definitely old school, and definitely rad. Packed with low riding & sliding action, pink shirts, high shorts, and the top names in skateboarding at the time and even today. The soundtrack, filming, everything - this is one of the best.

Horror Heaven

1984 • 22 min • Germany

Jörg Buttgereit himself plays a TV horror show presenter, introducing the audience to a variety of "Horror classics”. These are of course all short Super 8 films and he shows here his versatility as a filmmaker. The short pieces are all made in 1984 and range from a spoof on the Mummy to a Frankenstein parody, to an amazingly well-crafted stop-motion animated Godzilla-like monster pic called GAZORRA (starring Daktari Lorenz from NEKROMANTIK) to a down and dirty girl-fights-off-violent-rapist segment named CANNIBAL GIRL. Hilarious horror comedy!

Il colore delle tenebre

1984 • 12 min

In love with a mortal, the demon Aguares has lost his speech and speaks by emitting colors. When her beloved is nearing her end, Aguares sets out in vain search for the cellular regenerator capable of granting her immortality.

Te Rerenga Wairua

1984 • 16 min • New Zealand

The spirit of a person killed in a motorway accident runs through forest and beaches on its journey to Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Rēinga). En route it meets tourist buses and other spirits, before reaching the gnarly pohutukawa and making the leap towards Hawaiki-Nui.

The Role of Chance

1984 • 53 min • France

"The Role of Chance" ("La part du hasard") focuses exclusively on drawing and painting techniques used by the painter Henri Dimier. Shot over several weeks in the same artist's studio, the film shows works in their different phases, processes rarely explained or little known. It also addresses many practical issues (choice of paper, pigment grinding, reports drawings, put the tiles, cliches, etc) as well as broader questions of method and inspiration (use of space, the role of contours, power of suggestion perspectives, use of random processes). Patrick Bokanowski sought with this film to restore the spirit of this teaching, showing how to bend a note or sometimes revealing an essential mystery of creation.

Myth Makers 1: Michael Wisher

1984 • 28 min • United Kingdom

Many fans will best remember the late Michael Wisher for his definitive performance as Davros, creator of the Daleks. In truth Michael was the most gifted of actors, a chameleon who could transform his voice and appearance, and who worked many times in Doctor Who during the 1970’s. Michael loved his time in the programme and appeared in several spin-off dramas including Wartime and Shakedown. In this special production we recall Michael’s life and career in the company of Nicholas Briggs, Peter Miles, and Michael’s son, Andy.