All Films

At the Pike's Behest

1984 • 16 min • Soviet Union

The tale about a magic fish that too literally understands the wishes of lazy fool.

Puppy Does the Gumbo

1984 • 5 min

Color UCLA Student Film part of the Animation Workshop, preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Collage & Paper Cut animation with live action dance sequences of a boy and his dog turning the world on to the "gumbo" dance. Inspired by the whimsical lyrics of her friend’s funk song of the same name, which was a visual story of a dog traveling to other dimensions.

Черно-белое кино

1984 • 20 min • Soviet Union

Heaven is Real

1984 • 60 min

This spiritual documentary examines the Bible’s take on heaven and hell, as well as the mysteries that surround these eternal locations.

Made for TV

1984 • 15 min • United States of America

Combining Rubnitz’s skillful manipulation of the familiar “look” of TV shows with an extraordinary range of characters, performer Ann Magnuson convincingly impersonates the array of female types seen on TV in a typical broadcast day. From glitzy to drab, from friendly housewife to desperate evangelist, Magnuson is a one-woman universe appearing on every channel, the star of every program—giving her all as the chameleon woman who is always on display.

The Cost of Treachery

1984 • 49 min • United Kingdom

In 1949, at the height of the Cold War, the British and American Governments decided to fight back at the growing Soviet Empire with a secret plan, the Albanian Subversion, in which the CIA and MI6 attempted to overthrow the Albanian government and to weaken the Soviet Union and the role of double agent Kim Philby.

Bearskin, or The Man Who Didn't Wash for Seven Years

1984 • 19 min • United States of America

A soldier can not return home after he leaves the army, and can not find a job. Desperation drives him to make a deal with the Devil, who makes a bet with him. For the next seven years, he will carry a purse of gold that's always full. However, he must wear a bearskin and neither pray nor wash nor cut his hair in all that time. If he survives, he can keep the purse, but if he dies, the Devil gets his soul.

Image Noise (Osmin's Windows)

1984 • 26 min • France

"...the main thing, both during filming and during editing, was not to pay attention, simply to wait to be surprised by a detail and let myself be carried away to another visualization in a dance-like movement."

Les Sylphides

1984 • 30 min

Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc to piano music by Frédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov.

Zydeco

1984 • 55 min • United States of America

Shot on location in rural Southwestern Louisiana, Zydeco combines cinema verite style footage, interviews and musical performance to present a colorful, joyful portrait of the zydeco musicians in their culture. Featuring Dolon Carriere, Armand Ardoin, and Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin. A film by Nicholas R. Spitzer. Color, 57 minutes.

Territories

1984 • 25 min • United Kingdom

Territories is an experimental documentary about the Notting Hill Carnival. It locates the event within the struggle between white authority and black youth, in this case over the contested spaces of the carnival, and reflects on its history as symbolic act of resistance. The film makes the case using montage: cutting carnival scenes with archive news reports - police surveillance to rioting in the street - and crossing looks of desire with alienation, from police to reveller, woman to man, man to man. Add to this a disembodied, political critique and trenchant images of police violence and the audience soon becomes aware that the documentary itself is part of the resistance.

Pictures at an Exhibition

1984 • 7 min • Soviet Union

A Russian animated short.

Brown Target

1984 • 60 min • Japan

Yokosuka in the early 1980s. The military town, which once prospered from the Vietnam War economy, was exhausted, lifeless, and in ruins due to the aftereffects of the Vietnam War. Fumio, who lived hand to mouth, working as a prostitute for American soldiers and selling yak. One day, Fumio is lynched by the group's thugs for a trivial mistake. Fumio, who was covered in blood and unable to move, was later rescued by a black man who happened to be passing by. The black man's name was Al. Although he is a military veteran, he did not return to the United States and continued to live in Yokosuka, aiming to become a professional jazz pianist. After receiving kindness from someone for the first time, Fumio falls in love with Al, but since Al is straight, he rejects Fumio's courtship, but out of concern for Fumio who has no place to live, they start living together as close friends...

Itam Hakim, Hopiit

1984 • 58 min • United States of America

Itam Hakim Hopiit, which translates as "we / someone, the Hopi," is a poetic visualization of Hopi philosophy. Made at the time of the Hopi Tricentennial - marking 300 years since the 1680 Pueblo Revolt against Spanish colonial rule – the film presents a view of Hopi culture and history. Speaking in Hopi, a community elder shares personal recollections and cultural history, recounting stories of the Hopi emergence, perseverance, and the Bow Clan migration stories of his father. Through use of the film medium, Masayesva challenges viewers to understand the Hopi conception of time as cyclic, in which the world starts, ends, and starts again.

Film-Salabim

1984 • 54 min • East Germany, Germany

Children are introduced to the magical world of cinema in a cheerful and fantastic way; embedded in a turbulent story, they learn about the film professions. A young author, Alice, has written a story and travels to the DEFA feature film studio where this story is to be realized. On the way there, she meets characters she has already invented. The doorman, who is later recognized as one of the actors, wants to refuse them entry. Now begins a cheerful plot to realize the story, which is based on a well-known fairy tale, combined with the chase of the gatekeeper, prince and princess. Alice stands up for her charges, who occasionally slip away from her, and tries to move the plot forward, which involves various film professions. In the end, the real and the fictional merge in a fairytale meadow.

Where the Wild Things Are

1984 • 45 min

Oliver Knussen's operatic adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic picture book. Designed by Sendak for Glyndebourne's stage.

Zimarroi

1984 • 10 min

Short documentary by Rafael Treku and Francisco Bernabé

O auto-retrato de Bakun

1984 • 43 min

Miguel Bakun's life and work, narrated by a medium in trance and by people who knew him. He is considered the greatest painter from Paraná, Brazil, and killed himself in 1963, at 54.

Namaste

1984 • 29 min

On April 29, 1983, three French alpinists reached the summit of Jannu, having climbed its 7,710 meters via the very steep southwest spur. The success of Luc Jourjon, Jean-Noël Roche, and Roger Fillon echoed that of the 1962 national expedition, which had been celebrated by Lionel Terray alongside the leading climbers of the time, Desmaison, Paragot, Magnone… But in 1983, the goal was no longer simply to wave a French flag on a virgin summit. The focus was already on a more "alpine" style, and there was even the idea of ​​descending from the top… by air!

Pena Prisão

1984 • 34 min

A documentary dramatized on the daily life of a women's prison: Instituto Penal Talavera Bruce, in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro. The film reveals the struggle for survival within this micro-society that is formed between the walls, the relationship of these women with the penal institution, with justice and with the outside world. Through work, leisure, leisure, affective relationships and the social and sexual roles that each one assumes in prison, the film shows the relationship between people, the struggle for survival within this micro-society that is formed between the walls, the relationship of these women with the penal institution, with justice, and with the outside world.

A Christmas Dream

1984 • 60 min • United States of America

In this NBC Christmas Special from 1984, Mr. T plays a street Santa Claus who meets a young boy, played by Emmanuel Lewis of TV's Webster, who doesn't share the spirit of Christmas. Mr. T sets out to change Billy's mind, taking him around the city to FAO Schwartz, where he gets a magic lesson from David Copperfield, and then to Radio City Music Hall, where he listens to Christmas songs sung by Maureen McGovern, imagines himself as one of the toy soldiers in the Rockettes' Christmas Show, meets Willie Tyler and his dummy Lester, and finally is moved to realize the true meaning of Christmas, before being reunited with his parents.

On Time

1984 • 7 min • Soviet Union

The Stone Carvers

1984 • 30 min • United States of America

A look at some of the last stone carvers working in the United States, those completing the sculptures adorning the Washington National Cathedral. They discuss their craft and the cultural forces which helped define it, as well as the fading use of stone ornamentation in architecture and the history of stone carving, and they tour the cathedral to point out the history behind some of the work.

With Belief in the Kick

1984 • 8 min • Bulgaria

The lazy farmer wakes up dark from sleep. He banishes his wife, his pig, his chickens, his horse. Finally, he's all alone. He falls asleep and dreams of all those he has banished.