All Films

The Night Nothing Happens

1983 • 8 min • Japan

Mandala1983

1983 • 3 min

Primitive computer graphics featuring a 3D visualization of a mandala. Shown at SIGGRAPH 1983 Detroit.

Give my Shadow a Voice

1983 • 11 min • Japan

15 Soldiers, 11 Machines, 8 Cows

1983 • 7 min • Canada

This video is a collage of images that takes the viewer down a path between their own virtue and cosmic morality. A quiet anxiety emerges as the strip explores the non-mathematical possibilities of the violent destruction of matter, as well as the habits into which people seem to push their fellows.

Aloud

1983 • 6 min • Canada

Canadian poet Earle Birney indulges his love of trains in this performance of his sound poem To Swindon from London by Britrail. In fluent "trainish," he interprets the experience of excursions by rail. Imagination sparked by the rhythm of wheels and the clink of couplings, Birney hums, hisses and hoots his way through archival footage of vintage trains and the English countryside. A must for language, animation and train buffs.

Strangers and Kin

1983 • 59 min

Using funny, often poignant examples, Strangers and Kin shows the development and effect of stereotypes as technological change collides with tradition in the Southern mountains. The film traces the evolution of the “hillbilly” image through Hollywood films, network news and entertainment shows, dramatic renderings of popular literature, and interviews with contemporary Appalachians to demonstrate how stereotypes are created, reinforced, and often used to rationalize exploitation. Strangers and Kin suggests how a people can embrace modernity without becoming “strangers to their kin.”

Webs

1983 • 5 min • United States of America

Short by Nancy Buchanan.

Here’s Chicago! The City of Dreams

1983 • 13 min

A travelog that was shown from 1983-1993, Here’s Chicago! features breathtaking shots of the city by helicopter and “Where’s Waldo” scale opportunities for watching the inhabitants of the city of Chicago.

California Stories

1983 • 10 min • United States of America

Short by Nancy Buchanan.

BNP: les Temps modernes

1983 • 1 min

An engineer is sitting at his desk designing a computer-generated logo providing a printed circuit board made with the BNP effigy, a sign of modern times.

FANROAD Opening Animation

1983 • 9 min • Japan

Produced for "Gebocon I", a convention organized by Fanroad magazine, an anime/manga/doujin magazine in the 80s and 90s.

URACON II Opening Animation

1983 • 7 min • Japan

Opening animation for URACON II.

ハシ

1983 • 20 min • Japan

A drama in which the main character Hashi, a motherf*cker, heads towards a shocking end. The green clothes Hashi wears were hand-drawn by Gyoshu.

Zhang le Tui de Mangguo

1983 • 20 min • China

The mangos are ripe. Working hard together, Bunny, Monkey, and Black Dog pick up a very big heap of mangos from the mango tree. At first, Bunny and Monkey wanted to take the mangos home in a basket, but there are too many mangos to do that. They decide to take turns instead, each keeping guard for one night to make sure no one steals their mangos. Little White Bunny isn't brave, but he doesn't want to be laughed at by his friends, so he volunteers to keep guard for the first night; but when he notices the mangos being stolen during the night, he's so afraid that he goes hide instead. When his friends come back the next day, he lies, saying the mangos grew legs and run away by themselves.

The Water of Words: A Cultural Ecology of an Eastern Indonesian Island

1983 • 30 min • Australia

This film examines the ecology and poetry of everyday life. Two Rotinese narrate this film, each offering his perception of the importance of the Lontar (Borassus) palm: a clan leader describes the many practical uses of the palm; a poet tells of its origin and mythic significance. The film complements Fox’s book, The Harvest of the Palm, as well as his essays on ritual language.

Features of the Kinetics of Biological Processes

1983 • 18 min

Short educational film by Vladimir Kobrin.

Make 'Em or Brake 'Em

1983 • 1 min

16mm experimental short film.

Cloud Nine

1983 • 3 min

16mm experimental short film.

Company Town

1983 • 25 min

The former coal town of Widen, West Virginia. Once a model of paternalistic domination, Widen had been sold to the Pittston Corporation in 1963. Ricky Leacock said of the film, "I find Company Town to be a beautiful film that I can enjoy over and over. It manages to avoid the obvious cliches but causes one to wonder 'why do they stay?' and at the same time to understand that this place, these activities, these people, with all their limitations, are unique and wonderful."

Hang On a Minute

1983 • 22 min

Hang On a Minute addressed issues topical to the political landscape of the period – many of which are still urgent today, from Greenham Common to domestic violence – with formal ingenuity, wit and contained but steel-edged anger at injustice. Here language unrolls across the screen in the form of statistics, newsprint, legal document, poetry, prose and hand-written words; it is spoken, sung and recited.

Miserere Nobis

1983 • 20 min • Brazil

An experimental film from Paraíba that recreates the Last Supper.

Ground level in New York & D.C

1983 • 5 min

Experimental short by Keiji Aiuchi.

Celebration: I Am All of These

1983 • 9 min

CELEBRATION re-enacts the symbolic union between male and female forces within one individual. Unique special effects recreate the inner experience of transformation through original music, images, and dance. The resulting union gives birth to a vibrant, integrated sense of Self.

Time

1983 • 11 min • Soviet Union

Filmic study of time by Estonian director Mark Soosaar.