All Films

The Priest Had A Dog

1983 • 6 min • Soviet Union

There was a priest in the village and he had a dog. The priest owned a big shed in which he kept a huge amount of meat. The dog guarded this shed from other dogs, but one day the dog could not resist and ate one of the sausages. The priest noticed this and killed his pet. Then he buried the dog near the fence and made an inscription: "Priest had a dog, he loved it, it ate a piece of meat, he killed it, buried it in the ground, and wrote this inscription so that...", but, fixated, begins to write it on the ground. Thus he, continuing to write, visits various parts and countries, and eventually returns to his home and finishes writing near the place where he buried his dog. But upon entering the barn, the priest sees various animals greedily eating everything in it.

Marie Antoinette

1983 • 10 min • Canada

Marie Antoinette takes us on a walking tour of the Petit Trianon, a charming little farm on the grounds of Versailles. Her commentary includes reflections on life, God, and the peasants, providing valuable insights into the royal character of this important character.

Revealed Silence

1983 • 10 min • Canada

The bitterness of an uncommunicative couple manifests itself over the course of an evening's television viewing. Unable to address the issues which threaten their relationship directly, the couple seethe and stew against a telling aural backdrop of television commercials and entertainment, directing cynical asides about each other's faults to the viewers. In the role of confidante, the viewer is given the uneasy task of bearing witness to their relationship's inevitable destruction.

Camera on Chicago

1983 • 34 min

A love letter to the city from Chicago native and filmmaker Warren E. Thompson. It is a continuing effort to record some of the events, characteristics, problems and glories of Chicago. Footage includes architecture, sculpture, housing, Lake Michigan, Chinatown, parades, Maxwell Street Market, and the people of Chicago. Thompson captures life and culture from the most affluent to the poverty stricken.

The Wall

1983 • 7 min • Canada

The tape follows the participants in a carnival show performing their act called The Wall of Death. The riders operate motorcycles and go-carts on a vertical wall. The tape follows them through one complete show. It starts with the least knowledgeable and least skilled showmen and works up to the best. The star of the show is a woman. She out-performs everyone and stands alone in what is generally thought of as a man's game. Changing roles in a changing society.

Chase

1983 • 23 min • Yugoslavia

A dispute about water causes dramatic consequences, and the whole story grows into a tragic metaphor for the fate of a man doomed to fight for a bare existence.

4000 Great American Abstracts

1983 • 3 min

Video by Dov "Doobie" Eylath.

Tracking the Pale Fox: Studies on the Dogon

1983 • 48 min

This film tells with verve and a touch of self-irony the history of research on the Dogon since the famous 1931 expedition of Marcel Griaule. The film establishes the original expedition in the context of French anthropology at the time. Jean Rouch, celebrated filmmaker and less known as an anthropologist on the Dogon, narrates part of the story, and interviews Dogon elders and veteran expedition-member, Germaine Dieterlen.

Lituanikos Sparnai

1983 • 19 min • Soviet Union

A documentary film about two Lithuanian pilots, who flew over the Atlantic in 1933 - Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas.

Inverno di malato

1983 • 60 min • Italy

Girolamo, a teenager from a good family suffering from bone tuberculosis, is hospitalized in a sanatorium where he is forced to suffer the harassment of his rough roommate, sadistically backed by an Austrian nurse. To alleviate his suffering a little will be the tender friendship with Polly, a sweet English girl.

Mistaken Identity

1983 • 25 min • United States of America

Facing his senior year in high school, Brian realized he had demonstrated near-zero effectiveness in sharing his faith. He almost gave up completely after letting himself be talked into a night of "cruising" in town. Then newcomer, Shawn, appeared on campus, and the two struck up a friendship.

9600 Bauds

1983 • 5 min • France

St Andrews: The Friendly University

1983 • 31 min

This beautiful university city is situated on the North East coast of Fife, between Edinburgh and Dundee.

Up to Mount Everest

1983 • 9 min

Short film.

Only Eyes

1983 • 3 min • United States of America

Experimental computer animation.

Will There Be Salmon Tomorrow?

1983 • 25 min • Iceland

The film shows in detail how Icelandic rivers are cultivated, with particular emphasis on maintaining fish stock. There are scenes from a salmon hatchery, the release of the young salmon, the catch of adult fish for egg collection and the salmon ladders. The second half of the film shows fishing in two of Iceland's finest rivers. There are many underwater shots which include the salmon taking the bait and its fight for survival.

Soldier's Widows

1983 • 19 min • Soviet Union

In 1983, the documentary film "Soldier's Widows" was released on the screens of Ukraine, created by director Volodymyr Artemenko, whose father died at the front, and nine aunts remained widows. Based on real events, the picture about one small village of Melnyky in Cherkasy region, where a large number of widows lived, made a strong impression, because there were many such villages in Ukraine. At the Berlin Film Festival, one of the foreign film critics called Ukrainian widows the Madonnas of the 20th century.

The Negotiating Table

1983 • 20 min • Lebanon, United Kingdom

The room is dark, lit only by a light bulb over a table on which the artist lies motionless. Empty chairs surround the table. Her body is bloodstained, covered with entrails, wrapped in plastic, and her head is firmly covered in surgical gauze. On the soundtrack news reports about civil war and speeches of Western leaders talking about peace can be heard.

Lichen

1983 • 3 min

Lichen was hand painted onto 16mm clear leader using photographic opaque, coloured inks and scratching tools. The drawing was extended onto the area normally reserved for an optical soundtrack, so that graphic marks would be translated into sounds by the optical head on the projector. Visually, the piece gradually increases in rhythmic and textural complexity and was inspired by the colours and shapes of rock lichen observed in Norwegian mountains.

Kusi Kusi

1983 • 7 min • Peru

Gaston Aramayo and Victoria de Aramayo show their art and craft as puppeteers with the Kusi Kusi group.

Freefall

1983 • 7 min

Freefall is a dance piece which explores the theme of twinned energies acting in harmony. Two continuous flute tones gradually move apart, defining a range of tensions as they do so. At the same time, two dancers move through a sequence of static tableau which act as a graphic notation for the film score. In the second sequence, the dancers improvise accelerating gestures, moving ever closer to an abstracted choreography of kinetic shadows and light. The third sequence ties the physical movements of each dancer to a minimal piano score, in which each note or phrase corresponds to a fragmentary gesture or action.

Stirbird

1983 • 15 min • United States of America

John Davis' student Film Project from 1983 (SMU) starring the late great Tom Alexander and some stop-motion aliens and robots.

Physik im Strassenverkehr

1983 • 8 min • Germany

Short film about driving and the physics behind it

Tricolor (o Un espacio ganado)

1983 • 11 min • Chile

According to Gloria Camiruaga, the Tricolor video was created from the realization of the scarce presence of female artists in the collective work, so that the absence of women constituted the subject of the video.