All Films

Magazine Mouth

1983 • 7 min • United States of America

Among Robertson’s most accomplished animated works is this collage film inspired by her struggles with binge eating and obsessive magazine collecting. Ronald Reagan is referenced in the playfully militarized jelly beans that were his favorite candy.

Nicaragua: A Nation's Right to Survive

1983 • 53 min

How can a country survive when its jungle borders hold 4000 hostile troops?

Dead People

1983 • 18 min • United States of America

Filmed in 1974 and edited and released in 1983 (and then rereleased by its director in 2005), DEAD PEOPLE purports to document the final years of Frank Butler, a local fixture in the depressed burg of Ellicot City with a particular fondness for drink and tales of the dead. Over hazy 16mm footage two decades later, Deutsch adopted a painfully unsentimental view of his early approach, colored as it was by notions of ethnographic film and an undercurrent of fetishism for a man he considered somehow more "alive" than himself. While it chafes against notions of authenticity in documentary and incisively hints at the complicity of the subject in inventing his own history, DEAD PEOPLE simultaneously oozes nostalgia, transcending its own judgment as a gauzy memorial for the man Deutsch once called a friend.

Caño Mánamo

1983 • 45 min • Venezuela

A documentary about the building of a damn near Caño Mánamo and the effects it has on the environment.

7x7 Facts About the Life of the Poet Tohm di Roes in Present Climes

1983 • 17 min • East Germany, Germany

Snapshots from the life of the eccentric Tohm di Roes, who angrily shouts against the philistines with the wild gesture of punk.

The Rubber Stamp Film

1983 • 7 min

The Rubber Stamp Film was hand stamped on over 5000 index cards. Color was added with water color and felt pen.

Little Squirrel the Hairdresser

1983 • 10 min • China

A squirrel becomes a hairdresser.

The Old Lady's Camping Trip

1983 • 9 min • Canada

In a lively animated lesson about the do's and don'ts of fire and outdoor safety, the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe takes all her children and Cousin Jim off on a summer camping trip. And to make sure that needless accidents won't spoil their fun, she plays it smart by observing the rules. Cousin Jim, however, unaware of rules, has several close calls with disaster until the Old Lady steps in and teaches him the ABCs of safe, enjoyable outdoor living. When it comes to fire prevention, the Old Lady knows just what to do. Do you?

Carnival

1983 • 12 min • United States of America

Varning! Harning!

1983 • 39 min • Sweden

The controversial Swedish author Anderz Harning (1938-1992) share component of his writing, his sources of inspiration and his never ending anger. "Didn't I say so/Vad var det jag sa" are the challenging words on his memorial stone. Anderz Harning was a major critic of the modern bureaucratic society, nepotism and abuse of power. In his autobiographical novels "Stålbadet" and "Asfåglarna", he reflects on his upbringing in a Nazi home in Sweden.

Macbeth a Tragedy

1983 • 4 min • United Kingdom

Clad in resplendent Scottish regalia, Macbeth sits next to a woman reading the Oxford Companion to English Literature's dry-as-dust synopsis before the "tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy finally introduces Shakespeare's original poetry. To emphasize this already Brechtian approach, the single-take treatment frequently (and deliberately) reveals both lights and a crouching sound recordist.

Electric Boogie

1983 • 30 min • Denmark, United States of America

Short film on the dance phenomenon of "Electric Boogie", and about 4 boys, 2 black and 2 Puerto Rican, who dance it together in the streets of the South Bronx.

Natural Selection

1983 • 35 min • United States of America

From student films, with additional material shot in New Mexico.

The Baker and the Chimney Sweep

1983 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Once upon a time a baker and a chimney sweep decide to change their jobs and it causes a lot of trouble.

The City

1983 • 60 min • Germany

Merlyn Solakhan’s feature documentary The City offers an unusual narrative on Istanbul. Solakhan roams every inch of the city, witnessing separate instances of standing stones, balloons, kites, cars, roads, and neighborhoods with her camera, whilst looking into the city’s nature, yesterday and today. The city from her perspective is intertwined with history. An essay film as well as a documentary, The City is a daring gaze on Istanbul. The movie goes beyond observation to working through and reflecting on the city, with no hesitation in bestowing a new image on it and seeing it in a new light.

Winter Journey in the Hartz Mountains

1983 • 8 min

"A single shot, taken from Douglas Sirk's film ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955), in which we see the camera pull out from Jane Wyman's tearful face as she looks out of her window at snow falling, is slowed down, repeated and blown up in different permutations on three screens to portray a sense of kitsch or overblown, yet authentic, loss. Edited to the length of Brahm's 'Winter Journey in the Hartz Mountains'." - C.S.

Ghost Town at Dawn

1983 • 47 min • Japan

UltraFlash! The Dancemusic Video

1983 • 40 min

An exciting dance/video program inspired by the hit film "Flashdance" is performed to some of the day's hottest dance music.

These Are the Rules

1983 • 5 min

In These Are the Rules, Doug Hall enacted an authoritarian pose to deflate the power vested in political symbols.

Martina

1983 • 30 min

Nine years ago Tom Alandh included five year old Martina Schaub as part of a program about how society dealt with people with various handicaps. Martina, who has Down's Syndrome, is now fifteen years old.

Give Us a Smile

1983 • 13 min • United Kingdom

Shows the effect of the harassment women live with every day, ranging from ‘street humour’ and media stereotyping to actual physical violence. The film was made by women who lived in Leeds during the 1970s and early 80s, when a series of murderous sexual attacks by the so-called Yorkshire Ripper led to a virtual ‘curfew on women’. In response, the many women’s groups already active in the area decided it was time to put their own point of view.

Dulce, la cantante

1983 • 45 min

Mexican feature film

Ohio at Giverny

1983 • 19 min

Praised by The New York Times as a "stunning paean to Monet," Ohio at Giverny is the title of Lucier's highly acclaimed two-channel, seven-monitor installation. Writes Lucier, "This work is an investigation of light in landscape and its function as an agent of memory, both personal and mythic. It deals with the convergence of disparate entities — geographies, epochs, sensibilities: with transitions from one state of being to another, and how within the frame of imagination and collective memory these 'dissolves' take place. "Nostalgic images from Lucier's native Ohio — the pastoral countryside and a Victorian home — are fluidly juxtaposed and correlated with the lush beauty of Impressionist painter Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny, France.

Une journee de vacances

1983 • 22 min

Claire Simon films her ill father during his day: from breakfasting with his nurse to his evening phone calls, when it's time for his daughter to return to the city. An intimate, brave film conceived as a salutation.