All Films

The Commission

1983 • 45 min • United States of America

This work is Woody's first entry into the narrative sphere, whereby the "story" is continually undermined with the aid of various anti-narrative strategies: In each of the eleven segments of this "electronic opera", different effects are used. Fascinated with the remarkable personality of infamous violinist Niccola Paganini and his complicated relationship to Hector Berlioz (played by artists Ernie Gusella and Robert Ashley, respectively), the author meditates over the intricacies of artistic geniality as connected not only with fame but also with the necessity of painful survival under the pressures of the art market.

Strasek, der Vampir

1983 • 55 min • Switzerland

Serbia, in the year 1910: Milena Strasek has lived with her 12-year-old son Stefan in a small village since the father abandoned the family shortly after Stefan was born. Many years of uncertainty concerning the man’s whereabouts have taken their toll: Milena Strasek falls seriously ill and dies, leaving her son alone in the empty house. The father appears the following night. He has come to take his son, but Stefan refuses to go with him. It is a fateful encounter, changing Stefan for the rest of his life.

Shout for Joy

1983 • 58 min

Rick Irons moves to Hawaii to live in paradise; surf the gigantic waves. At a party, Rick meets Alma who quickly becomes a love interest. While dating Alma, he begins to train for the United States surfing title. As Rick's life is racing to the top on the outside, he personally feels like the bottom is falling out on the inside.

Nail From Home

1983 • 29 min • Soviet Union

There lived a poor peasant with his wife. They had three sons: Mats, Peter and Svend. One day there was a drought, and the family had a hard time. And the sons went to work. Mats took his father's old jacket for himself. Peter - a saucepan to sell. And his younger brother Svend got an old rusty nail...

Our Land, Our Truth

1983 • 54 min • Canada

Made in collaboration with the Inuit Tungavingat Nunamini, this film focuses on those dissident members of the Inuit community who rejected the agreement signed on November 11, 1975, between the Northern Quebec Inuit Association, the Québec and federal governments, the James Bay Energy Corporation, the James Bay Development Corporation, Hydro-Québec and the Grand Council of the Crees, which took away Native rights to a territory of almost one million square kilometres. By their words and actions, the dissident Inuit of Povungnituk, Ivujivik and Sugluk express their strong desire to retain their land and their traditions. The filmmakers go into their homes, on the ice and the sea to record first-hand the lives of these northern people.

An Unusual Ride

1983 • 38 min • Soviet Union

The bus driver notices that the bus has regular passengers, but they don't know each other, they just argue and bicker. The driver deviates from the route, takes the bus into the forest, starts driving, and hides and starts watching from a distance.

Rites of Passage

1983 • 10 min • South Africa

A disillusioned modern man is haunted by memories of a previous life as a primitive caveman who lived in a hostile past world. The caveman walks across a harsh landscape, hunts animals for food, battles savage apes, and scales a deep cliff.

Peace O' Mind

1983 • 9 min

In “Peace O’ Mind” (1983, 8.5 minutes) the characters try to stay safe at home, but become isolated and entrapped there. Images of a domestic space are connected with images of poverty “in the backyard” of this space to suggest knowing of and hiding from this deprivation has entrapped the characters, physically and mentally, in their private, isolated, and disturbed spaces.

Tzubra Tzuma

1983 • 13 min • Brazil

A bird-shaped nave flies over various places with different beliefs and religions.

Old Nip and Master Needle

1983 • 15 min • Czechoslovakia, East Germany

A long time ago, there lived a tailor in Selva who was highly regarded for his good work. However, he was a crook who often cheated his customers. This is what happened to Hans, a carver, whose wedding suit turned out to be too small because the mayor's son was dressed in the fabric he had taken. Then Rübezahl intervened. The magic power of the mountain spirit caused all the cloth, which the tailor had wrongly acquired, to dissolve into nothing. Some people, including dignitaries, stood there in their underwear and the tailor felt the wrath of those who had been cheated. Hans received a new suit and shoes from Rübezahl and was now able to marry his Marie.

Feuilles d'été

1983 • 16 min • France

Teo Hernández films some friends in a park under the Parisian summer heat.

Pukaskwa National Park

1983 • 18 min

This short documentary by Bill Mason explores Pukaskwa National Park on Lake Superior, providing a background of the park's geological past and plant life. The film also shows scenes of hiking, canoeing and camping. The result is to put us back in touch with the natural elements that our ancestors both fought and enjoyed.

An American Family Revisited: The Louds 10 Years Later

1983 • 56 min • United States of America

A ten-year update on the Loud family and their reflections on becoming the first reality TV stars. Their experience of becoming media celebrities and the parents' subsequent divorce changed them in many ways. Each family member explains how they were affected by these dramatic life events.

Orlando - Hermaphrodite II

1983 • 40 min

An echoing, nocturnal, elliptical text. Female voices speak it. Fragments of music punctuate and suspend the images. The text says the transformation of the hero into a woman during his sleep. Games of inverted masks, transvestites, transparency of the frontiers of the sexes. Self-representations. Black and white visions clouded with magenta and cyan. Fields, positives, negatives, degrees of grey, light textures. A device made up of screens and projectors, still images and moving images, the projection surface multiplied. Water, bare trees, light trails, a gun, tigers.

Ciné-Portrait of Raymond Depardon

1983 • 10 min • Canada, France

A fortuitous meeting, late one afternoon, in the garden of the Tuileries, of one or two cameras, a tape recorder, and three cameramen/directors, Raymond Depardon, Jean Rouch, and Philippe Costantini.

Good Trick

1983 • 4 min • United States of America, Canada

The short's plot concerns the magician Mr Mysterio performing magic tricks at the Rivoli Theatre; his rabbit assistant, unimpressed with his act, begins doing magic tricks of his own with his magician's wand. Mysterio, now irritated at the rabbit's antics, begins chasing him down to get his wand back.

Sportmen's Humour

1983 • 6 min • Romania

A series of short sketches with Gopo's Little Man about sports.

The Search Continues

1983 • 21 min • Soviet Union

Follows the search and use of solar, wind and geothermal energy in the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Spaces: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph

1983 • 29 min • United States of America

Spaces: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph is a 1983 American short documentary film narrated by Cliff Robertson and produced by Bob Eisenhardt about the work of architect Paul Rudolph. It recreates a genuine sense of the personal presense of the late modern architect and the ambience of his studio. Mr. Rudolph was widely recognized within the architectural profession as spontaneously brilliant, and the unchallanged master of space and the manipulation of form. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Restlessness

1983 • 10 min • Soviet Union

The little mole enters the forest for the first time. Everything here is new and interesting for him. Trying to help the inhabitants of the forest, he does everything at the wrong time - drains a puddle so that a frog does not drown in it, transfers chicks from the nest so that they are not flooded by rain.

Beats of the Heart: Shotguns and Accordions: Music of the Marijuana Regions of Colombia

1983 • 50 min

This documentary journeys to the violent marijuana-producing regions of northern Colombia to examine the drug trade's influence on the community and its culture, including a unique style of indigenous music known as vallenato.

A Donkey Got a Bit Sulky

1983 • 2 min • Japan

In this animated musical short, a traveling donkey becomes upset at minor inconveniences, each of which his chipper young master is only too happy to accommodate.

Elemental 7

1983 • 58 min • Canada, United Kingdom

A visual art music/video album created by the members of the industrial/experimental group Throbbing Gristle, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti.

Trick or Drink

1983 • 20 min • United States of America

Adapted from a performance by the same name, fuses autobiographical material with information about how an alcoholic family perpetuates addictive behavior. Elements of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, such as the “Hi, my name is...” introduction are used along with photo-montage and a disjointed narrative. In addition to being shown at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum, Trick Or Drink has been used regularly by hospitals and alcohol treatment centers throughout the United States.