All Films

Een fotograaf filmt Amsterdam

1983 • 57 min • Netherlands

An entire summer, van der Elsken walked through Amsterdam an filmed in the same manner as he used to shoot his photos, strolling through the city centre and making contact with people that fascinated him. It became hís portrait of the city and its inhabitants.

I Be Done Been Was Is

1983 • 58 min • United States of America

A documentary about four African-American comediennes set in 1984. Restored in 2021 by the Academy Film Archive. 

Late Edition

1983 • 5 min • United Kingdom

An exclusive look behind the scenes of a magazine production.

Alf Sjöberg - mästaren

1983 • 60 min

Alf Sjöberg (1903-1980) was Swedens greatest theater director of the 20th century and as a film director the first of international importance since the silent film era. He won the Grand Prix du Festival at the Cannes Film Festival twice.

John Sex: The True Story

1983 • 4 min • United States of America

A profile of the East Village personality John Sex.

Trumpets and Typewriters: A History of War Reporting

1983 • 53 min

The history of war correspondents.

Gay Black Group

1983 • 25 min • United Kingdom

The formation of the Gay Black Group was a landmark in gay black history. Meeting at Gay's the Word, a bookshop in Bloomsbury, London, it provided a sounding board and support for gay and black communities of the 1980s.

The Sound of Fast Relief

1983 • 28 min • Germany

After a flirtatious encounter, a young man finds it difficult to organise the hoped-for reunion with the object of his desire. Calls remain unanswered and he is left with only a drink, his bed and images of soldiers in combat to fill his inner void. Meanwhile, the boundaries between imagination, reality and dream dissolve, and a cinematic chess game ensues in which queer identity is pitted against patriarchal violence.

Reba: He Gave Me Music

1983 • 34 min • United States of America

A short documentary about gospel recording artists Reba Rambo and her husband Dony McGuire, featuring clips of performances of various songs and interviews with the couple.

Los totos

1983 • 21 min • Argentina

Produced in almost marginal conditions, Los Totos is a portrait of life in impoverished neighbourhoods

Ikuska 16: Donibaneko arrantzaleak

1983 • 10 min • Spain

Tour of the city of San Juan de Luz, located on the southwestern coast of France (North Basque Country), whose economic activity is mainly fishing.

Fun with Father

1983 • 2 min • United States of America

A kitten helps his father defeat a pack of marshmallows.

Holiday Film

1983 • 9 min • Austria

A woman on a meadow, strolling around, narcisstically involved, wandering. Now and again one can see her breasts through her half-opened shirt. The camera films with a powerful telephoto lens. This idyll is radically destroyed when the woman suddenly looks directly into the camera. There is an immediate cut (the voyeur has been discovered) and the whole sequence of events begins from the beginning again, but each time re-filmed from the last till finally, only a completely abstract, flickering picture remains.

Die optische Industriegesellschaft oder darf's ein viertel Pfund mehr sein?

1983 • 46 min • Germany

The film combines documentary scenes, TV clips, and passages from an interview with the then Postmaster General Christian Schwarz-Schilling in a fictional plot and mixes video and 16mm film. A film on videotext and the brave new media world, in which the – presumably first – female hacker redirects a few things into other channels. It is also a critique of the working conditions in the emerging information service industry.

The Naughty Slingshot

1983 • 9 min • Czechoslovakia

A stop-motion animated fairy tale about good and evil using wooden folk toys.

El Sitio del Anís

1983 • 20 min • Venezuela

Documentary about the struggles of the people of El Sitio del Anís, in the Venezuelan Andes.

Sundae in New York

1983 • 4 min • United States of America

A character closely resembling then-mayor Ed Koch sings a variation on the "Theme from 'New York, New York'" in an entirely clay-animated film depicting a variety of locations and celebrities associated with New York City. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

The Butterfly Springs

1983 • 25 min • China

In the middle of a secluded and peaceful deep mountain and old forest, a beautiful Bai girl holds a sweet spring for a drink, and sometimes plays with the birds in a friendly manner. At this moment, she saw a deer panicking, followed by a hideous falcon.

Copacabana Beach

1983 • 12 min • Brazil, United States of America

A humorous glimpse of what happens every morning on the wavy sidewalks of Copacabana Beach. Physical fitness, Brazilian style, with a dash of soccer and hints of Carmen Miranda.

Disney's Haunted Halloween

1983 • 8 min

A 1983 Disney educational animated short. It is a montage piece telling children about the history of Halloween, hosted by Goofy and the pumpkin from Disney's Halloween Treat. Intermixed throughout are numerous clips from many different Disney cartoons, plus footage of the Disney attraction The Haunted Mansion.

Latvian Folklore

1983 • 20 min • Soviet Union

Documentary about the ancient rites still practiced in rural Latvia.

Conflict

1983 • 7 min • Soviet Union

The heroes of the film: ordinary matches. A quarrel that breaks out over nothing turns into a real battle in which both warring sides are burned.

Obsession

1983 • 8 min • Yugoslavia

A free association of Poe’s theme. In Poe’s work, all evil comes from and inside of a man. Marks went the opposite way. Here, the cat is the personification of evil, which provokes human aggression with its aggression. This – actually fictitious – animal causes in man hatred and the desire to kill.

At Colonus

1983 • 45 min • Greece

The history of the ancient neighborhood of Colonus in Athens, by a novelist and script writer who lives in modern-day Kolonos.