All Films

Tommy Orr, Blacksmith

1981 • 6 min

This loving crafted short documentary follows the work of Tommy Orr of Killinchy, Co. Down, who has carried on the family tradition as a blacksmith for over 40 years. From the ringing of the anvil to the smoke billowing from the roadside forge, this film focuses on his work as a farrier and shows not only the unique skill that’s required but his genuine love and pride in his work.

Little Bear

1981 • 17 min • Soviet Union

A documentary film about a bear's adventures.

Street Scene

1981 • 2 min

A comedic short using existing footage of a building demolition. A voice over is used to make it seem as if a film director is shouting instructions to actors and technicians, finally giving the order to destroy the building.

Anniversary

1981 • 18 min • Poland

The film is the author's message of memories and reflections evoked by the celebrations of the anniversary of Warsaw's uprising. The picture of the cemetery with crowds of people who came to visit the graves of the insurgents presented in a way that aroused emotions because of the power of the memories it refers to, but also because of the fact that the anniversary was private, unorganized - it was an expression of spontaneous, grassroots activity. The Warsaw Uprising lived in the memories and emotions of those who remembered it, who lost loved ones, friends, acquaintances, but also lost their city, because Warsaw is also the subject of this personal anniversary.

XY - Watch Out for the Trap

1981 • 12 min

Blumenschein stages surreal, minimalist tableaux featuring herself and collaborators amid stark black‑and‑white visuals. Part of Infermental 1, a film that gathers short films of many German directors and lasts 4 hours.

Anabasi

1981 • 25 min

In Anabasi there is a fantastic projection of something strictly private, autobiographical: the author's relationship with his wife, which is poetically transfigured and goes through a series of metamorphoses: woman-fruit, woman-earth, praying mantis. (…) The recurring places inhabited or traveled by the Woman are the House and the Garden, a physical and mental place that becomes, from time to time, a primeval Eden and a Labyrinth full of dark presences. The Woman walks through the Garden-Labyrinth in search of a lost symbiosis with nature. Continuously enters and exits the Oedipal Womb-House. The vineyard and the cosmos in formation and perennial metamorphosis spring from his own body. At times they seem to incorporate it within themselves, in a panic relationship of total identification. The Garden, the Vineyard, the Sun allude to solar and telluric symbolism, to the great seasonal myths of fertility.

Echo and the Bunnymen • Shine So Hard

1981 • 33 min

Shine So Hard is an abstract and fragmentary (*) short film made in 1981, As the post-punk band Echo and the Bunnymen had concluded the tour promoting their debut album “Crocodiles”, Bill Drummond, their manager, hatched a plan for a one-off gig on 17th January 1981. It was to be a special event, a mystery show. The venue, at first a secret location was, in fact, the Victorian concert hall at the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, a quiet spa town in Derbyshire’s picturesque Peak District. “Shine So Hard” documents the event, what Ian Pye of the Melody Maker described as ‘A Coppola inspired vision of Armageddon’. The film was released on the 13th of August 1981. It was premiered at London’s ICA and screened for two weeks there and elsewhere in the UK. (*) The book drummer Pete de Freitas is reading, is Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”.

Line Up

1981 • 6 min • United States of America

Chase's frenzied line manipulation creates dazzling patterns. With music by Gwen Watson.

Wieviel Fernsehen für Ihr Kind?

1981 • 15 min • Germany

Short educational film about television

Once años decisivos

1981 • 32 min • Peru

Narrates the workers' struggles at the beginning of the 20th century, the lengthy process of achieving the 8-hour workday, finally conquered on January 19, 1919, in which anarchist ideas played a fundamental role. Subsequently, during "el Oncenio de Leguía" (1919-1930), ideological and political currents of aprismo and socialism emerged, led by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and José Carlos Mariátegui, which left a mark on the country's life.

Three Masters

1981 • 11 min • Soviet Union

Based on oriental fairy tales.Three masters -a woodcarver, a tailor and a jeweler -performed a miracle: they created a girl from an ordinary log, who came to life from their art.

Artojų artojas

1981 • 15 min • Soviet Union

A short film by Aleksandras Digimas and Algirdas Tumas.

The Compa Clodomiro and Capitalism

1981 • 4 min

An episode of the series featuring the "compa" Clodomiro, who talks about capitalism in a didactic way.

Keep This Eternal World Safe

1981 • 58 min • Soviet Union

Longing for Something Completely Different

1981 • 13 min • Germany

A young woman strolls through the night, then boards a train. Seeking closeness to others she chooses an unusual method by searching through people’s luggage.

The Grand Match

1981 • 15 min • United Kingdom

The 38th GRAND MATCH of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club held on the frozen Lake of Menteith in 1979.

Monimbo Is Nicaragua

1981 • 31 min

A documentary about Monimbo, a town in Nicaragua.

Slaughter Ahoy

1981 • 16 min • Yugoslavia

A super 8mm film by Davorin Marc.

The Shepherds of Berneray

1981 • 55 min • United Kingdom, United States of America

In 1980, Jack Shae and Allen Moore, two ethnographic filmmakers from Harvard University, moved their families to the island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Over the course of 18 months they documented the everyday lives and struggles of the crofters they lived among, whom were even then a vanishing breed. The film is in English and Gaelic. This carefully observed documentary by filmmakers Jack Shae and Allen Moore is a poetic ethnographic film in the style of their mentor, Robert Gardner (“Dead Birds”). It follows the rhythm of life on a wind-swept island in the Outer Hebrides through the four seasons and in the filmmakers’ observation of the day-to-day struggles of a vanishing society we see the deep-time legacy of their kind. The film is in English and Gaelic.

$8.50 a Barrel (Huit Piastres et Demie!)

1981 • 58 min

During the Great Depression, shrimp prices spiraled down. Fishermen began to organize, families chose sides, and violence erupted. The Cajun cast recreates the tumultuous Shrimp War of 1938 in this thrilling film. Though made on a tiny scale, its verisimilitude recalls Victor Fleming’s dramatic 1937 film, Captains Courageous. This film is in Cajun French, though TMDB will not recognize it as a language.

The Invincible

1981 • 10 min • Soviet Union

A story about a stubborn and fearless tree, which despite harsh conditions, moves forward and reaches the place it wants, becoming the root of a new forest.

ABBA: Words and Music

1981 • 26 min • Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America

A TV special documentary made by CBS for the release of Super Trouper.

Little Octobrist Ovechkin's Love

1981 • 48 min • Soviet Union

First-grader Valera Ovechkin, who has a strict mother and a strict teacher, is in love with a ninth-grader Olenka. Mom once, when Valerik was in kindergarten, having learned that he had kissed a girl, threatened the amorous Ovechkin with a colony if he kissed anyone else. Valera believes in the possibility of punishment, but, having fallen in love with Olenka, she breaks the taboos.

The Black Bird

1981 • 9 min • Bulgaria