All Films

The Telephone

1981 • 4 min • United Kingdom

A young woman enacts an imaginative revenge on her boyfriend for playing away. Director Chris Petit made this three-minute short to test a new super 16mm Kodak film stock to be used on Peter Greenaway’s upcoming feature The Draughtsman’s Contract.

The Strange Case of Mr. Donnybrook's Boredom

1981 • 5 min • United States of America

Animated version of the Ogden Nash poem.

Parole de boulanger

1981 • 53 min • Canada

Cuticle Torture

1981 • 2 min

1981, 16mm, b&w, silent, 2 mins. Shots of Halpern cutting her fingernails, biting them, and dunking them in water.

A Princesinha das Rosas

1981 • 55 min

“A Princesinha das Rosas” is about Naíde, a girl born from the union between a fisherman and a mermaid, adopted by monarchs of a country with no heirs, but to whom the call of the waters will inevitably attract.

Locomotion

1981 • 7 min • United States of America

Overdoses, breakdown, and rage at system in a stylized mental hospital isolation room.

The Rain

1981 • 16 min • Japan

Melvin Goes Disco

1981 • 7 min

"Melvin Goes Disco" is writer/director Mark Esposito's homage to MGM's popular "Pete Smith Specialties" of the 1940's. Famed character actor Irving Metzman is Melvin, a full time accountant and part time deodorant salesman, in this spoof of the "disco" craze.

Monsieur Loulou

1981 • 26 min • France

The Age of Mammals

1981 • 10 min • United States of America

The film focuses on mammals of the Cenozoic Era. It shows many developments and adaptations achieved as milestones in Cenozoic history, such as the evolution of the horse. The film also covers significant concepts such as geological time, differentiation of species, adaptation, and extinction.

Winter's Wish

1981 • 7 min • Yugoslavia

An animated short film.

Bai he hua

1981 • 52 min • China

In 1946’s autumn, troupe medic Lu Lan escorts a shy young soldier to a village en route to the frontline assault on a county town. Initially cold, Lu Lan warms to his honest simplicity and shared hometown roots, as they cajole a beautifully embroidered quilt from his new bride to kit out their field aid station.

Yolanda

1981 • 19 min • United States of America

A film about a housewife obsessed with the idea of a large hairy creature, 12 feet tall, with big feet. Chronicles her eventual breakdown in no uncertain terms.

Contradições Urbanas

1981 • 40 min • Brazil

Who owns the public space? Urban Contradictions documents the State's poorly planned interventions in public spaces, segregating social strata, the neglect of the problems resulting from this social exclusion. Condomínio Selva de Pedra, Cruzada São Sebastião, both in the upscale neighborhood of Leblon, Rio de Janeiro. And the traditional neighborhood of Catumbi: Solutions, Organizations and Contradictions. Urban Contradictions is the report of an investigation on citizen identity and the use of urban spaces.

Izumi Aki and Megumi Aoi: Latest (Live) Turkish Information Ascension 1

1981 • 30 min • Japan

BDSM erotic-drama distributed by Nikkatsu for home video.

Salme

1981 • 26 min • Soviet Union

Estonian Drama Theater actor Salme Reek about herself and others.

The Hungry Grass

1981 • 5 min • United Kingdom

What will become of the American who crossed the seas to visit his ancestors’ graves? After reading his own name on a tombstone will things take a turn for the worse? Never underestimate the perils of sketching in a graveyard, perhaps that uneasy presence is not just an overactive imagination. Take care next time you walk through the long grass after watching this film it will never feel the same again.

Against Wind and Tide: A Cuban Odyssey

1981 • 60 min • United States of America

Follows the Mariel boatlift, a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980.

Nailed

1981 • 55 min • United Kingdom

In a holding centre in Northern Ireland a member of the RUC attempts to interrogate a suspect.

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

1981 • 50 min • United Kingdom

Richard Feynman was a scientific genius with - in his words - a "limited intelligence". This dichotomy is just one of the characteristics that made him a fascinating subject. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out exposes us to many more of these intriguing attributes by featuring an extensive conversation with the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. During the course of the interview, which was conducted in 1981, Feynman uses the undeniable power of the personal to convey otherwise challenging scientific theories. His colorful and lucid stories make abstract concepts tangible, and his warm presence is sure to inspire interest and awe from even the most reluctant student of science. His insights are profound, but his delivery is anything but dry and ostentatious.

The Brunette and Me

1981 • 51 min • France

A rich business man falls for a young girl and vows to fulfill her dream of becoming a punk rock star.

Son of the Eagle Cave

1981 • 24 min • Soviet Union

Based on Elar Kuus' story Välek Vibulane, this adventurous puppet film with a popular-science twist takes us to the Stone Age, offering insight into the daily life and human relationships of that era.

The Design

1981 • 6 min • Czechoslovakia

Animators and urban planners both create worlds, but Czech stop motion specialist Jiří Barta's ingenious paper cut-out short punctures the stifling architecture of communist housing. Skilled hands blueprint an apartment tower standardized specifications. Envelopes contain the elements of each home. Family dwellings, bachelor pads, scholarly studies and artist studios: different social configurations are permitted but restrained to the same uniform box. A dystopian revision of the REAR WINDOW scenario, THE DESIGN's darkly comic social critique still has teeth.

Fannie's Film

1981 • 15 min • United States of America

A 65-year-old cleaning woman for a professional dancers' exercise studio performs her job while telling us in voiceover about her life, hopes, goals, and feelings. A challenge to mainstream media's ongoing stereotypes of women of color who earn their living as domestic workers, this seemingly simple documentary achieves a quiet revolution: the expressive portrait of a fully realized individual.