All Films

America Screams

1981 • 30 min

Vincent Price hosts this history of amusement parks and roller coasters across the United States.

The Shape of Things

1981 • 8 min

A singular cinematic figure, San Francisco’s Mike Henderson became one of the first independent African-American artists to make inroads into experimental filmmaking in the 1960s. Henderson’s work throughout the 1970s and 1980s, from which this program of 16mm films is culled, thrums with a sociopolitical, humorous sensibility that lends his small-scale, often musically kissed portraits (which he later dubbed “blues cinema”) a personal, artisanal quality. - Film Society of Lincoln Center. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

Night on the Town

1981 • 11 min • United States of America

In a run-down hotel for transients, a man sleeps fitfully in bed. He rises to use the toilet down the hall, and while he's there, a burglar enters his room. He returns to find the burglar leaving through the window; the burglar falls to the street beneath. The man leaves the hotel and walks past the fallen burglar to a seedy bar, where he drinks too much and has a hedonistic vision of sex and death. He awakens on the bar-room floor and drags himself out. Is this the end for him?

Lala...

1981 • 47 min • Japan

Hashiguchi's own high school years from 1979 to 1981 on 8mm.

Manchmal möchte man fliegen

1981 • 60 min • East Germany

Documentary about a youth work brigade working on the construction of a tower block in Berlin-Marzahn

A Road Tale

1981 • 10 min • Soviet Union

A modern fairy tale about funny little cars.

What Do They Want?

1981 • 40 min • Norway

A cabaret show with Odd Børretzen and Alf Cranner filmed in September 1979 at the ABC-Teateret in Oslo, Norway.

The Story of Mr. Nanguo

1981 • 18 min • China

Back in the waring States Period, the King of Qi enjoyed listening to the pipe played by 300 people. Knowing nothing about playing pipe, Mr. Nanguo somehow made his way to the band.

Souvenirs/Florence

1981 • 19 min • France

Téo Hernandez's series of Memories... transcribes perfectly the filmmaker's vertiginous ability to capture a city from a few well-chosen places; the juxtaposition of architecture and people creates a mosaic of sensations, exalted by the syncopation of the zooms and cascading shots, clues to the "manner", the "filmmaker's paw".

New York Portrait, Chapter II

1981 • 16 min

Chapter Two represents a continuation of daily observations from the environment of Manhattan compiled over a period from 1980-1981. This is the second part of an extended life's portrait of New York.

Review 35th Year No. 4

1981 • 9 min • United Kingdom

"It's still men who win coal": a look at the past, present and future of the coal industry.

Tree of Knowledge

1981 • 58 min • United States of America

It started with filming the tree. Something was released in that manner of filming seemingly farthest removed from the procedure of the early films. I first thought a simple ordering of this rich material might be enough, something related to BARN RUSHES [...] But the film only came into its form-life with the idea of linking this deep-rooted and far-outreaching tree material with that film on paranoia that had fascinated me for many years. –L. G.

Telly Savalas Looks at Portsmouth

1981 • 26 min • United Kingdom

Telly Savalas tours the coastal city of Portsmouth, with a look at the intriguing history and magnificent attractions.

Funny People

1981 • 30 min

Scene spent a week in a school in Bristol finding out about those people who make their classmates laugh. Why does every class have its clown? What do the comedians gain from being funny? Once you've got it, can you get rid of the role of the joker?

Little Bear, Baby and Others

1981 • 50 min • Soviet Union

Two short stories tell about a little bear named Pyatnashka, who learns about the world around him.

Egle

1981 • 51 min • Soviet Union

A young woman Egle is forced to marry the king of serpents, her brothers seek to avenge their sister.

White Butterfly

1981 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Based on the fairy tale of the same name by Evgeny Permyak.

Poets Against the Bomb

1981 • 25 min • United Kingdom

An event organised by CND pits the bomb against poetry. Hear artists who hoped that words and rhymes could put an end to destructive times.

Fire Film

1981 • 12 min

Filmed at the start of Greenham Common. Women sit in the dark round the fire, occasionally someone throws more wood on the fire and we see them talking about the peace movement, the action taken by women, the Pentagon action and the importance of creating an international network.

Review 34th Year No. 7

1981 • 10 min • United Kingdom

A West Yorkshire story of rewilding wetlands in a landscape once dominated by deep coal mining.

Nodes

1981 • 3 min • United States of America

"nodus knot, node - more at NET) ... 4a: a point at which subsidiary parts originate or center ... 5: a point, line, or surface of a vibrating body that is free or relatively free from vibratory motion." In the tradition of SKEIN this hand-painted film is the equivalent of cathexis concepts given me by Sigmund Freud (in his "Interpretation of Dreams"), 30 years ago, finally realizing itself as vision. (Quote: Web. 7th). Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

Mouth Music

1981 • 25 min • United States of America

Mouth Music demonstrates the distinctive modes of the human voice, the most influential of all musical instruments, takes on in southern folk music and folk culture. These modes can span traditional a cappella performance styles as well as unique expressive vocal forms that have evolved as part of daily life, work, and play: hollerin’, jump-rope rhymes, “eephing,” nonsense songs, auctioneering, drill sergeant’s patter and others.

Exoego

1981 • 13 min

The brittleness of sensuality is caught in silk cloths and walls of tin-foil. Erotic visions guide the spectator along moments of love and orgasm up to the dramatic climax of birthgiving.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

1981 • 21 min

A young girl named Alice falls down a rabbit-hole and finds herself in Wonderland, a fantasy land of strange characters and ideas.