All Films

The Mask of Sarnath

1981 • 19 min • United States of America

A finalist for the 1980 Student Academy Awards, Neil Ruttenberg's The Mask of Sarnath is structured as an entry in the horror film genre. The theme of 'Evil Never Dies' dominates the narrative backed by a hauntingly eerie soundtrack recorded by Throbbing Gristle.

The Exile

1981 • 3 min • United Kingdom

Like plants, people can either thrive or wither when removed from their native soil, as this short film explores.

Gently Down the Stream

1981 • 14 min • United States of America

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM is constructed from fourteen dreams taken from eight years' worth of my journals. The text is scratched directly on to the film so that you hear your own voice as you read. The accompanying images of women, water, animals and saints were chosen for their indirect but potent correspondence to the text.

Princové jsou na draka

1981 • 60 min • Czechoslovakia

Let's take a look into little Martin's room. His mother tells his sons that they will have a new father, and Martin has a fairy-tale dream at night about a kingdom threatened by an evil dragon. Fortunately, clever Martin is there, who has fairy tales literally in his little finger. He advises the king on how to kill the dragon - it would take Honza...

Portrait of a Teenage Shoplifter

1981 • 45 min

Teenager becomes involved in the thrill of shoplifting with her friends, until she is inevitably caught in the act.

Daughters of Equality

1981 • 1 min • France

The Daughters of Equality want everybody to be like them...

T.G.: Psychic Rally in Heaven

1981 • 8 min • United Kingdom

An experimental film of the group Throbbing Gristle in concert.

Inside the Coppola Personality

1981 • 7 min

Monte Hellman's short portrait of Francis Ford Coppola discussing business and craft at home and on the set of his Zoetrope Studios.

Anybody's Woman

1981 • 24 min • United States of America

The goings-on around a porn theater in New York’s East Village, interspersed with actors recounting experiences with extreme sexualities and a description of a scene from the pre-code Dorothy Arzner film of the same name.

A Pretty British Affair

1981 • 60 min • United Kingdom

Detailed interview with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger looking back at their long career as influential British film-makers and their unusual partnership. Includes clips from many of their films.

Electric Blue Special: Nude Jello Wrestling

1981 • 51 min

Nude Jello Wrestlers.

Track 125

1981 • 20 min • United Kingdom

The complex technology of modern rail track is shown, covering component manufacturers, current methods of laying track and its maintenance.

Arabic Numeral Series 2

1981 • 7 min

“With some exceptions, the Arabics take the idea of the void as their ground. That is, the light we do see almost always seems to be set against darkness, or occasionally against white, these momentary flickers that materialize tenuously out of emptiness. But the darkness is not ‘night,’ or even simply some more abstract absence of light, but a more profound vacuum: it represents a world stripped of all the coordinates of the known, an unmeasurable absence. […] These lushly sensual, pleasurable-to-view films are also terrifying: their unpredictability, continually enacting new dramas of surprise, alternatively swamps the viewer in light and leaves him adrift in darkness. ”

Living Music for Golden Mountains

1981 • 27 min • United States of America

In 1936, Leo Lew immigrated to America, the “land of golden mountains,” from his native southern China. He came seeking fortune but discovered instead a mission closer to his heart — passing on the deep-rooted traditions of Cantonese folk music to new generations of Chinese Americans.

The Treasure of the Cat Leopold

1981 • 4 min • Soviet Union

The mice received a treasure map in the mail. In the place indicated on the map, a chest really turned out to be buried, but it also turned out to be something that the mice did not expect.

Arabic Numeral Series 1

1981 • 6 min

"With some exceptions, the Arabics take the idea of the void as their ground. That is, the light we do see almost always seems to be set against darkness, or occasionally against white, these momentary flickers that materialize tenuously out of emptiness. But the darkness is not 'night,' or even simply some more abstract absence of light, but a more profound vacuum: it represents a world stripped of all the coordinates of the known, an unmeasurable absence. [...] These lushly sensual, pleasurable-to-view films are also terrifying: their unpredictability, continually enacting new dramas of surprise, alternatively swamps the viewer in light and leaves him adrift in darkness. "

Conversation

1981 • 7 min

Multiple overlapping images combine with still-frames of an amorous Puerto Rican filmmaker's telephone conversation with a repairman, coincidentally also interested in film. Written by Lee Breuer and performed by Ruth Maleczeck, both of Mabou Mines theatre company. Music by Bob Telson.

An Event at the Port

1981 • 55 min • Albania

Someone falsifies the lab data regarding the quality of imported goods. This results in the contract with a foreign company eing broken. The suspect is a specialist who handles the contracts. With these acts, saboteurs are trying to spread doubt and insecurity.

With Frozen Wings

1981 • 10 min • Japan

P.q. 17

1981 • 50 min

"That order to scatter was as good as a death sentence to those merchant ships. And there isn't one officer or rating who doesn't agree with me." A British Allied convoy designated for the Soviet Union comes under attack from German forces during World War II.

The Colonel Comes to Japan

1981 • 28 min • United States of America

It seems highly unlikely that Colonel Sanders ever thought that he would be selling his Kentucky Fried Chicken to the Japanese, but Kentucky Fried Chicken, Japan, Inc. is doing just that, and doing it successfully. The company, headed by an American director and staffed by the Japanese, has raised the business of fast-food retailing to an art. Here West meets East as the Japanese are shown how to prepare the product and the Americans are introduced to the fine art of Japanese business. –cte.uw.edu

Arabic Numeral Series 3

1981 • 11 min

“With some exceptions, the Arabics take the idea of the void as their ground. That is, the light we do see almost always seems to be set against darkness, or occasionally against white, these momentary flickers that materialize tenuously out of emptiness. But the darkness is not ‘night,’ or even simply some more abstract absence of light, but a more profound vacuum: it represents a world stripped of all the coordinates of the known, an unmeasurable absence. […] These lushly sensual, pleasurable-to-view films are also terrifying: their unpredictability, continually enacting new dramas of surprise, alternatively swamps the viewer in light and leaves him adrift in darkness.”

Beyond Oil

1981 • 19 min • France

Documentary on industrial lubrification.

Arabic Numeral Series 12

1981 • 18 min • United States of America

This is the twelfth film in the twenty-part Arabics series. Brakhage creates blurry visual fields that are profoundly without ground, worlds of unidentifiable, ever-shifting shapes, and oceans of light and darkness.