All Films

Man in a Bubble

1980 • 15 min

There is a wild sound in the streets where once bells called men to prayer and choruses chanted in march time to the decibels of an infernal brimstone cacophony from which the damned in a Boschean hell sought refuge in the solitude of the philosopher's egg, the transparent bubble of the alchemical Hermetic vessel. MAN IN A BUBBLE is a short documentary about personal acoustical space in an age of intolerable noise. Some stuff their ears against the electronic smog. Others wear headphones. A few scream and very few begin to discern in the deafening uproar the emergence of a Tondichtung worthy of the urban primitivism which gives birth to it. The film was shot in Chicago and New York.

Bridge

1980 • 14 min

A 16mm film of the changing reflections of a bridge over the lake in the grounds of South Hill Park, Berkshire, which links a public thoroughfare. The film can be thought of as a metaphor for the representational process and the cinematic ‘apparatus’ itself, with the ‘bridging process’ connecting the ‘real’ bridge with its representation as a reflected image on water surface, the reflected image on water to camera and film emulsion, the projected film image to the screen and the screen to the film viewer in the cinema. To push this still a stage further, it acts as a metaphoric link between theory and practice (a stills sequence from Bridge appeared on the first page of the first edition of Undercut Magazine).

Fashion from New York

1980 • 8 min • Netherlands

Realistic images of New York alternate with surrealistic indoor shots and posing fashion models, with references to aphroditism and transvestism.

Đáp Số

1980 • 10 min • Vietnam

A boy's exciting journey to school

Echoes From Tibet

1980 • 27 min

Panoramic views of the high snow ranges provide the backdrop for the austere and rugged village life of Tibetans and Ladakhis, high in the the western Himalayas. "Echoes from Tibet" examines their shared social habits, Buddhist religion and customs. Tibetan script Harvesting and threshing; work songs; the vigorous yak dance - all these are explored in the first half of this film.

Memória de uma Época

1980 • 8 min • Brazil

Record of the importance of Confeitaria Colombo in cultural life from the beginning of the century, in Rio de Janeiro, to the present day.

The Matchmaker

1980 • 29 min • Soviet Union

Probably, half of his native village was married off by Grandfather Stepan, because he was always eager to do good for others. Even a serious illness couldn’t stop him from doing so. After returning from the hospital to his native village, he once again finds himself in the midst of the complex relationships of the people around him. And once again, he has to play the role of matchmaker. But this time, all of Grandfather Stepan’s energy is directed at helping… a goose and a gander to be together.

Trans-Pigmentational Slit

1980 • 32 min

According to the liner notes and all contemporary databases with proven reliability, this is the only extant video footage of Jim Shepard's jaw-dropping band Vertical Slit in any form. Running around 30 minutes or so, filmmaker David Kerr's footage is very much a DIY affair, steeped in gloriously primitive, narrative experimentalism. The single free-form jam explodes visually into a psychedelic miasma, and there are dystopian cameos from all your favorite monsters.

Trama

1980 • 10 min • France

"In Trama, Lebrat divides a surface vertically to be filmed in six equal segments of color (yellow, red, blue, green, violet, orange). The composition stays exactly the same all the way through the film. The filmmaker puts a band on the side of every two or three frames. Constructed step-by-step, using ten bands, the optical mixture of color induces strange pulsating effects." Raphaël Bassan

The Lost Pharaoh: The Search for Akhenaten

1980 • 57 min • Canada

Ancient pharaoh Akhenaten was almost lost to history. Canadian archaeologist Donald Redford, who uncovered the foundation of one of the pharaoh’s many temples, attempts to finally piece together this great Egyptian ruler’s enigmatic story.

Sadonian Horizons

1980 • 15 min • Soviet Union

In November 1979, the tunneling team of Viktor Andreevich Vakhnin set a new record, deepening the adit by 451 linear meters in 31 calendar days. The brigade dedicated its labor victory to the opening session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Moscow.

The Pocketbook

1980 • 13 min • United States of America

In the course of a botched purse-snatching, a boy comes to question the path of his life. Billy Woodberry’s second film, and first completed in 16mm, adapts Langston Hughes’ short story, Thank You, Ma’am, and features music by Leadbelly, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. (Ross Lipman)

Herzlich willkommen!

1980 • 30 min • East Germany

Documentary about the Fifth Festival of Sorbian Culture 1980 in Bautzen.

The Cookie Kid

1980 • 11 min • United States of America

The girl holding the world’s record for selling Girl Scout Cookies shows how effective sales techniques and setting of personal goals lead to success.

The Earth Man

1980 • 28 min • Sweden

The Earth Man, a small clay figurine, lives in a small town in Anatolia in Turkey. But he dreams of going to Europe and finally arrives in Sweden. In Sweden it's not that easy to get rich. There are many temptations and difficulties and in the be bad times, he can not decide himself about his destiny.

Boolean Procedure

1980 • 23 min • United Kingdom

a man is made redundant by computers taking over his job

A Nermish Gothic

1980 • 7 min

Recalling the flickering invention of early silent film illusionists, this battle of wits begins simply enough, with the innocent creation of cut-and-fold triangles from a blank sheet of paper.

Líneas de viento

1980 • 10 min

Eusebio Sempere's work serves as the basis for transforming it into movement and rhythms that are implicit in his own visual arts, but which can only be converted into another dimension other than the sculptural-pictorial through cinema.

Moon Breath Beat

1980 • 5 min • United States of America

Moon Breath Beat is a hand-drawn experimental 2D film that depicts a woman and her two cats and how external forces such as birds and the moon impact their lives. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Schimpft uns nicht Zigeuner!

1980 • 45 min • Germany

The film accompanies Linda and Gallier in their everyday lives and gives them space for self-representation: at school, at the family table, at the disco, or in conversations with friends. The racism of the majority society, the pressure to assimilate, and the counterarguments of the two young people and their community members are omnipresent. The parents and grandparents are survivors. Linda summarizes that experiences of persecution and oppression have shaped the strong sense of belonging among the Sinti.

Rockpile: Live at Rockpalast

1980 • 60 min • Germany

Rockpile recorded their installment of the German TV show Rockpalast in January 1980, a few months before the appearance of their lone LP, Seconds of Pleasure, but at that point, the quartet were a fixture on the new wave scene, touring constantly and appearing on solo LPs by their co-leaders Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. All this is a roundabout way of saying that Rockpile wasn't hurting for material: they drew heavily upon Edmunds' solo records in particular -- 13 of the songs on this 17-song setlist appeared on one of Dave's LPs -- interspersing a few rock & roll oldies along with songs from Nick, plus a showcase for Billy Bremner

Notes on the Making of 'Berlin Alexanderplatz'

1980 • 44 min • Germany

Documentary about the making of the 1980 German television series.

Primal Scenes

1980 • 10 min

Over grainy, black and white images of a woman giving birth, Montano reads the story of a nun’s sexual self-discovery—recounting Sister Joan’s growing awareness of her body’s sensuousness and sexuality. Primal Scenes is an excellent example of women’s erotica, focusing on a woman’s experience of her body as both sexually powerful and deeply mysterious. Montano uses stirring images of women acting in the rather traditional roles of nun and mother, yet she recasts these roles and demonstrates, from a woman’s point of view, the possibility of claiming a fully-realized sexual intensity for women.

Oskar Schlemmer and Dance

1980 • 15 min

Original film material from the Bauhaus dances of Oskar Schlemmer.