All Films

Via Dolorosa

1978 • 10 min

Every year, in the colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, the "sorrowful way" of Good Friday is recreated by a path of colored sawdust and flower petals. Along this road several hundred people take turns carrying a ponderous mahoganybier.

Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon

1978 • 3 min

This short documentary vignette reveals the curious origin of the name of Flin Flon, Manitoba.

Alabama Departure

1978 • 9 min • United States of America

Minnesota-based Peter Bundy’s Alabama Departure (1978) is a brief, revelatory cinematic study of locals and landscapes quivering with life.

Microseries 1-5

1978 • 11 min

Compilation film by Michael Rudnick, shot on 5 different film stocks.

I Was a Contestant at Mother's Wet T-Shirt Contest

1978 • 20 min • United States of America

A short documentary on wet t-shirt contests at a Chicago bar.

Punk

1978 • 14 min • France

Mark of the Clown

1978 • 16 min

A minister, in the character of a clown, transforms a rather passive Sunday audience into a worshipping community by incorporating pantomimic symbols throughout each liturgical element. The clown helps the congregation understand why they are gathered and restores the lost sense of the sacred.

Vicios en la cocina, las papas silban

1978 • 24 min • Mexico

Beatriz Mira, a Brazilian filmmaker living in Mexico, films the housework carried out by women at the end of a decade marked by numerous political and social movements, including feminist groups that disputed the fact that women had been banished from the public sphere, and thus confined to the household. In their fights and debates, they wielded the motto ‘what’s personal is political’.

Mancamenti

1978 • 10 min • Italy

John Jacob Niles

1978 • 31 min • United States of America

John Jacob Niles is a portrait of the adding machine repairman who came to Eastern Kentucky in 1909, “heard the songs [his] father sang,” and became a much-noted “arranger, expander, collector, recorder, and performer” of traditional Appalachian ballads. Niles played an important part in the national “discovery” of Appalachian folk music. He describes how he travelled with the photographer Doris Ulmann through the 1920s and 30s — she taking pictures of the people, and he learning their songs. The film shows Niles in concert, at home, at work arranging his music, and explaining the historical place of balladry in American music.

Lunch

1978 • 8 min • Yugoslavia

A man is sitting at the table eating. He is interrupted by the sound of the bell ringing at someone’s door. In his troubled mind he sees his childhood, the war, his parents in a Jewish ghetto and all possible forms of aggression, which he has experienced right up to this day…

Genetics and Us

1978 • 19 min • Soviet Union

The story of the tragedy of a young family in which a child with Down syndrome was born. It is shown in detail and at the same time very delicately how a geneticist searches for the causes of the pathology that has arisen, telling what genetics can really do at this stage.

Arc

1978 • 2 min • Switzerland

8mm film by Swiss artist Roman Signer.

Across the River

1978 • 2 min • Switzerland

8mm film by Swiss artist Roman Signer.

Water Tower

1978 • 2 min • Switzerland

8mm film by Swiss artist Roman Signer.

Baby Dolls

1978 • 19 min

An eighteen year old male talks of his up coming sex change and how he imagines life as a woman. The talk is frank and informative.

Mongoloid

1978 • 4 min

A documentary film exploring the manner in which a determined young man overcame a basic mental defect and became a useful member of society. Insightful editing techniques reveal the dreams, ideals and problems that face a large segment of the American male population. Educational. Background music written and performed by the DEVO orchestra.

The Princess and the Shepherd. A Fairytale

1978 • 13 min

Maria Lassnig's take on the fairytale. A collaboration with dancer Liesbeth Eberwein (Baroque Statues).

Our Liverpool Home

1978 • 28 min

All together now! 52 families living in run-down terraced houses in Corn Street and Yates Street, Liverpool, form a housing co-op and modernise their homes.

Self-Portrait 78

1978 • 13 min

In the video "Self-portrait 78," Kwak Duck-jun filmed himself rubbing his face against cracked glass in which his eyes, nose and lips appeared twisted and contorted. While looking silly at first, he expressed his deepest desire to overcome his uncomfortable identity crisis.

Perpetuo

1978 • 2 min • Yugoslavia

Animated film produced by Zagreb Film

Hisar Muddad

1978 • 22 min

Using film footage from various sources, Kaiss al-Zubaidi creates a description of the everyday lives of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Through skilful montage, the constant latency of conflict and violence becomes a relationship between the images. Counter-Siege was awarded one of seven ‘Main Prizes’ by the international jury at the 1979 Oberhausen Short Film Festival.

Ragtime Lag

1978 • 13 min

Experimental short by Masaki Matsushita.

The boat of the dead

1978 • 8 min • France

How do souls travel to the afterlife ? What should the ferryman do ? Morgane, the water fairy, knows this (according to Per Jakez Hélias).