All Films

Almeida Garrett 1799-1854: Escrever é Lutar

1978 • 24 min

A biographical program about Almeida Garrett, poet and playwright, from a historical perspective, highlighting his involvement with liberalism, political career and his role as the driving force of the theater in Portugal.

La ciudad es el recuerdo

1978 • 8 min • Spain

Fake documentary about Sevilla.

The Blacksmith

1978 • 28 min

In this Roy Spence film, created for the Ulster Folk Museum, Joe O’Neill shows a range of blacksmithing skills and techniques using tools and methods that have not changed in centuries. These include heat welding, scarfing, scrolling, curling and bending. All completed in a traditional simple forge. The original version of the film included an audio track explaining the history, tools and techniques of a blacksmith, however even as a silent film, the powerful visuals of this timeless skill remains evident.

Music in Progress: Mike Westbrook - Jazz Composer

1978 • 42 min • United Kingdom

Documentary on the work of jazz musician Mike Westbrook.

Vere D'he Go?

1978 • 3 min

A playful reference to vertigo in the title Vere d’he Go Composition announces a more vigorous attempt at spatial disorientation using again the striped sticks and now vertical wipes.

Holding It

1978 • 20 min

Goofy suspense thriller by Josh Becker.

St. John's Day

1978 • 20 min • Soviet Union

Documentary about the St. John's Day festival in Tallinn. Recorded with a hidden camera, the film is full of contrasts and expressively depicts the changes in the traditions of Midsummer's Eve and the emotional impoverishment of city dwellers, showing their behaviour at the bonfires - their loneliness as well as their alcohol-induced exuberant state in big crowds.

Abrasions

1978 • 35 min • France

Tribute to Tristan Corbière. Images of the sea, stars, muses, the poetic universe of Tristan Corbière. Evocation of the Conlie camp, where thousands of Breton volunteers were taken during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, in order to do their classes there. For lack of means, or fear of a "Chouan peril", these soldiers never received either the equipment or the training necessary for combat. Some of them were however sent to fight, but almost disarmed.

Genesis: Four Billion Years in the Making

1978 • 32 min

The Great Valley in Africa - a crack of more than 6,500 kilometers in the earth's crust - is the result of the continental fracture that began about 20 million years ago. Volcanic eruptions, like the spectacular eruption of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano in Genesis, are the result of powerful tectonic processes that continually reshape the earth's surface. “From the first moment a supernova explodes in a burst of light and sound, Genesis audiences won't just have a front row seat to watch the creation of the world. The public will be immersed in the creation itself and will be fully aware that the creation is still going on” – Richmond, News-Leader. "Genesis attests that if the public is offered what it wants, it will break down its doors" -Minneapolis Star.

Metamorphoses I

1978 • 7 min • East Germany

For the multimedia exhibition Tangenten I (Tangents I), Dammbeck and co-organizer, sculptor and painter Frieder Heinze had planned to collaborate on a film that would combine non-camera animation with 35mm footage of a train ride between the two Dresden districts of Radebeul and Pieschen. When the exhibition was banned in 1978, Heinze turned to other projects, but Dammbeck continued working on the film by himself. Metamorphoses I—the first experimental film ever to be shown publicly in East Germany—marks the filmic beginning of Dammbeck’s long-term art project the Herakles-Konzept (Hercules Concept).

J'aime

1978 • 32 min • France

Intermezzo

1978 • 8 min • Yugoslavia

We begin with a fragmented portrait of Činča, between the stories she tells and the thoughts of those surrounding her. In The Head, a girl is confronted with the possibility of dying. Intermezzo focusses on the moments of abstraction amid the hustle and bustle of a city. In Our Stock Exchange, unemployed people seek work. Second Floor, Basement shows us a hospital where only two floors separate birth and death.

Cylinder Sphere and Solid

1978 • 12 min

Cylinder, Sphere and Solid opens with a white screen. A performer enters from the right side and draws a black circle. He continues to draw and finally, after drawing and erasing, the circle becomes a cylinder. While continuing to draw and erase the cylinder becomes two intersecting circles. After drawing some more the drawing becomes two spheres.

Dream

1978 • 23 min • Soviet Union

In the spring and summer of 1977, the musical television film "Miracle Story" was filmed on Toomemäe in Tartu. Despite the fact that all the shots in the film are documentary, you may not see a documentary in "Dream". It is not a reportage about making a film, but rather a vision, an echo that has disappeared but has been.

Root Hog or Die

1978 • 57 min

Root Hog or Die is a portrait of a living remnant of this once pervasive but rapidly vanishing way of life. Filmed in 1973 in hilltowns across Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont, it follows the cycle of the farming year from spring to winter. In its course we visit with an array of elders, who reflect on farming's deep natural patterns, share their family histories and personal memories, and ponder the inevitable forces of technological and social change they have endured. The bittersweet nature of their challenges is manifest, as is the quiet pride they take in their lives as farmers.

Miners

1978 • 11 min • Yugoslavia

In the constant and cruel struggle of man to master nature, he will begin by destroying his greatest ally. An authentic story about a lesser-known profession that begins where the asphalt ends. In a mountainous setting, decorated with a variety of plants and home to numerous insects, birds and animals, man comes to bring unrest to the long-tamed bowels of the earth and disturbs the primordial peace of nature with the roar of explosives and the roar of machines.

Doctor Woman: The Life and Times of Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw

1978 • 29 min • Canada

Elizabeth Bagshaw was a forerunner of the women's movement. As one of the first women to practise medicine in Canada, she had to overcome society's bias against women in medicine. During her seventy-year career she helped to instigate change in public opinion on that issue, as well as the issue of birth control. The film captures the personality of this remarkable woman through a contemporary interview and re-enactments of episodes from her youth. The sepia tones of the re-enactments are in keeping with the film techniques of the time, giving the viewer a strong sense of the period. The film is of special interest to persons interested in the evolution of women's roles in Canadian society.

The Collector

1978 • 4 min

A man with a vast Mickey Mouse collection gets ready for work

Level 7 + α

1978 • 2 min • Japan

Early work of the celebrated director.

Zerda's Children

1978 • 52 min • Argentina

Ethnographic film documents a family of woodcutters living in isolation in the mountains of Calden, at the geographic center of Argentina. Through his narration, Sixto Ramon Zerda explains his wish for his children to be educated and to avoid the punishing work and exploitation he has suffered. Introduction narrated by Henry Fonda.

Hamper McBee: Raw Mash

1978 • 29 min • United States of America

A candid portrait of the late Tennessee ballad singer, story-teller, and part-time moonshiner Hamper McBee.

Panic

1978 • 25 min • United Kingdom

After being harassed by a couple of punks, a young woman picks up an old lady standing at the roadside in the rain.

The Snow Queen

1978 • 19 min • Japan

Gerda and Kai were close friends. But one day, a shard from a mirror that distorts everything it reflects entered Kai's eye. Drawn in by the Snow Queen, he disappeared beyond the icy plains. Gerda set out on a journey to find him, and eventually reunited with Kai in the Snow Queen's castle.

The Hands of Time

1978 • 30 min • United Kingdom

A BBC special with Jodie Foster's directing debut.