All Films

Repossessing the City

1977 • 29 min • Italy

The film tries to demonstrate the way to regain possession of the city not so much with physical interventions but with behavioral and mental operations. "To live is to be at home everywhere: the phrase, almost a carousel slogan, opens the film as you start a poster, a sort of password to which the smiling face of Ugo La Pietra - all intent on the street making the beard reflected in the glass doors of a large door - offers the evidence of the images. Cinema for La Pietra becomes an indispensable means for analyzing and decoding the environment, recording the traces of an original creative activity, dismantling and reassembling the topoi of urban architecture, creating behavioral indications capable of giving life to "one's" city . (...) ". (Paolo Mereghetti, 1977).

Library

1977 • 3 min

Library is a one shot take looking down at the lobby of the New York University Library at Washington Square in New York City. Shot in 1977, re-edited 2019.

Screen Gems

1977 • 4 min

I found the pixel structures in extreme close-ups of my Sony Trinitron television’s screen surface to be an endless source of colorful kinetics, often more interesting than the presented program.

KMK Cane

1977 • 4 min

Making short, silent, single-subject films allows the specific forms and movements to be savored without the burden of a distracting drama or explanation. Filmed in Hawaii.

Navidad Guatemalteca

1977 • 3 min

Guatemala 1976: A metaphor of natural devastation and political violence. Amidst the earthquake-shattered walls of Luis Argueta's childhood home, a young girl drinks the blood of a turkey as the sound of a manual typewriter is drowned by machine gun fire.

Black Harmony, Hi-Fi

1977 • 5 min

A portrait of a place in the context of being an outsider; a personal travelogue working to concentrate the perceived qualities of life, light, and the spirit of the island. The textural dynamics of sound and image were strongly considered in the editing process to crystallize my observation and experience while there.

Octave of Fear

1977 • 5 min • Yugoslavia

Leo Fabiani's priceless muse about everyone having someone to fear.

Ceturtā dimensija

1977 • 10 min • Soviet Union

A film portrait of the poet Ojars Vacietis.

Pasajes de la cultura ecuatoriana

1977 • 20 min • Ecuador

Documentary that follows the popular expressions of five provinces of Ecuador.

Trappist Preserves

1977 • 5 min • United States of America

"The film acts as an epithet for what everyone knows about our meager place in the universe. Succinctly stated in Jack Arnold’s "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957) and loosely ad-libbed by me in an inspired Cageian manner via a pompous (but difficult to produce) single-frame optical pan traversing the lofty soliloquy. The toilet paper in the bare autumn tree was encountered early one morning outside the school of the Art Institute of Chicago on Columbus Drive. With eclair and 12-120 zoom in hand, it was a no brainer. The combinations illustrate a mocking attitude that is much in line with most Hollywood expressionism, lofty ideals via a crass medium."

Make A Face Grandma

1977 • 1 min

"A friend whose name I have regrettably forgotten (Beth?) took pictures of her grandmother making faces. I created a soundtrack looping her whispers and used a sound trigger video switching circuit to switch to the soundtrack. By switching 4 cameras and zooming in on the photos I created this video in real time. Creation date was around 1977. I played this in public schools during Artist in Residencies and scared too many kids." -ET

Duel-Duo

1977 • 2 min • Canada

An animation film about a clarinet and a trumpet that meet, clash, compete, compromise and harmonize.

The Game

1977 • 9 min • Poland

A man observes the movement of pawns in a game. Under the board, people work hard at the big mechanism that drives the pawns. The film shows a blind and destructive force that causes and fuels war.

Festa do Rosario de Pombal

1977 • 23 min • Brazil

Aspects of the religious and profane event that takes place in the Paraíba city of Pombal, gathering a large crowd.

Four Trousers And One Calico Dress

1977 • 28 min • Soviet Union

Ispahan: A Persian Letter (The Chah Mosque at Ispahan)

1977 • 39 min • France

Jean Rouch’s camera follows his friend, filmmaker/actor/critic Farrokh Ghaffari, as he walks and talks us through the famous Shah Mosque in Esfehan. While guiding him and answering his questions, Ghaffari makes Rouch discover the beauties of the architecture of the mosque and its impact on the city. Throughout the tour, they discuss Islam’s complex relationship with death, sex and cinema.

Oregon Presents: A Serious Look At Chainsaw Safety

1977 • 22 min • United Kingdom, United States of America

Presented in the interest of chain saw safety by the Oregon Saw Chain Division, Omark Industries. (Ft. Chainsaw Charlie)

Facial Treatments #2 and #4

1977 • 4 min • Canada

Video art by Ernest Gusella made between 1975 and 1980

ひとかけらの青春

1977 • 40 min • Japan

The two are confused about their first relationship with a man and a woman... This is a coming-of-age film that defies the conventional wisdom in that everyone except the director is a first-year junior high school student.

Close your eyes

1977 • 33 min • Japan

Lips, gun, murderous intent, darkness, loneliness, and a woman...

Foot No.3

1977 • 7 min

A bare foot rests on the monitor, while at the same time the screen of the same monitor shows another foot. This picture, however, is upside-down (suggesting a mirror effect) so as to hint that both feet are one and the same. Consequently this symmetry partly conceals the contrast between the two feet: dressed and bare, reversed positions within and outside the video screen, recorded and again registered.

How TV Works

1977 • 27 min

is an informal, offbeat lesson in the electronics and mechanics of television. Sandin demonstrates basic video procedures, including use of the camera and editing decks, and explains the transmission of the television signal.

Peripeteia I

1977 • 10 min • United States of America

Peripeteia I and Peripeteia II, shot by the artist in Oregon’s rainforest, alone and without electricity.

Fat Freedom

1977 • 6 min • Canada

The waking dream of a fat man who, through the magic powers of animated cinema, transforms himself, taking the form of the different things he tries to interpret.