All Films

Black and White Drawing

1976 • 12 min

Black and White Drawing is about the two dimensionality of the film frame and the illusion of three dimensionality created by drawing. A sheet of gray paper is placed on the floor front of the camera. The film switches to negative: the paper is now darker, a different shade of gray. Haxton sketches in with "black" chalk black areas in wavy lines and goes over and over them, making them more solid. He leaves the frame. There is a cut to positive image: the chalk draws along the first areas, uniting them into a single shape that looks somewhat like a twig or a tuning fork with one short leg which appears at first to be equal in length to the other. Haxton uses the conventions of shading as "shadow" to make the white areas look like volumetric or perspectival extensions of the black: the drawing seems very object like.

Mexico Mobile Cinema

1976 • 12 min • Mexico

Documentary showing the efforts to bring cinema to marginalized communities in Mexico.

The Black Indians of New Orleans

1976 • 33 min

“This classic award-winning documentary is the first definitive treatment of the origins and rituals of the Black Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans, It features two tribes: The Yellow Pocahontas led by Big Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana, and The White Eagles, led by Big Chief Gerald “Jake” Milon. The first part of the film reveals the sociocultural history of the Mardi Gras Indians, their costume prepartion, music, songs, dance and gatherings for a ritual practice. The second part is a sunrise to sunset visual account of the processions and street culture of the Black Indians on Mardi Gras Day. The film was screened for a full week in the New York Whitney Museum’s New Filmmakers Series. also was a finalist in the Cine Golden Eagle Awards and was screened at the Margaret Mead Film Festival. International festivals/screenings include: The Pompedeau Centre in Paris; London; Berlin; West Africa.”

Locomotive

1976 • 6 min • Poland

Based on Lokomotywa, a poem by Julian Tuwim. Made with the use of classical cartoon animation and combined photographs.

Procession

1976 • 3 min

The understandable fascination with Frampton's intellect can blind one to the frequent down-home dimension of his imagery. Here, in a most rigorously formal, even mathematical procession, we see frame clusters of light blue sky, green grass, and red (filter red) leaves; then frame clusters of the backs of dairy cows; and finally frame clusters of portions of a shiny vehicle (we can see people, objects in bulbous reflection). A trip to the New York State Fair filtered through a most rarified formal film."–Scott MacDonald

Saturday Evening

1976 • 42 min • Norway

Short story about a couple living on the farm who are trying their best to keep the family grief from their two daughters.

Materialfilme II

1976 • 22 min

Using minimal means, Materialfilme is conversely one of the absolutely maximal experiences possible in cinema. It's a masterpiece revealing film as a toxic material, an industrial material—a material that corrodes, that wears, that fractures and most of all, a material that can be purposefully manipulated. Extraordinarily active as a filmmaker, film collector and catalyst since the 1960s, Wilhelm Hein is one of film's true individualists; still absolutely dedicated to the moving image as a means of provocation, subversion and documentation of the most intimate type.

Des autres terres souples

1976 • 38 min

Richard Hugo: Kicking the Loose Gravel Home

1976 • 57 min • United States of America

Filmed on location in Montana and Washington State, this 1976 biography of poet and teacher Richard Hugo features readings of some of his most famous poems as well as interviews with his family and friends.

Exorcist

1976 • 2 min

A SOV remake of The Exorcist, made by children.

Cordiais Saudações, Mr. Kissinger

1976 • 51 min • Brazil

Dina Sfat plays Carlos Dolabella's romantic partner in a fictional soap opera that fascinates the daughter and wife of a simple country man, played by Jofre Soares. After receiving a TV set, Soares begins to doubt his traditional knowledge of weather forecasts and begins to worry about the end of the world due to the oil crisis and pollution.

The Sixth Player

1976 • 11 min • Yugoslavia

The personality of Lazar Lečić, coach of the basketball club “Rabotnički” from Skopje, is an example of enormous dynamism and professionalism in his work. Following his reactions during a basketball game, we witness a real drama filled to the maximum with a variety of emotions and gestures. His face fully and in a very characteristic way expresses everything that happens on the court.

Otherwise Unexplained Fires

1976 • 14 min

"Filmed in large part during H.F.'s lecture-screening tour in the bay area: visit(s) to the Musee Mechanique, Land's End, the Cliff House. The San Francisco fog is proclaimed, as also are the cypress trees that line parts of our local beach. A visit to the Brakhage Colorado residence provided images of chickens/roosters."–Gail Camhi

Four Frames

1976 • 10 min

"Color/form, light/shadow, flatness/depth, figuration/abstraction, landscape/paint, all collaging and colliding in an exploratory, arrhythmic, kinetic dance constructed a frame at a time by Fred Worden on his optical printer. This early film now reveals itself as a revelatory early warning sign of Worden's filmmaking to come, comprising ten minutes extrapolated from only four frames of source imagery." (Mark Toscano) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

Mother Earth

1976 • 21 min • Soviet Union

Every corner of the mountains has its guardian angel - the Adgilis Deda (“place mother”). An old woman who has no right to die has become the Adgilis Deda of the abandoned mountain village. As long as she is alive, the village is called a village, only with her death will any sign of life disappear from that corner.

Textur

1976 • 11 min

Directed by Werner Nekes.

Tipa the Ant

1976 • 9 min • Soviet Union

An animation film about a little ant who leaves the house for the first time in her life and tries to find out what the sun is.

Giấc Mơ Bay

1976 • 16 min

A story about a kid wanting to be the god of heavens (so that he could skip classes and play around all day), Flying Dream’s witticism is equally applicable to situations in the world of adults. The second directorial work of Hữu Đức (who had by then appeared in a number of early Vietnamese animation project, often responsible for the art), Flying Dream marked ‘the maturity phase’ of Vietnamese animation in general and doll-based stop-motion works in particular. Flying Dream also bears the spirit of 1970s Eastern European animation through hazy spaces and colours floating freely between reality and a dream-world (created by artist Mai Long), and a score that recalls the best of psychedelic pop music of the time.

Death Quest of the Ju-Ju Cults

1976 • 30 min

Enter a shimmering forest and encounter the Pot Boiling turbulence of pre-history tribes in conflict. See sacrificial virgins, volcanoes, knife fights, spaceships. It's all in this black-and-white saga of pure escapement.

How Grandfather Disturbed the Great Balance

1976 • 9 min • Soviet Union

Rübezahl und der Schuster

1976 • 15 min • Czechoslovakia, East Germany

Animated fairy tale about the mountain ghost Rübezahl and his dealing with a thieving shoemaker.

The Mathematician

1976 • 3 min • United Kingdom

The salutary tale of a genius mathematician who discovers that mankind is heading for environmental disaster. Ignored by all, he sets out to prove it — however the proof, represented by “a little black box”, is taken up by those previous doubters and exploited.

The Boy and the Song

1976 • 4 min • United Kingdom

An animated film by the South Shields film maker Sheila Graber in which the boy and his cat feature in a set of adventures inspired by the lyrics of some well-known songs the boy sings. This film is a follow up to her earlier film entitled the Boy and the Cat.

Eva's Man

1976 • 11 min • United States of America

A short film, based on a novel by Gayl Jones. The film treats a black woman, Eva, who kills her lover. She refuses to speak to a white psychiatrist who questions her about her motives, so he leaves her with a tape recorder to confide in. In flashbacks, we see the abuse Eva suffered at the hands of a husband and two lovers.