All Films

Supersurface: An Alternative Model for Life on Earth

1972 • 10 min • Italy

Produced for the 1972 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Italy: The New Domestic Lanscape, Supersurface was the first of five films planned by Superstudio as a "critical reappraisal of the possibility of life without objects." Superstudio envisioned a "network of energy and information extending to every properly inhabitable area". According to the artists, this network would bring about the destruction of objects as status symbols, the elimination of the city as an accumulation of formal structures of power, and the end of specialized and repetitive work as an alienating activity. "The logical consequence," they write, "will be a new, revolutionary society in which everyone should find the full development of his possibilities".

A Better Day In Every Way

1972 • 5 min

Ironic short interviewing the creators and minds behind Muzak

Una necesidad popular

1972 • 14 min • Venezuela

The Cooperative Movement in Barquisimeto (CECOSESOLA) emerged as an alternative to the outrages against the people and their inability to afford a decent burial for their relatives.

Travailler loin de chez soi

1972 • 20 min

With the support of short interviews with employees from the Lyon and Paris regions (Conflans Sainte-Honorine), as well as that of Pierre Sarger, architect and urban planner from Ivry, who discusses its transformation into a dormitory town, this program addresses the thorny issue of public transport for workers far from their workplace. Travel time, comfort in transport, its cost, its frequency, walking, all elements that harm the quality of life of employees and considerably limit their free time: this is because working conditions are almost as important as the work itself. The film includes beautiful shots of urban traffic (buses, suburban trains, cars), or pedestrians, and crowds walking, either in the street, in the metro, or leaving factories. (source: Media-Scérén)

Palestine, Another Vietnam

1972 • 22 min • Argentina, Italy, Lebanon

A short documentary film shot in Beirut by two Argentinian directors. Directed & Filmed by Jorge Denti & Jorge Giannoni Produced by C3M - Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo

Fritz Rasp Interview

1972 • 18 min • Germany

A talk with actor Fritz Rasp about his career.

Bishop On The Hunt

1972 • 25 min • Soviet Union

The Bishop has decided to punish a priest who loved hunting, but in the process the hunting spirit got awakened in him.

Winter Garden

1972 • 27 min • Canada

A recording of the eponymous ballet choreographed by Olga Roriz, produced for Canadian public television.

Arthur Is Fantastic

1972 • 15 min

Arthur Is Fantastic is a b/w Fluxus film that portraits Arthur Indenbaum and turns him into a work of art by obliterating the boundaries between art and life. Arthur Indenbaum was the son of an American diamond dealer who had come to Antwerp in the late 1960s to be trained in his father’s business. Soon, however, Arthur found his way into the lively art and music scene of Antwerp of the period where he liked to get high, hang out with friends and play music with his band ‘Live’. At the time Gallery Vacuum was an art space run by artists and musicians Luc Deleu, Filip Francis and George Smits, who were an integral part of Antwerp’s alternative scene. On 6 May 1970 Arthur, with his extraordinarily big physical build and fuzzy hair, was exhibited as a live sculpture in Gallery Vacuum during a one-night show in which Ludo Mich took part as well.

Drug Abuse

1972 • 1 min

Originally made as a 60 second public service announcement for local TV stations in Denver, Colorado, Pat Lehman's Drug Abuse warns viewers about the effects of drug use in the form of a a psychedelic odyssey. Its multicolored animations, made with the Computer Image Corporation's Scanimate video synthesizer, explore the phenomenological effects of drugs in a series of kaleidoscopic renderings; the mind and body are shown glowing in technicolor before distending and melting in and out of the surfaces of the screen. While the piece is one of Lehman's earliest experiments with Scanimate, it is also, alongside Video Vitae, one of her most frequently exhibited pieces. The tape was screened as an "experimental special effects film" at numerous festivals including the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, before being exhibited at the Computer Art Festival in New York in 1975.

The Watermelon

1972 • 9 min • Egypt

a short movie showing a day in the life of Egyptian middle class clerk in early 1970s.

Somebody Waiting

1972 • 24 min • United States of America

Somebody Waiting is a 1971 American short documentary film that examines hospitalized children with severe cerebral dysfunction who are among the most physically, emotionally and mentally handicapped in society and are totally dependent on hospital staff. It shows how these "hopeless cases" can be helped by environmental stimulation and therapeutic handling and how their response to improved care improves the morale of the staff so that all concerned benefit. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Take Five

1972 • 4 min • Poland

Early experimental film from Zbigniew Rybczynski that broke new ground in the use of pixelation, optical printing, animation and other compositional film devices. Beautiful jazz score and color usage.

The First Photo of Mine Ever Taken

1972 • 1 min • Yugoslavia

A one-frame long experimental short film from Yugoslavia.

Sky Blue Water Light Sign

1972 • 9 min • United States of America

"Sky Blue Water Light Sign is best seen in total innocence. My guess is that if one knows what he or she is looking at before seeing this little film, half of its excitement and a good deal of its meaning disappears. Seen in total innocence, though (and maybe I’m exaggerating the importance of this), SKY BLUE WATER is a wonder. With Gottheim’s Blues and Frampton’s Lemon (for Robert Hunt), it is one of the happiest, most uplifting short films I’ve ever seen.” – Scott MacDonald, Idiolects" -- Scott MacDonald, Idiolects. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

Was ich von Maria weiß

1972 • 18 min • Germany

A cinematic portrait of Maria - a 13-year-old girl who has been living in Germany with her family from Spain for several years. The filmmaker observes Maria in her everyday life and her relationship with the people around her - her parents, her neighbor (the filmmaker's mother) and Nina, a German girl about the same age.

Calling Until Exhaustion

1972 • 20 min • Germany

Jochen Gerz's first video of his performance art, filmed by the monitor. Gerz stands alone in a landscape and calls "Hello" into the camera from a 60-meter distance until he is hoarse with exhaustion and breaks off.

The Occult: An Echo from Darkness

1972 • 51 min • United States of America

Examines some of the present-day practices of Satan worship and the cults of black magic.

The Cross and the Axe

1972 • 14 min • Poland

An elegiac documentary about Krzyżtopór Castle in the village of Ujazd, southern Poland. Built between 1627 and 1644 by Krzysztof Ossoliński. It was occupied until 1770 when it was destroyed by the Russian army during the military actions against the army of the Bar Confederation. Nowadays, the castle is classified as a permanent ruin. The film is a powerful meditation on lasting tradition and historical decline; The images are accompanied by a folk ballad about the castle’s history, performed by the village choir from Iwaniska.

Listen, Look!

1972 • 28 min • Colombia

Documentary about the effects of the VI Panamerican Games in the city of Cali, seen from the point of view of the people that couldn't get into the stadiums.

Thermogenesis

1972 • 12 min • United States of America

"A film version of a videotape. In it my drawings are animated and colorized by using computers. Walter Wright and Richard Froeman were on the computers. John Godfrey helped with the video editing. I did the sound score. The original tape was done on 2" high-band color videotape, two computers, a Paik-Abe video-synthesizer, with studio chroma-keying and multi-generation video editing." A version of Computer Graphics #1, one of Emshwiller's very first video works.

Code Blue

1972 • 27 min

Code Blue is one of the earliest existing films created by Henry Hampton’s Boston-based documentary company Blackside Inc., which produced the Emmy Award-winning civil rights series Eyes on the Prize. Blackside became the largest African American-owned film production company of its time and was home to many filmmakers from diverse backgrounds, including African Americans, immigrants, and women.

Fanta

1972 • 15 min • Australia

“An ‘avant-garde’ film of the seventies. A man obssessed with Phantom comics fantasises himself as the contemporary Phantom. Shot on location in Sydney, various Sydney visual artists play characters in this short comic story intercut with images from Phantom comics. Gary Shead is a visual artist who utilised cartoon imagery in his work, hence the idea for this film.” (Screensound)

Voting at 18

1972 • 14 min • United States of America

A 1972 short about the 26th amendment and how eighteen year-olds can register to vote.