All Films

Commissioned by the Pittsburgh Bicentennial Association to celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary, PITTSBURGH was created by a team of filmmakers that included Stan Brakhage (working under the pseudonym James Stanley), Weegee, Len Lye, and Stan Vanderbeek, and photographers W. Eugene Smith and Willard Van Dyke. Brakhage called it “weirdly interesting, but a monstrosity.”

About fighting the elements in the mountain karst, when people also have to bring water and land; leaving such life and gradually moving to the city.

A working man finds a school book that belonged to him, which will make him remember his childhood. Short film registered entirely in Lugano neighborhood.

A surreal journey through bohemian Chelsea in the mid-1950s.

This 1959 Encyclopedia Britannica Film explores the lives and actions of Vikings, also called Norsemen or Northmen. While perhaps slightly romanticized, the film attempts to depict the Vikings’ travels and impact on history, by showing their traditions, explorations, their raiding and pillaging of their neighbors, and their eventual conversion to Christianity. The film also portrays the daily life of Vikings, including people plowing fields, harvesting hay, grinding grain, and men making tools and doing metalwork. This is followed by a map and animation of the furthest Viking explorations including to North America and through Russia to Constantinople. The film concludes with the departure of a Viking longship.

Bulandra the miner explores the underground and wins gold from its inhabitant, an old spirit. Little does he know that the Devil will cause mischief to him once he gets out.

A man's life progress illustrated by images from vintage postcards, magazine advertisements and posters.

A free flow from photography to geometric abstraction hand-painted by Breer. Alternate version.

High Voltage is constructed from footage James Whitney contributed to Belson for use in one of his Vortex concerts.

Documentary from British Transport Films

A group of motorcycle guys play strip poker that somehow results in them all wrestling.

A little girl tricks a nasty boy into thinking that the "rocketship" she built has taken him to the moon.

A lonely man wanders the streets of contemporary Warsaw. He reads the daily press, observes women in a beauty salon and follows the action on a film set. In each of the places he is just an observer, not a protagonist.

Documentary short by Bernhard Dörries.

In the hands of another director, the inner-workings of a magnet laboratory could have caused a whole classroom to fall asleep of boredom. No so when Leacock was hired to produce this twenty-minute version of lab mayhem. Try this: six researchers in a lab at MIT in the late 1950's show-off the power of electro-magnets, and in the process, accidentally set an experiment on fire. Or this: half way through the film the phone rings off screen, and host Francis Bitter says "tell 'em I'll call 'em back later" while he's looking at the camera, discussing bus bars. Leacock’s fleshed out all the personalities here, from "Beans" Bardo, who cranks up the generator to nearly explosive proportions, to the mysterious Mr. Lin, who barely peeks over his shoulder at us, seemingly in mockery, disdain, or curiosity.

Spring is here, and the cuckoo leads the children to fly to the mountain village as in previous years, calling "cuckoo", "cuckoo", wanting to remind people to sow grain seeds quickly. Its cry attracted good-natured ridicule from many animals and birds. They all said that it was late this year, and people had already sown the grain seeds, and now the seedlings have grown.

Marc Adrian´s FILMBLOCK 0 paces out the foundations of a ritual of self-realization. With its matte surfaces (colorful leader) and easily visible splices – before the production of a negative, the film fell apart at the taped places with every presentation – Black Movie I stands at the beginning of this development, while Black Movie II with its gleaming, painstakingly made colors and sparklingly clean “cuts” marks the conclusion. Both films by themselves do not tell us anything. They are colors in space and time and nothing more, experiences of different materialities. Together, considering the three films that come between them, they tell the tale of the acquisition of a confidence and strength in craftsmanship, and with this a deeper understanding of the medium – a clarity.

A snowman carries a freezing child to shelter.

Jinshan Restaurant's business is bleak, and no one cares about the lobster dinner. The boss accidentally saw news in the newspaper that a group of Red Party members were rounded up at a certain hotel gathering, so he spread the false news that the Red Party members would hold a secret meeting at Jinshan Restaurant...

About a widow and her childhood difficulties, the film tells about the help for education, which Mothers' Aid provides after-school women with children, and at the same time touches other sides of the institution.

1959 - a great year of success for Aston Martin winning at Le Mans, Nurburgring and the Tourist Trophy

In a coastal town in the south of Thailand, a giant ape nicknamed King Kong terrorizes villagers and abducts a local girl to a forest, prompting a frantic rescue mission by the town sheriff and a fugitive bandit. Tamone Prai is an example of a regional film made by an amateur filmmaker that was popular in Thailand in the 1950s. Thamrong Rujanaphand shot the 16mm film in the south of Thailand, a predominantly Muslim region with Malay ancestry. The film has a simple, almost naive storyline typical of homemade movies of those days and features scenes that are as humorous as they are likely to raise eyebrows of present-day audiences. However, it also captures the authentic vibe and scenery of Thailand's south. The film's central attraction is the giant ape nicknamed King Kong, clearly inspired by the classic film of that title. Thamrong was also an amateur taxidermist, and his skill in creating stuffed creatures was obviously utilised in the film.

Mel, a high school student who thrives on gossip and stirring conflict, pushes his luck when he targets the school’s star quarterback. Faced with the backlash of loyal classmates, he may finally be forced to reckon with the harm his words cause.