Cinematic Era: 1970 Vintage

A video piece by Ed Emshwiller

Early short film directed by Gillian Armstrong.

A businessman tired of work and his family life decides to escape for a weekend without any given plan. In a gas station he meets Natalia, a girl bored of his father, who is also trying to escape from a conventional existence. Together they get to a little coastal town, where the inevitable happens.

A motley cast of characters offer their thoughts on what’s most important in life. Experimental short film preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

The story of a 21-year-old girl who was disillusioned with life until she went to Cuba to help with the sugar harvest and found a purpose in life in committing herself to the struggle against social injustice.

1971 Czech experimental short by Petr Skala

A story of an artist entertainer who swallowed razors, glasses, records, light bulbs, nails, forks and everything else hard to swallow. Cannibalism and auto-cannibalism included.

An intruder interrupts the monotony of life by causing disaster.

Part of BFI's "National Coal Board Collection".

Love blossoms between Rabah and her cousin Mosbah, but when a man who aids the French occupation kidnaps her, Mosbah's attempt to rescue her fails. As he gets arrested and sentenced to three years in prison, he vows revenge.

Beautiful Radha lives in a small hill-station in India. One day, Mahesh comes for sight-seeing, both meet, fall in love with each other, get intimate, and Mahesh promises to return, marry her and take her with him to live in Bombay. He does not return, Radha continues to search for him in every train that stops at Shampur, in vain. She eventually gives birth to a baby girl, Laxmi, and both are looked after by Shampur's kind-hearted Station Master. Radha does come across Mahesh, but he refuses to recognize her, and she kills herself. The Station Master takes Laxmi to her next of kin, in all two families, but all reject Laxmi, consider her inauspicious, and will have nothing to do with her. He leaves Laxmi with her maternal grand-parent, Bhagwanti and her husband, but Laxmi is abused and she runs away to Bombay, where she is befriended and looked after by a blind beggar, Anwar.

Florence "Florrie" Fisher was a motivational speaker in the 1960s and 1970s who traveled to high schools in the United States, speaking about her past as a heroin addict and prostitute.

The violinist gets lost in the jungle, but the magical sounds of the violin enchant wild animals and save the violinist's life.

The film is a remake of the director's own 1969 Telugu movie Jarigina Katha.

Experimental short by Ivan Martinac.

“With this lavish colour production of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman, we are in more conventional, though never dull, territory. It is a handsome, well sung version which stands up well to the contemporary BBC 2 version that graced our screens a Christmas or two ago. (This, too, was a Christmas-time, prestige production). The production and adaptation is by Václav Kaslic, who has produced the opera many times on stage: here he makes imaginative use of the new medium to overcome difficulties inherent in some stories. He has a fine cast, including Jon Piso as a robust Hoffman[,] Sylvia Geszty, Thomas Tipton and Herold Kraus. The orchestra and chorus are from the Bavarian State Opera.” - Brian Baxter, for the BFI.

Shows how a pioneer family of the early 1800's selected a site, built a log cabin, cooked, made soap and candles and did other household tasks.

A record of the Anpo Treaty and Okinawa struggles of 1968 to 1970. Part 1: '68.10.21 to '69.5.31; Part 2: '69.6.8 to '69.11.17; Part 3: '69.12.1 to '70.6.23

Life at Fettes College, Edinburgh.

Thai horror film.

Hikokazu is walking around selling watermelons when he meets Chuemon, a family retainer, in front of a castle. He was looking for someone with wisdom, as he was troubled by an envoy from a neighboring country who was making unreasonable demands. Hikokazu decides to cooperate with Chuemon on the promise that he will buy all the watermelons.

A documentary on the tomb of Imam Reza, the 8th Imam in Shia Islam. The film shows the various rituals performed by visiting pilgrims alongside "behind the scenes" footage of the management of such a heavily trafficked facility, including spectacular images of the laborious and ceremonious process of sorting piles of money and objects (letters, human hair) that devotees throw inside the tomb for good fortune.

A film on the life of the shepherd tribe of Himachal Pradesh.

Documentary about young earthquake victims in Banja Luka.

For several years, Arina, her father Valeri, Nicolai, Roman have been coming to the natural reserve of Stolby, situated a few kilometers away from the city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, fleeing the rough day-to-day life of their hometown and come here to rest, dance, climb and talk for hours.

This is a film made without a camera. The images are painted directly onto 16mm clear leader. Patton was particularly interested in the organic shapes that resulted from mixing chemically dissimilar spray paints.

Early Barbara Hammer film shot on Super 8mm in color and silent.

An evocative 16mm short shot during a visit to Nepal.

The first videotape that Ralph Hocking decided to keep, a dive into the performative immediacy of the then-new video technology and its potential to create new senses of time.

Hedgehog decided to change his fur coat, but no matter how much he measured, he could not find one better than his prickly one.

A man and a woman living in the same pension, but different rooms, grow intimate behind the landlady's back.

The story of four children from around the world who try to rescue the sun from an evil sorcerer.

7th Antalya Film Festival, Best Short Film Award. 1970

Experimental short film by Józef Robakowski & Ryszard Meissner.

Early computer animation.

The burning of the Bank of America in Isla Vista, CA, adjacent to the University of California Santa Barbara

A 8mm b/w film depicting the town of Varese and the director's mother.

Depicts the dynamic, space age surfers of the 1960's who 'feel the juice' of the ocean's swell's. They are 50 of the most well known surfers from around the world.

Between the TV set and viewer, a function exists whereby the user switches on and off the appliance. I have reproduced this function and made it the content of the TV programme. Sandwich character of real process and reproduction process, of reflection and action. On the screen, a series of viewers is seen sitting in front of TV sets. A fault occurs in the last set shown, meaning the next viewer has to get up in order to repair the fault. This repair brings about a disruption in the next viewer’s screen. The disruption propagates itself until it reaches the real TV set, meaning the real viewer has to rise and eliminate the fault. Time delay: the real procedure is the conclusion of the reproduced procedure. (Peter Weibel)

1970, 25:27 min, color, silent, 8mm film on video.

Norwegian short sci-fi based on the novel "The Visitor" by author Ray Bradbury. The story takes place on Mars, which is used as a quarantine for people with deadly illnesses. One day, the planet is visited by a young woman who has the ability to perform thought transference and telepathy. The exiles on the planet are thrilled with his ability and a violent fight breaks out over who will get to spend the most time with their visitor and enjoy the illusionary paradises she can transmit.

Hong Kong film

A young man flees from the authorities in May 1944 until he reaches a house where he can find some help.

This short animated film was shown at the Seiko Pavilion during the 1970 Osaka Expo. It tells the story of a day when time is thrown into chaos by an alien prank, and speaks to the importance of time. The rapid change of the seasons is full of the charm of metamorphosis (the process of changing shape), which Osamu Tezuka loved.

American public-health film. A boatman gets hooked on drugs, which initially make it easier to do his job, but ultimately destroy htim.

Venezuelan feature film by Julio César Mármol.

A Mighty Heroes short.

Probably the greatest Spanish painter of the 17th century, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazques (1599-1660) was a court painter and worked at various courts throughout his life. His famous, Las Maninas, is typical of his work, and shows Princess Margarita and her court with himself painting the scene.