Cinematic Era: 1971 Vintage

This 16mm film uses animation, recycled newsreel footage and experimental techniques to convey the dark moods the film maker was experiencing at the time which was 1971.

A cinematic confrontation between old people, who are wandering around and are lost, and the youth, who are in a hurry to move on. (DFI)

Directed by Datta Keshav. With Raja Gosavi.

Janubhau and his wife Radha decide to get Janubhau's younger brother, Vinayak, married to the daughter of Tatya Khot. However, they feel dejected as Vinayak decides to marry Kusum instead.

A group of teens try a ritual but soon after get freaked out. In the coming days, the ritual starts to unexpectedly complete itself putting them in greater danger.

Diving off the Old Bridge as a rite of passage for a boy in the city of Mostar.

Rosiine Kartau tells about her life, work and activities as the head of the Vasula state farm.

A Vietnamese animated film about a little girl and her cat.

An account of the preparations for the staging of Régis Debray’s Notes on Gramsci directed by Stanisław Tym. A group of international students gathered at Warsaw’s 'Stodoła' club discuss philosophy and politics accompanied by the music of Włodzimierz Nahorny’s quartet.

A document of the Nihon Gen'yasai Sanrizuka, a two-day experimental festival held in support of the Narita Airport Struggle, in 1971.

Short film about hedgehogs.

Sue Ford was one of the first feminist photographers and filmmakers in Australia, initiating her practice during the early 1960s in Melbourne. An active member of many feminist film co-operatives, her works explore Australian identity and feminism, excavating the effects of Australia’s colonial past through playful, innovative and experimental films. In Low deposit, easy terms, Ford interrogates Australia’s obsession with car culture, but instead of open Outback roads, the viewer tours inner-city car dealerships, home garages and junkyards where life struggles to grow. — ACMI

1971 documentary about the concentration camp Sachsenhausen commissioned for the National Memorial and Monument Sachsenhausen (GDR).

In a sequence shot around a drawing board the protagonist (Pettena himself, recently graduated architect) does anything but design: he trims his nails, stretches his back, takes slips of paper and money out of his billfold, scratches an ear, lights a cigarette.

Robotic presentation of the myth of Sisyphus.

Laff Story: Directed by F.H. Constantino. With Chiquito, Nida Blanca, Rod Navarro, Nova Villa.

Documentary about contamination of the air and other forms of pollution, costing Britain £400 million a year, which are countered by smoke elimination programmes and the use of natural gas, fuel research and other measures.

A long red banner billows in the wind.

A film by Paul-Armand Gette.

A reference to the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli, who died mysteriously on December 15, 1969, while held at the Milan Police Headquarters for an investigation following a bomb explosion.

Teddy narrates a snapshot of his life in Watts, California in 1971. He describes his relationship to religion, education, and radical politics, as well as his family and social life, against a backdrop of his neighborhood. He talks candidly about the War in Vietnam, the devaluation of education for Black young people, and the recent raid on the Black Panther Party Headquarters, with a clear-eyed sense of injustice. Social Seminar Film produced by the University of California at Los Angeles Extension Media Center for the National Institute of Mental Health. Preserved by the A/V Geeks from the Prelinger Archives.

The world seen as a vast carnival, in which the clowns imitate the greed and avarice of human beings. Experimental animation film, using cut-out figures to reflect and symbolise human traits.

The film was a long and difficult job, even dirty and melancholic, even cheerful for certain forgotten finds, like raking an undergrowth forgotten for years, where you find the dry leaves of the time, rotten mushrooms and a few flowers. We set out to collect everything, the reels of perfect copies (few), the mysterious rolls of film and the dirty clips: we had placed the slow motion video and the projector in the centre, the stuff was all around, well ordered or in heaps or scattered.

Shot at the first Earth Day in 1970, this new release features Allen Ginsberg reflecting on the state of American culture and society at the end of the 60s. In April 1970 the first Earth Day in Philadelphia was actually a week of celebrations for Mother Earth. This film was shot in and around the city, with cameo appearances and observations by the likes of Terry Southern, Jerry Rubin, mayor John Lindsay, and Wavy Gravy. But the film features Allen Ginsburg, both at the main event on Belmont Plateau and during a van ride across Pennsylvania, in which he riffs on American culture and society, at a meal at HoJo's and reading a poem on the banks of the Susquehanna. The talk is of polarization and the battle for the soul of America. Fifty years later, the argument goes on.

Documentary based on painter Augusto Rivera.

Archive footage of the University of St Andrews in 1971 gives an insight into what it was like to be a student at the University over 40 years ago.

The documentary is a record of a marriage ceremony that took place in April 1971 and was performed in accordance with Ainu traditions at the request of the young bride. There were two hurdles to overcome in the realization of the ceremony: first, a group of Ainu had to be convinced, who were against a revival of the tradition. Secondly, there were only a few members of the community who knew the details of the ceremony at all, since most of them had already been celebrating a wedding in their own style for over 80 years.

A film by Pino Passalacqua.

Life on a plot of land in Petralona in three seasons of the year. An amusement park is set up in an alana in the fall, the plot is deserted in the winter, and in the spring it serves as a stadium where the school's gymnastics demonstrations take place, which during the Junta become another tool of disorientation from the regime. A composition of moments of life as it flows in one of the then less glittering corners of the capital, where a space acquires its own essence. The passage of time sculpts the character of a piece of land, leaving its marks on it, just as it would on a person. Moments of joy and vitality give way to a rainy melancholy, like mood swings at the change of seasons. Until interest, an external force, dissolves everything during the construction of a building. The end is inexorable and inevitable.

A story about a film crew along with young actors and actresses going on a trip on a ferry.

This film is in memory of the film-maker's father. –S. E.

A wonderful and humorous example of early image processing, Parry Teasdale and Carol Vontobel perform to camera as their faces are morphed together, forming an image of one person. The exercise is repeated by Nancy Cain and Skip Blumberg as the music speeds up.

Camera person unknown, 1971, B&W, silent, 18 min. Courtesy of Kumiko Matsuzawa. This film documents actions performed for World Uprising by Taii Ashizawa and Taku Furusawa, who worked together as Satsuma Workshop. According to the art magazine Bijutsu Techō, Ashizawa acting on behalf of the Interstellar Vibration Association and conducted an Earth Sound Transmission Ritual consisting of three parts. In Ritual One, four people respond to the four fundamental elements (fire, water, earth, air) and emanate earth sounds through psychokinesis. In Ritual Two, the sound of the earth is transmitted via radio waves. Ritual Three shows the sound of the earth extinguished in a fire on an altar, and reproduced and transmitted into outer space through the wisdom of a fire deity. The film documents Ritual One, as well as Taku Furusawa is performing Ritual One / EVENT at the same site and going into convulsions.

"I strike the first pair of tuning forks on the edge of a table, raise and point them close to the microphone for their audible duration. they are placed in the middle of the frame in back of the mic. and the second pair is picked up repeating the same action. After the fourth pair has completed its duration, the sequence is repeated but this time they are placed outside the fame on each side. There is a third repetition where the forks remain, placed in the middle in back of the microphone. A simple scale progression is completed. The sound is recorded on audio tape separate from the film, so the sound and image gradually move apart. After the last pair is struck and positioned, the image goes blank and the sound continues for the amount of time difference between the image and audio." - David Askevold

"Bruce Benton's four‐minute “Sympathy for the Devil” uses the classic Rolling Stones recording to lend a sort of frayed irony to a collage of news reel shots of President Nixon, the Vietnam war, Gov. George C. Wallace, riots, Billy Graham and lots of other ducks that aren't sitting as much as they are lying down, exhausted." - Vincent Canby, New York Times, Nov. 19th, 1971

"An elaborately structured and miserably acted unveiling of how ruinous people are, it looks like nothing so much as a rich kids' meditation on the vanity of life—from the point of view of a posh Manhattan townhouse." - Roger Greenspun, New York Times review Oct. 19th, 1971 David Wise, the son of Electronic Arts Intermix founder Howard Wise and producer Barbara Wise, was a child prodigy whose pre-adolescent films led him to be described by Jonas Mekas as "the Mozart of Cinema." The young Wise would be trained in stop frame animation by Stan Van der Beek, before going on to his later career as a successful writer of science fiction film and television.

“Chop” is the bad dream of a French prisoner condemned to death and fearing the guillotine.

A play on the colour, form and movement of two simple figures: a flower and a star. The effect is gay and lively, a constant surprise, but the movement has a mathematical precision as multiples of the figures form sets or ensembles, forming and reforming on the screen in absorbing, piquant harmony.

A rigorous portrait at the dawn of the 1970s, created by the future assistant director of the film Salomè. Filmed "in secret," at the actor's request, the documentary is an extraordinary testimony to particular moments in his working and public life.

Short film.

A1 Directions A2 Honky Tonk A3 What I Say B1 Sanctuary B2 It's About That Time B3 Funky Tonk

Sven Elfström (1927-2017) was a full-time manual labourer who started off as a welder at the shipyards in Uddevalla. Eventually he moved to the industrial city of Nynäshamn, south of Stockholm, to work at the manufacturing workshops of the state telecommunications company, Televerket. Elfström began shooting 8mm films at an amateur film club in Uddevalla. When moving to Nynäshamn he acquired a 16mm camera. Most of the eleven films that he made in this format are shot in Nynäshamn; the actors in these films were friends and family. The films were self-financed, shot and edited by himself, often on reversal film stock as this was the cheapest way to make a film. This means that usually neither negatives nor additional copies exist of these films, but merely one original print. UTVECKLING? starts with a fierce critique against capitalism, consumerism and man’s exploitation of the world.

1971 Album and Live Video Shows

A description of two nude bodies.

This short documentary pictures Abadan city in southern Iran in the early 70s and how the National Oil Industry development has affected its progress.

Interviews and images from the work and leisure time of guest workers in the Federal Republic are combined into a militant appeal for solidarity.

A look at the design and production of various products.

A Film by Keiji Uematsu.

Ahmad Agha Shahr-e Farangi is facing a market slump. The existence of cinema and television has greatly reduced his customers. In order to earn a living, he goes to an unfamiliar village at the beginning of the protected area of Semnan province, which is not far from Tehran. Upon arrival, he encounters extreme poverty and sad stories in the village. The behavior of village’s children is not predictable for Ahmad Agha. Their fear of this stranger and his strange device does not prevent them from approaching it to arouse curiosity….

Experimental film by Hans Esselius.

"A voyage into red cabbage and shells. Shells transform themselves into orange canyons. Cabbage as the universe! A painter's film. Soundtrack: the sound of the sculptures of the Baschet brothers." - RS

A chance meeting with contemporary dancer Ishi Kamamoto during a visit to London led to the filmmaker shooting the performer’s improvised dance in natural light alongside a canal which Crawford later edited when he returned to San Francisco. “With Window Dance I explored how any image contains aspects of a “surface” to look at and a “window” to look through.”

Influenced by the early theories of Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), in Needle at Sea Bottom I sought to create and implied time and space not found in either of the component images…the power of still awareness is literally depicted…. The film’s title is taken from the name of a specific named movement in the Tai Chi Chuan.

Documentary on the construction of the Croatian A1 motorway

This film depicts a man in search of a relationship. However, after experiencing a number of situations, he realizes that the true relationship is with himself.