Cinematic Era: 1975 Vintage

"The first film in which I was a scriptor, actor and director. Many thanks for my schoolmates who kindly cooperated to appear in this movie." -Teruo Koike

Four million Tiv people form the major culture of the Benue state of southern Nigeria. They are popularly known as the greatest democrats in Africa as their society is based on fraternal cooperation between age mates rather than on authoritative chieftaincy. Men of an age work together on communal farming and house building and celebrate their achievements with feasts famed for the excellence of their music and dance. Their women create amongst the greatest dances in Nigeria within their extended family compounds. Each year, during the dry season, when there is little farm work, the leaders of the dance teams compose songs to record recent experiences and new features in their lives which they express in the rhythms and gestures of their dance.

This documentary is about the Ijo people of Nigeria. The performance is a celebration of the Ijo hero Ozidi.

At Munich’s central station, after years spent working in factories in several German cities, a worker from Serbia boards a train and heads south, to Belgrade. The protagonist recollects his impressions of the cities and the state he worked in, speaks of new insights and habits he acquired and thus says goodbye to Germany: Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

A BAFTA award winning documentary depicting the opening of the North Sea Forties oil field by HM Queen Elizabeth II.

A BAFTA award nominated documentary illustrating the many and varied uses of pigments in the home, industry etc.

Three Dog Night on Soundstage, Chicago in 1975. Setlist: One-- The Family Of Man-- Shambala-- An Old Fashion Love Song-- 'Till The World Ends-- Try A Little Tenderness-- Pianola Rag-- Pieces Of April-- Eli's Coming-- Celebrate-- The Show Must Go On-- Joy To The World

A microfilm camera rendered the data into a 16mm film. It was a very painful experience at the time, because an adequate technology for making films with a computer was not yet developed.

Hannah Wilke, upon Tschinkel's suggestion, cuts fellow artist, Claes Oldenburg's hair, which is taped for Tschinkel's Manhattan Cable TV show, Inner-Tube Video. This memorable piece reflects a caring relationship.

“Westbeth” was Cunningham’s first video collaboration with Charles Atlas, and the first video project to be made at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio on the eleventh floor of Westbeth.

The riverbanks are dotted with food stalls and buzzing with the parasol-holding crowd. Everyone is here to watch the exciting dragon boat race. Voice-over narration in melodic Taiwanese describes pre-festival preparation, and the celebrations and rituals in various parts of Taiwan. Through carefully-crafted script and well-executed camerawork, this documentary gives a vibrant portrait of ordinary people’s lives in a festive atmosphere.

Zhonggang, a former commercial harbour in Miaoli County once suffering from sedimentation and decline, thrived again with its joss paper (ghost money) industry. Almost every family was part of it: Different generations worked together, attaching gold foils and stamping the paper in red ink, before sending it to dry. When massive stacks of golden joss paper basked in the sun, the town seemed to be covered in dreamy golden waves.

Animated short film by Simon Feldman, based on his story "Juan el zorro".

Stop motion animation short film made with hundreds of styrofoam cubes lined with coloured cardboard.

A film shot in New York City in one day, on September 13, 1975, the 4th anniversary of the massacre at Attica prison. The narration presents a case that the brutal assault was cold-blooded and senseless, causing an avoidable tragedy. Handheld footage of the city provides a backdrop as Macdonald recounts the events of the rebellion, focusing in particular on Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s refusal to negotiate and his role in escalating the conflict that resulted in 43 deaths. Both a screed against political power and a memorial to those who lost their lives, Still Attica Remains details some of the horrors of prison— unfortunately relevant today as it was in 1975.

It is based on real testimonies of six women from different social strata that reflect the misery, anger, repressed and silent suffering, as well as the illusion, the dream and the ideal.

Twin brothers are born on the same day that a murder occurs. The twins separate from each other; one is adopted into a rich family while the other remains poor. Several years pass when the poor twin begins to fall in love with a rich man's daughter named Pkah Thgall Meas. The couple faces many adversities from a cruel wealthy man. It is up to the rich twin to save the life of his poor twin brother and his love Pkah Thgall Meas.

Short work.

Nicky is a blind boy who also suffers from cerebral palsy. This film shows him at home with his family and at school with his friends. Nicky attends a normal school because his parents feel that he would benefit more by being in the mainstream.

Rich and subtle tones of gray and black as defined by the shapes and forms of a New York City rooftop. This is contrasted with the movement of a pair of legs in a claustrophobic New York apartment as sounds from the street and neighboring apartments invade and finally dominate the setting. –R. C.

Alibabayum 41 Kallanmaarum is a 1975 Indian Malayalam film, directed by J. Sasikumar and produced by M. J. Kurien. The film stars Prem Nazir, Jayabharathi, Bahadoor, KP Ummer, Vidhubala, Adoor Bhasi and Thikkurissi Sukumaran Nair in the lead roles. The film has a musical score by G. Devarajan.

A conceptual museum fantasy.

Orpheus (the artist) searches for Eurydice (immortality) in New York (his own underworld). Densely textured, pervaded by feeling of baroque imagery.

On the sculptural work of the Austrian Günter Häese based on objects that vibrate at the slightest breath. The works of this artist allude to the natural elements of air, fire, water and earth, which is why abstract images, in negative, of the four elements, are combined with those created by the sculptor.

A portrait of Lima’s street mechanics.

Film transfer of "Hōkūleʻa, Star of Gladness," directed by Tip Davis in 1975. This documentary covers the birth of Hōkūleʻa; from the waʻa (canoe) being built to its first launch at Hakipuʻu/Kualoa across the archipelago. Features Herb Kane, Ben Finney, and other Polynesian Voyaging Society members; Sam Kaʻai.

A short film composed of shots of the sea surface.

Shows how America's energy crisis happened and what possibilities the future holds. Examines some solutions through the development of coal, oil, and natural gas resources. Looks at nuclear, geothermal, and solar energy, and stresses the importance of conservation.

A population close to Brasília receives a group of people from the big city that tries to recover lost elements of the local culture

"Even though I can't explain why, a film that moves me deeply each time I see it ... enchanting!" – Stan Brakhage

Miss Nose and her class engage in drawings in an absurdist animation.

Black on White Tape begins with the camera pointing down at the floor where a roll of white tape is laid on top of a roll of black tape. Haxton enters the frame, picks up the white tape,and beginning at the lower left of the frame, tapes a line up along the left frame. He draws a line on the right,and then horizontal lines at the bottom and top, making a trapezoid. The re-iteration of horizontal and vertical frame lines inside the picture emphasizes the flatness of the projected image against the three-dimensionality of the experience of the room interior. There appears to be perceptual distortion: the top horizontal is wider than the bottom one, destroying the conventional perspective of spatial representation and reinforcing the flatness of the frame. This equivocation between flatness and spatiality is intensified by a cut to negative.

Overlapping Planes, all in negative image, begins with a completely white frame. A dark line appears at the top, proceeding downward: the surface of the paper is being cut from behind by Haxton. Two more incisions are made behind and then two alternate strips of paper are cut off horizontally and removed. Haxton then cuts incisions in a sheet of black paper hanging behind the sheet of white, directly behind the two missing slats. When he removes these, the frame is white again. He then cuts off the two white strips remaining in front, revealing the two posterior strips of black he had left. Finally, he removes these black strips so that the frame is white again. The film works with the relation between the flatness of the projected film and the depth one reads into a known spatial context.

Presents a series of goofy romantic and pseudo-professional interludes among its all-male cast in the guise of a soap opera TV spot. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

The zoom lens - with its ability to bring the distance close, then throw it back again - is the protagonist in John Du Cane’s film. Its action here is combined with a time exposure on each film frame. Thus both time and distance are compressed within the same image. ‘I wanted the viewer to be pretty conscious that what they’re seeing is not something that exists on celluloid; that there’s a way it’s manufactured in the viewing process.’ John Du Cane 2002

A super 8 film conceived and shot by my friend Franklin Johnson around 1975 with additional footage shot by me. Features our longtime friend Marlis Spauchus ( Dunn ). Music by Terry Riley.

In this short documentary, Davidovich examines censorship in Argentina. As an expatriate living in New York, he reflects on his own "artistic exile" and the "empty homeland at the back of his mind."

A portrait of a contemporary, artist and drug user.

"I was 17, cynical and commenting on my 'youth'. The scenes were set-up but ultimately improvised. The party scene was real and documented with a couple of cameras. It is reasonably accurate to the situation." –RM

A student is holding the headmaster of his school captive at gunpoint to denounce its selectioncriteria.

Film of "Dropped Objects" falling from 8,000 ft. altitudes with skydivers as performers. This film of a conceptual artist's work is a document of Skyworks but also meant to be expressive as an art film. A film of meditation revealing the cosmic breath as Skyworks pieces fall at the rate of 120 to 135 miles per hour. A breathing language of light and knowledge. Performance-controlled flight. Gyres cycling in and out - the mystic spiral. A perception of light and space as energy lines alter the environment temporarily. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

16mm, color, sound, 10 minutes. The filmmaker performs her solitary act of cleaning. A static camera tightly frames the studio sink, dirty with paint and other residue while the artist engages in a concerted ritual of scrubbing and scraping … a treatise on the over-cleanliness of certain reductivist gestures in history of art making. (1975)

"Light Shaft" diagonally crosses the screen with a wedged light formation, usually on the diagonal. Its variations are rendered through arrangements of the tripod while panning the camera. Limiting the viewer's attention to a smaller screen, a point in space, allows for a certain confusion as to whether the rest of the (dark) screen blends itself into the surrounding blackness or is just a window into it.

New York State Primaries shows stenciled lettering that dissolve between the words, “red,” “blue,” and “green” but don’t create secondary colors. The film is a response to Saul Levine’s 1972 NOTE: CHICAGO REDS AND BLUES.

Emil is tying up bags at the post office when luck smiles on him one day. He is asked to fill in for a colleague who is ill and is allowed to try his hand at the counter. Anyone who knows Emil knows that such an undertaking can only go wrong.

16mm color documentary based on fieldwork William Ferris conducted with gospel singer and folk healer Fannie Bell Chapman and her family in Centreville, Mississippi in the early 1970s. Footage includes Chapman and her daughters singing and praying during church services and at home, a healing service at the Chapman home, and Chapman "speaking in tongues" after healing. Members of the Chapman family also discuss the development of their faith, the call to heal and sing the Christian gospel, and their lives singing together.

An ironic insight into the cultural politics of Hungary's Kádár-era.

A film with no dialogue, depicts the story of four youngsters living in communion with nature, an idyllic life that is drastically changed when a U.S. satellite crashes in the area and attracts the attention of journalists and TV crews that come to destroy the peace of the place.

A short Christmas animation produced by Sheila Graber based on the traditional carol ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. The film focuses on Santa Claus as he introduces each of the twelve days to comic effect.