Cinematic Era: 1977 Vintage

Jorge Luis Borges and William F. Buckley interview

The Divided Trail: A Native American Odyssey is a 1978 American short documentary film directed by Jerry Aronson. Filmed over eight years, this chronicles the personal and political hardships faced by three Chippewa Indians. It was nominated in 1978 for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

"CETOLOGY is a strange and beautiful exploration of a psychic space - an interior world. The title refers to the study of whales, the sound track uses the haunting calls of the Right Whale. The film itself was shot in the Chicago subway and elevated systems. The editing generates shifting spaces and overlapping times, evoking the mythic realms of Jonah and the Whale, Orpheus and Hades, and Ahab's obsessive search." - Bill Judson, Carnegie Museum of Art

In this documentary, join Ian Whitcomb, an ex-British rock personality now living in Hollywood, as he takes a tongue in cheek tour of the city of angels.

Short experimental film featuring a large animated Coca-Cola billboard, shot from different distances, frame rates, and exposures. "The Pause That Refreshes" was first introduced as a marketing slogan for Coca-Cola in 1929.

How the human right to freedom, dignity and inviolability are represented in practice - from the Middle Ages to the present day.

A romance between a wealthy man and a woman who sells smuggled clothes turns sour.

Directorial debut by Klaus Hofmann and Bernd Siebert, shot on 8mm.

A man who decides to take his family, consisting of his wife and daughter, to the cinema. This deprived the people sitting behind him from watching the movie, as he reserved the screen for himself, leading to various problems.

Recovered Zulueta short.

Recovered Zulueta short.

A film portrait of the poet Ojars Vacietis.

"I relocated to the Redwoods of Sonoma County upon graduation and in that relocation process the animation for Sonoma began. The design was built around the concept of the long wide horizontal 'pan' shot to express the concept of a dynamic landscape that passes across the screen like a traditional Chinese Scroll Painting. The deep personal meaning relates to the 'relocation' that was occurring within my own being after having done 2½ terms of active combat in the jungle as a carrier enlisted with the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army" -D. Pies. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

The voice-over of “Boyfriend 2”, a manifesto for the liberation of adolescent sexuality, intertwines texts by Pasolini, Soukaz, Duvert, Matzneff, while initiating a unique reflection around the relationships between image and pornography, which will soon face a third term called “censorship”.

Time and movement have traditionally been used to establish the illusion of space in film. In this film I have tried to de-emphasize both these illusionary properties by altering the space within the camera rather than the space in front.

A funny chronicle of the São Paulo middle class in the 1970s, based on a simple but effective premise: a primary school class meeting, 20 years later. Retrato de Classe starts from a photo of the junior class of a private school, in a middle class neighborhood of São Paulo. He searches for and gathers former colleagues and a teacher, in order to recreate the group's trajectories, to draw the profile of the country's metropolitan bourgeoisie. A country in crisis and a middle class that was experiencing the collapse of the economic miracle. Frustrations, desires, prejudice and futility are part of this universe of people and their life trajectories.

An early experimental abstract animation, made by drawing directly on to 16mm film.

I am just a rambling guy - here today, gone tomorrow. Sitting in the back of Dan's french car. French woman going to NYC for the first time. Reflections of the car - now static. Chicago as seen from Gunnar Juhansson's and Ruby Rich's apartment. N.B. Project at 18fps.

A dying mother leaves her orphan son to her only brother who brings up his nephew with love and care. The nephew grows up with a lot of values. One day the Uncle strikes it rich and is then hounded by a woman who seduces him for his money. This is see by the nephew but the Uncle does not understand. Now starts the job of the nephew to get this woman out of his uncles's life and show his uncle what she really is.

Eight part series co-produced by David Frost.

Based on the life of Heo Jun. The son of a low-level politician, Heo Jun studied medicine. He soon became more sought-after than his teacher and his social status was officially increased until he was granted nobility and allowed to be the king's personal physician. Surviving several plots against him by the jealous nobles, Heo Jun eventually succumbs to the black plague.

A girl uses spiritualism to escape her loneliness and neurasthenia. Inspired by practices more or less close to magic, she tries to create two characters that will be part of herself. She will be able to live without being alone, while fleeing the external reality. But little by little, the two beings that she created appear to be detached from her, as if the figure three could not agree to the harmony of the group. Her fantasies seem to turn against her, increasing her sense of isolation.

A film based on a legend telling where the salt in the sea came from

The Myth of Inkarri is a short film shot on 35mm high-contrast black and white film. Using the traditional stop-motion technique, the 17th-century drawings of chronicler Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala were reused without alteration to produce the famous myth of Inkarri. The short film narrates and recreates scenes in which the Spanish decapitate Inkarri and take his head to Lima; according to the legend, the head is alive and when it is reunited with the other parts of the body, a new Inca will be formed.

A meditation on the intersection of Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous American existence.

A propaganda political film.

A celebration of inter-city trains, from British Transport Films.

An educational cartoon about what to do when mom is not at home and dad is in charge.

Berlinale Forum of New Cinema winner.

The daily life of Luanda's orphans, the child soldiers who took part in Angola's war of independence. Now that their country has been liberated, they work in the sugar cane and palm oil factories. Lopes, aged 10, forms an orchestra and sings A luta continua, the rallying cry that also covers the painted walls of Luanda.

From Friday to Saturday is not far away, if only one turns ... signpost.

A performance of Joseph Haydn's Hour Symphony is interrupted several times within half an hour.

The first professional animated film by Petr Sís, who later became the great children's author-illustrator Peter Sís after emigrating to America. Based on an odd satiric story by Miloš Macourek; purportedly banned in Czechoslovakia upon its release.

This documentary by director Paul Cowan is about four athletes and a team that competed in the 1976 Olympics. They had trained courageously to be among those who would mount the podium to receive a medal. None of them did, but was it worth the effort? I'll Go Again answers the question.

A BAFTA award nominated reworking of a 1957 documentary using models and animation to explain the need to mix air and petrol in the correct proportions to create an efficient fuel for an engine.

"But my class in Töhötöm Street could wait until I had finished my explanation even after ringing the bell! I bet my students on Töhötöm Street didn't confuse the corridor with the football field! Thank God for the "Töhötöm"... Aunt Joli, the young class teacher, often starts her speeches to the 6th grade class this way. She once says: "But the people of Töhötöm Street love music!" The 6.b's self-esteem can't take it any more, and they invite those "famous Dumpling Street kids" to a competition.

A child, two youths, a mother and three crones spin spirals, joining rituals of birth, death and rebirth. Filmed in Mendocino, California, where the water snake appeared on each shooting day, where the river flooded the sand spiral, where earth, air, fire and water met.

Ateng’s tomfoolery saves his employer from a robbery attempt by Bagio and his gang. He succeeds as he knows Bagio’s secret fear of cats. As a result, Bagio constantly targets him especially when he recovers a diamond that Bagio wants. Then Iskak gets a job and falls in love with another servant, Supini. To secure the relationship, Ateng sends a letter Supini’s name to Iskak, and vice versa, thus creating more comedic confusion.

In Vanishing Point Left, the "vanishing point" is an analogy for the metaphysics of watching the video screen, which assumes such forms as a mandala, flower or gyre.

Drifter finds a steady job, meets a woman, settles down.

When actress Elfriede Irrall wants to make a film about her mother Erika Trojan in 1977, she is skeptical at first, but then ready to talk. Erika Trojan speaks surprisingly openly of her life in Vienna, of National Socialism, of family constraints and the desire for liberation, of love and sexuality. The explosiveness and timeliness of the result are without comparison.

Music by Albert E. Miller. Combination of musicians and dancers in free form movements captured by computer-controlled-video which permits distortions and variations of the imagery. Continued experimentation with Rock Music and performers.

Sculptor Makolies is filmed working on a sculpture in the middle of a quarry in Swiss Saxony. The quarry workers go about their work around him. Both the work in the quarry and the work on the large figure in sandstone require strenght and conscientiousness. This film observers both types of work, without comparing them.

Bollywood 1977

Metaphor about art, about time, or how art uses the artist's life in his quest to create his work, in which he was pouring his talent, his vigor, and the best years of his life.

In Silk [James Herbert] films a man and a woman, exploding the quality of silk out of the house into the back yard, where everything becomes a sheen of texture. It too has great sensuosity, but it’s like tearing silk, like being up against silk, your face wrapped in it as you watch the screen. (Stan Brakhage)