Cinematic Era: 1981 Vintage

A full moon and a flower help to resurrect a ghost from hell.

A study of flowers.

A New Year's Eve musical program.

Filmed with a 16mm spring-wound Bolex camera, this story-driven documentary captures a pivotal moment in the life of the Sepik Iwam people of Hauna Village, deep in the Papua New Guinea jungle. Bible translator Marilyn Laszlo had been living among them for years, joined now by her sister Shirley. As the mission grew, the film introduced light reenactments to convey the depth of transformation taking place. When a neighboring village arrived seeking medical help, what unfolded was both unexpected and profoundly moving.

Through the power of a good barber, The Tramp is reborn in the streets of Recife.

A 16mm film dual projection film by → ↑ → assembled and edited from 16mm reels of advertisements produced for Australian television in the early 70s. A cassette audio narration accompanies the dual projection.

A female escort's fiance rejects her when her profession is revealed.

This televised Christmas special, filmed in Quebec, features the music of Perry Como and a number of guests.

Documentary about the life of transvestites, the difficulties they encounter in a large city like São Paulo, their survival in the face of prejudices and problems experienced as social and sexual marginality.

Outtakes from "Marseille toujours".

“With some exceptions, the Arabics take the idea of the void as their ground. That is, the light we do see almost always seems to be set against darkness, or occasionally against white, these momentary flickers that materialize tenuously out of emptiness. But the darkness is not ‘night,’ or even simply some more abstract absence of light, but a more profound vacuum: it represents a world stripped of all the coordinates of the known, an unmeasurable absence. […] These lushly sensual, pleasurable-to-view films are also terrifying: their unpredictability, continually enacting new dramas of surprise, alternatively swamps the viewer in light and leaves him adrift in darkness.”

An ageing actor leaves the stage in the middle of a Strindberg performance and goes home. He has realized that his life is as sterile as the characters he portrays. He encourages his daughter to pack a few things in the car and he wants to drive off with her. Where to? Why not to Monte Carlo, to tempt their luck? As it turns out during their journey, they have already tempted their luck enough. While father and daughter slowly grow closer again, the goal of Monte Carlo becomes a long way off. But they will not give up, no matter what the cost..

The style is relatively unchanged, but the images--press conferences, news events, disasters--convey his vision of the world in a new, direct, political fashion. Featuring startling footage of the City Hall riots after Councilman Dan White received a light prison sentence for slaying San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, Noblesse Oblige opens a new chapter on Sonbert's career. --David Ehrenstein, LA Reader. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Estate Project for Artists with AIDS in 1998.

This film, photographed in London, is an exploration into the depths of unconscious reactions.

Examining the change of culture in the small island after American television began being broadcast.

Lil Picard, the colorful, outrageous art world personality, performance and collage artist, and critic, tells her story, from Belle Epoque Belle, to Berlin Twenties Cabaret dancer, Thirties journalist and refugee from Hitler's Germany, to her long involvement with the art world and its artists. Lil's story, which she tells with Rousseau-like honesty, reflects the history of the times.

Set in an unspecified Third World country, this animated film, based on a short story by Enver Carim, suggests that "top priority" means different things to governments and to the governed. A drought-stricken family maintains a long and desperate vigil for a cloud of dust on the horizon signalling the arrival of irrigation pipes and pump. They are rewarded with a military convoy instead. Its top priority is a border war with a neighboring state, not pipes for the life-saving water the family must have.

Peer pressure; popularity; to party or not to party. Every high school kid faces it, but Ben and Kim wanted their classmates to know a life centered in Jesus Christ was where the real "highs" in life are experienced.

Documentary about the iconic portrait of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara by Cuban photographer Alberto Diaz Gutiérrez (known as 'Korda').

A filmmaker is trying to get a film called Anita: Dunia Ajaib (Anita: A Strange World) made, all while experiencing goings-on of extraterrestrial proportion in his married life after hiring a mysterious maid.

Hand painted, scratched animated Super 8 film examining the contradictions of the psychopathology of colonization.

Paulin Vieyra captures Ousmane Sembène, one of the greatest filmmakers of Africa, during the filming of Ceddo. L’Envers du Decor was completed after four years of production. As for Ceddo, it would be censored under the Senghor regime and until 1983 by the Senegalese authorities.

A time-capsule of Liverpool in the early 1980s, made by Photoflex Studios to promote tourism in the city.

An amateur short film about a guy who ends up watching over a detonation button.

An off-beat story where a pair of adulterers stir up some action including murder and mayhem.

With a touch of fantasy and a lot of ingenuity, this short fiction film presents the beginnings of a simple love story. Employed in the service of a department store, Pierre-Paul will become a Santa Claus to welcome children during the holiday season. This new job will mark the beginning of a charming adventure.

Set in the early stage after liberation of Shanghai, Chen Yi is delegated to be mayor and deals with a lot of economic and social issues.

Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett reported the Vietnam War from the perspective of the North Vietnamese. For this he was reviled as a traitor and a communist in the Australian media. He had been the first journalist into Hiroshima after the atom bomb, and he covered wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Filmmaker David Bradbury interviews Burchett in his later years and intercuts the interview with archival footage and still photographs. Burchett is seen in newsreel coverage and in footage taken by the North Vietnamese. Archival footage of the Vietnam War and newsreel footage of Hiroshima after the atom bomb enrich the documentary.

Contemporary love story about the confrontation of French and Austrian culture.

Horror short.

Short film about the transformations a village experiences in the course of 40 years.

A film loop included in Artifacts at the End of a Decade, in the collection of the Buffalo AKG.

A guitarist of lower class musical troupe fails to get a job owing to his humble guitar. One day, he earns as much as 83,000 won, and is pleased to go back to his home. On the way to home, he helps Ok-Hee and her mother. But, Ok-Hee's mother steals the money and flees. On the following day, Ok-Hee asks him to return her mother. He and Ok-Hee take a trip here and there, and share sorrow and pleasure with some isolated persons. Ok-Hee steadily forgets the image of her mother who committed wrong things. Instead, Ok-Hee imagines good shape of her mother, which becomes her dream and life objective. In their journey up to the island Jukdo, Ok-Hee discovers that only her mother's light pink colored skirt is left.

The story follows Erwin, who gets Peggy pregnant but refuses to take responsibility, claiming it was just a fling and citing Peggy’s past history of living together unmarried. Peggy refuses when asked to abort the pregnancy. Later, Erwin falls in love with Rosa, whom he also gets pregnant; this time he wants to take responsibility, but his parents disapprove. Eventually, Rosa dies while attempting to abort her pregnancy. Erwin then wishes to marry Peggy, but she refuses. Erwin pursues Peggy until he manages to win her back.

Pink film by Kinya Ogawa.

A Century of Struggle chronicles the hundred-year history of the NZ Seamen’s Union from its formation in 1879. Using original film and archive footage, it examines the working lives of seamen and the battles fought by their union from the sailing ships of colonial days to the modern turbine-powered container vessels. Because the Seamen’s Union was frequently at the forefront of working-class struggle in New Zealand, its story involves most of the crucial issues and events in the history of the union movement generally, including the great maritime strikes of 1890 and 1913 and the waterfront dispute of 1951.

Educational film about the freezing industry in Iceland in 1981. This documentary illustrates the diffrent stages in processing of fish, from the moment of catching it to the packaging of the fillets for export. Special attention is drawn to the careful handling of the fish and quality control.

This is the first work in the "River" series, born from Sasaki's idea that "music was born on the banks of the river." The lives of people living on the banks of the river are depicted through "sounds" such as the bells and violins that ring through the town. The story is set in Cremona, a town on the banks of the Po River in northern Italy. A-san, a tuner, deepens her ties with the people living in the Po River basin while repairing broken violins.

Colour Work attempts to present a subjective journey and to produce a translation of the perceptual experience of the look. Built around a cyclic and repetitive structure the film has a musical effect through its pace and rhythm.

Employing single-frame edits from broadcast television, the artists construct a rapid-fire media barrage of sound and image.

Wadi is a valley located east of Haifa. A former stone quarry, it is a sort of enclave where Eastern European immigrants, survivors of the camps, live in a state of fragile coexistence with Arabs who have also been expelled from their homes.

Bollywood 1981

Using pixillation, or the art of animating inanimate objects, the rides and carnival atmosphere of an amusement park are displayed at a dizzying fast pace; Images are accompanied by a tense modern jazz score.

Documentary looking at the changing face of ownership of Scottish islands, interviewing new owners from international businesspeople to famous rock star.

A found fiction of the Cine Club Sigma

On this program we see a rare interview with the mercurial painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, conducted in 1981 in his studio on Crosby Street, in SOHO. Basquiat, an internationally renowed as well as the enfant terrible of the 1980's art scene, died tragically in 1988 at the age of 28. Both during his brief life and since his untimely death, stories and legends abound which chronicle his metoric rise to art world stardom. In 1996, Basquiat's life was fictionalized in the film entitled BASQUIAT, directed by fellow artist Julian Schnabel. On this ART/new york program, the 21 year old Basquiat is interviews by art historian - curator Marc. H Miller, PhD. Already a well known art world figure, Basquiat's fondness for high jinks as well as his exuberant spirit are captured as he describes his working process and comments upon his art world persona.

Jane spent her childhood in a remote valley in the Peak District above Macclesfield. Ten years later she returns with her fiancé. Her dramatic rediscovery of Lamaload is the subject of this poignant story.

Based on the Lewis Carol nonsense poem "Jabberwocky," this three-minute animation brings to life the fearsome Jabberwock, the Jub-Jub bird, and other fanciful creatures. Hand-coloured still photographs and cell drawings lend a storybook quality to this imaginative fairy-tale

Shot in Tuxtlas, Veracruz, this documentary exposes the ideological conceptions of witches, healers and patients, with respect to traditional medicine.

A film-crew follow the investigation of a cop killing.