Cinematic Era: 1981 Vintage

Motion picture starring Rati Agnihotri and Krishna Ghattamaneni

Film starring Ravindra Mahajani, Ranjana and Ashok Saraf

Four misguided youths into heavy metal music go on a self-ordained "moral crusade," the twisted brainchild of Steve, the group's "guru" of hate.

Philipino War Movie Trash frin the 80s

Once upon a time there are two fighters Chu Man King and Master Wai who were from different kung fu style (Snake fist and Crane fist) and meet for the duel secretly. The loser must leave the town and allow the winner to his art in peace. Chu Man King wins and Master Wai was upset and plan for the revenge. Several years after the duel, Chu Man King decided to send his students across the land to spread his Snake fist art.

Documentary directed by Brian Kaufman.

Azlan a choreographer trains his wife, Maya to become a singer and dancer. Maya admires Borhan, a singer. Borhan visits Terengganu and meets Maya. He convinces Maya that Kuala Lumpur is the place to go if one wants to be a singer. Even though their child is sick, Azlan allows Maya to follow Borhan to Kuala Lumpur. Maya is deceived by Borhan who forces her into prostitution . Azlan suffers from emotional stress as he is considered a coward. The child misses the mother badly and falls ill. The child eventually dies without ever seeing her mother.

Via the New York Times: "[This documentary] deals with... the fiscal problems facing American cities as exemplified by what has happened in recent years in New York City and Cleveland."

Excellent documentary about the very early LA hardcore punk scene that almost seems accidental. Upon visiting LA in the summer of '81 the film maker notices that strangely enough Punk doesn't seem to be dead in L.A., but on the contrary, there seems to be a massive teenage movement going on. He decides to make a short documentary about it. As he says (not without irony); "Since everything happens a few years earlier in the US, I can show the parents back home what's in store for them". He was ofcourse witness to the baby steps of the hardcore scene. This is the only documentary of the era that is not sensationalizing or mythologizing. It doesn't talk to any of the scene "stars" but rather follows a few disenfranchised suburban kids and runaways (in Venice beach I think). A rare look into a self destructive and nihilistic scene, where the main motives seem to be restlessness and soul crushing boredom. Perhaps one of the very few documentaries that give this era a human face.

John dances with the camera and lets himself get carried away by the device, which works at one frame per second and spins its way on the end of a fishing line while he makes it go up and down from rooftops and bridges. Throughout this time, the camera points from above at John, who is on the ground and raises his head to look back at the camera, and turns with it. “Camera hoisting” by Stephen Niblock, a friend of John’s. Various locations were used, which were edited in-camera, and there were two recording sessions separated by an interval of one year; the first was outdoors and the second indoors (stairwells), recorded with exposures, with which occasional abstract vortices were created.

This educational film cynically explores the causes and depressive effects of tourism on the physical and social environment of the Alpine region.

A Royal Navy travelogue looking at Hong Kong.

Elaborate abstract patterns form, pixel by pixel. Scored to Klaus Schulze’s “P:T:O:”.

Experimental short by MAJYOLICA

Short film.

Filmed mainly at the Montréal community of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, this feature documentary follows 3 young from their first days in the temple to their initiation 6 months later.

Dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Adyghe Autonomous Region, this film explores the beauty of the natural landscape, the national customs and traditions, and the culture and economy of the republic.

Followers of the Rastafari way of life bring tales of Haile Selassie, Jah and Zion to the streets of inner-city Birmingham. Actor Hilary Minster turns reporter to discover the way of life for the Rastafari community of Handsworth.

A drama in one act by the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža, published in 1914. The plot takes place during one carnival night when three masked protagonists – a husband dressed as Don Quixote, his wife dressed as Colombina from commedia dell’arte and her lover Pierrot – observe their relations.

A short film by Allen Ross

Of all the English tug-of-war teams, none have been more successful than Bosley Wood Treatment who, for over 20 years, have sallied forth from their Cheshire valley to take on the might of the tug-of-war world - and beat them.

How to make a film using the resources of film club members?

A description of bird watching with the renowned authority and author of many guides on the subject.

The intermittently heard voice-over talks about a woman's self-awareness - being unable to know if she has really changed or not. The images are esoteric and hard to interpret: young women in black in various urban settings, something moving rhythmically. A personal, yet intriguing film.

About the making of a large commissioned mural painting of an aerial view. From the first drawing out of a circling, single-engine plane, then transferring the studies onto three panels in New York, to the installation of the 27 feet wide, glowing-colored paintings in the post office of Bangor, Maine. With music by Domenico Scarlatti.

The interior of a house. Outside, the sun parches the landscape. A woman’s voice tells a story. Filmed from 35mm slide projection on 16mm reversal Fuji film with in camera fades and pans.

in Blue for You I experimented with Dov Eylath on various video techniques including chroma-key, also known as blue screen, to illustrate the psychological tension between two people. Chroma-key utilises two cameras – the one camera omits one colour from its spectre, the other then fills it in. Blue is the best colour-key. “Anne Bean covers up her face with a blue paint. Because the one camera doesn’t pick up blue, her features disappear bit by bit as she applies the colour. ‘Through’ her we see Eylath’s face appear, becoming ever more dominant. The dialogue is a complete agreement with this struggle between two identities.”

Profiles nine artisans and performing artists who are recognized by law as "holders of important intangible cultural properties" and are charged with publicly exhibiting their works and teaching their artistry to apprentices. Pays visits to a potter, a doll sculptor, a puppeteer, a papermaker, a koto musician, a swordmaker, a textile weaver and a dyer, a kabuki theater actor, and a bellmaker.

“What is the policy of burying particularly distinguished people? – asks the manager of the municipal cemetery. First of all, you have to be guided by the honest attitude of a party member - he replies after a moment. These and other similar "reflections on the passing of time" give an answer to how one should have lived in the communist system in order to deserve a burial place in the alley of the distinguished (or at least in the alley of the "meritorious").

Matthew and Luke are brothers, 10 and 11 years old. In Paweł Kędzierski's film, perversely entitled Children's Day, we accompany them from a difficult morning wake-up call to going to bed in the evening. Although childhood is seen as a time of fun and carefree, Kędzierski's camera closely observes the full lives of the boys who take part in rehearsals for the absurd school play, learn by heart boring poems and help with everyday shopping. In the background, and sometimes in the foreground, the reality of the communist Poland.

This film is not exactly a documentary; it is a person reading the book while visiting the places where she lived, taking pictures of it in the early eighties. The letters to her daughter, whom she gave away to foster parents in Virginia after Wild Bill had been shot in the back in a saloon in Deadwood, show her in another light: as a woman who clearly understood social taboos of our society and, on one hand, she rejected what society dictated and, on the other, she longed for the bourgeois lifestyle. Many people argued that those were not real, since it was considered to be illiterate. The truth is, she was, and she tried to learn later in life just enough as to write a bare few words, and at times she also employed others in writing things for her.

Documentary on hobo culture in the United States at the turn of the 1980s.

"Piano Dance shows the viewer a shadowy piano accompanied by the sound of piano music. The piano is then seen to be a toy, the headdress of a woman with hollow eyes and a pasty face who moves like a marionette in a weird dance. She is dressed as if she were a cabaret performer in black tie and tails and white gloves. The images whirl and the piano is both large and small as the camera sees it in varying scale. The protagonist does not appear to move of her own volition but by the will of another. Her dance fades, not because it is over but because we are no longer privileged to see it. One feels that it continues eternally." — Barbara Sharres, "Trance Occurrences," Chicago Reader, January 15 1982.

Story of an axe against nature

The child is still in the baby cot, but Mom and Dad want to make him a great musician. They bring a violinist teacher to the child. The child shoots him with a violin, like a bow. The next teacher is a pianist. Both he and the piano run away from the child. In front of the teacher-singer, the child screams like an Indian. He even breaks the baby's cot. When the carpenter comes to fix it, the child calms down for the first time and helps the master.

Documentary film about the suffering of Turkish girls and women due to patriarchal family structures.

A short film about fire safety with a twist involving an alien in his spaceship working with the neighborhood kids.

The film shows through the life stories of two women soldiers in their final month of service, the role of the Israeli woman in the army and in civilian life. The women, entering the Israeli army with hopes of actively defending their country, soon realize that all combat jobs or jobs that might bring them near combat are closed to women. The film explores the myth of equality between the sexes based on the fact that there is compulsory service for both men and women in Israel. The filmmaker also examines the case of Miri Dayan who had to fight against heavy odds to become the first woman Commander of the Women's Tank instructors course. Head of Women Corps, Colonel Dalia Raz and other prominent women give some hope for a better future for women in Israel.

A follow-up to the same studio's Helen Keller anime, A Little Love Letter kept the handicapped theme but focused on a wholly Japanese story. During the 1970s, actress Mariko Miyagi became heavily involved in the Silk Tree Academy (Nemunoki Gakuen), a rehabilitation center for disabled children. She appeared in several live-action films to promote the project, including The Silk Tree Ballad, Mariko-Mother, and Children Drawing Rainbows. This anime charts the 14-year period of Miyagi's stewardship of the academy and her relationships with several of the children. Divided into four seasonal chapters, the film uses highly realistic character designs based on the actual people involved and features storyboarding from versatile Battle Spaceship Yamato director Noboru Ishiguro.

A short documentary on German early aviation innovator Gustav Mesmer.

Refugee Road follows a Cambodian family from a refugee camp on the Thai/Cambodian border through their first year of resettlement in the United States. This occurred during the era of "The Killing Fields." The film is ultimately a celebration of the rich mosaic of American society.

When her father dies and leaves her alone, a young and beautiful girl finds solace in dancing and playing karate. Her loneliness, however, tempts men to approach her, including her immoral cousin whom she rejects, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

This experimental short film plays on genre conventions and expectations. Loosely connected elements from the Nouvelle Vague, thrillers and silent film raise questions: What do the three young men in the car have to do with the woman in the café? Who is she waiting for? Electronic sounds from the artist padeluun, reminiscent of radio noises, link the scenes and give the impression that aliens are the observers of these mysterious events.

"...(T)here is however a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts, and to which, as yet, I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt language. I use the word 'fancies' at random, and merely because I must use some word; but the idea commonly attached to the term is not even remotely applicable to the shadows of shadows in question. They seem to me rather psychical than intellectual. They arise in the soul (alas, how rarely!) only at its epoch of most intense tranquility, when the bodily and mental health are in perfection, and at those mere points of time where the confines of the waking world blend with those of the world of dreams." –Edgar Allen Poe, from "Marginalia"

Shankar, a thief, forces his son Ram into crime. Ram's mother, Gauri, raises him alone, turning him into a good man. Ram marries Seeta, but after losing his job, Seeta dies giving birth. Devastated, Ram turns to crime again. In the end, Ram redeems himself, saving his son Raju from a villain.

A little female character called Koko represents the muse of music and dances and clowns her way through a breathless, animated short-history of western music.

A film by Steve Schuler.

Take a bird’s eye view of 1980s Tasmania, filmed from the window of a helicopter.