Cinematic Era: 1985 Vintage

Mexican feature film

A pair of dancing duck heads and a squadron of flying hands invade Herbert and Lenores' happy home. Herbert gets his revenge though. Sort of...

Two female friends watch porn until one of them has a baby.

A mythological movie about Lord Krishna that tells the tale of the prophesized killing of his tyrannical uncle, and his role in the epic battle of the Mahabharat.

Legacy of the Spirits traces the religion from Africa to Haiti to New York City. It explains the theology of the religion, the meaning of the rituals, the pantheon of spirits, possession, the sacred drawings (called ve-ve), the Catholic influence, the history of persecution and more. This is all explained by priests and priestesses who practice Vodou and who give the film the quality of being both informative, yet personal.

The film depicts the struggle between two men who want to take revenge on each other. Çakal is tried for arms and drug trafficking. However, there is no evidence against him. Murat and three of his friends, who know about Çakal's activities, testify against him. Thus, Çakal is found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison. Despite this, while in prison, he forms a new organization. With this new structure, he spreads across the entire country. He begins to harm the families of Murat and his friends who testified against him. After being released from prison, Çakal and Murat will attempt to take revenge on each other.

Follows the No. 31 London bus from Camden Town to World's End, Chelsea, meeting characters who live and work along the route. The soundtrack features the Carl Davis composition Variations on a Bus Route, commissioned to celebrate London Transport's 50th birthday in 1984.

The film goes beyond the traditional facade of sport's battle for medals and explores the ethical dimensions of the efforts of the trainer and her modern and rhythmic gymnastics competitors, the price of success, the meaning of hard labor and Golgotha's vocation.The film reveals the hardships of the daily training routine of a rhythmic gymnastics group, repeating their moves over and over again while working towards perfection. There are short interviews with Neshka Robeva and Lilly Ignatova. We can see ambition and envy, the secret workings of being a referee at the European Championship in Wien, the impact of politics in sports completions favoring the USSR... The three girls on the winner's podium - Aneliya Ralenkova, Dilyana Georgieva and Lilly Ignatova, are seen at the end holding hands.

Fancy Pea is a Brazilian documentary produced, written and directed by Werner Schumann, in the year 1985, reporting facts about the life and work of the Brazilian writer, poet, translator and professor Paulo Leminski. The program was shown on TV in 1985 and 1989 (at the time of the death of the writer).

Kipling is touring North America, hoping to recruit boy scouts, and he is trailed undercover by a CIA-TV reporter. Meanwhile, a travel agent, watching a film during his lunchbreak, meets Kipling - all three are arrested and the journalist is fired.

With his parents busied by the toils of daily life during the subsidy days, little Minh's grandmother is closest to him in the family. Until one day...

A deliberately subjective diary film by German filmmaker Hark Bohm, who shot documentary footage in Nicaragua and attempts to convey the contradictions and problems of this Latin American country, which has been in a state of war for years. Without commentary, different statements and perspectives are juxtaposed, making the tensions in the country between utopia and reality quite apparent.

"I found that soundtrack abandonned on a shelf in an editing room. It had been hanging about there for a few weeks before I decided to listen to it. There you are, carefully cellotaped in the correct order of the editing rushes, claps, cuts and wrong frames of a film I don’t know anything about. That soudtrack immediatly appealed to me. Its discontinuary and fragmentary aspect, nevertheles made sense, was a sort of transcription in the world of sounds of what had been so for visual in my other films. Moreover, its contents made of sentences or scenes only just introduced or repeated, of questions about identity and the body, the coming in and out of the characters, scenes of seduction and violence, all that mixture permanently interrupted by the unknown director that give his orders : "Ready ! Motor ! Action !" in short, all this gave the film a mysterious and imaginary atmosphere." Christian Lebrat (Dedicated to Marcel Duchamp)

Bodies and fluids, bodily fluids and fluid bodies.

In EVOL (love spelled backwards), the audience is voyeur, peering into the delirious and erotic dreams of a young man (Oursler). We drift with him through anecdotes that poke fun at the disparity between the culturally accepted stereotypes of sex and love we are taught as children and the realities we discover in adult life.

Loosely based on August Strindberg’s play. Tale of house madness. Living together in the same house, driving each other mad.

Artist / filmmaker Poli Marichal was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico and resides in Los Angeles, CA since 1989. She is considered one of the pioneers of experimental film in Puerto Rico. The experimental super 8mm shorts she created during the 1980”s, which combine animation, painted celluloid and documentary footage, have won awards at film festivals in the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Venezuela and have been exhibited widely. Currently she works in video and now digital animation, as well as prints, paintings and mixed media at her studio in Los Angeles.

Two party bound teens inadvertently destroy a city on their way to hell.

Video art, Stefaan Decostere

Documentary about painters in Nicaragua

The ritual transmission of a military parade from Moscow’s Red Square: On every anniversary of the October Revolution, this was loyally broadcast by all the television stations in the so-called people’s democracies. In Robakowski’s work, this material is used to reconstruct and deconstruct public spectacle. The substitution of the original  television commentary with a song sung in German by Laibach (a group from what was then Yugoslavia and is now Slovenia) removes the spectacle from its pompous temporal context and reveals the absolutism of its alluring power. The totalitarian display is in itself art – politically active art, the art of all-out pathos – even if we call it only “quote art unquote”.

A documentary which follows a coach party of former inmates on a trip to Auschwitz.

Acid political satire with minimal means. In a patriarchal slum, high political issues are debated. As "heroic" as Garibaldi, poor Leonidas hides under the table for fear of the reaction, which turns out to be a simple party of revelers.

“If there’s a film of mine that makes the case for multiple viewings, it’s (Reel #2). This has to be seen several times to be seen at all. The transition from filmmaking back into painting is here in the ‘props’ — 2″ clear tape strips of gorgeous debris (thread, film & petals) which later joined and grew into wall hangings, then eventually paintings. This is the level of metrics, the visual resonance I was always chasing.” (J.B.)

Based on the fairy tale by S. Topelius "Sampo Lappelill".

Like a lazy person, Dadabai swallowed the alarm clock.

A jazzy, graffiti-inspired, sci-fi noir drawn directly onto film.

Cab driver Hugo Meier is married to two women and lives at two addresses. He therefore lives according to a precise timetable. This has worked well so far. However, Hugo has an accident and can't get home. The two worried wives contact their police stations and ask for help. Two officers immediately do their duty and investigate. Hugo is now in dire need of help. With the not entirely voluntary help of his friend and neighbor Oskar Stöckli, Hugo leads the officers and the wives into a labyrinth of fantastic excuses and ludicrous lies. Harmless wives are transformed into hysterical bitches and well-meaning friends into hot-blooded, gay seducers.

Horror short based on a stage production.

After being slandered, a crocodile goddess sends her fearsome gators after an entire village.

An advocation for a new and personal take on the alphabet reveals multi-layered, comical meanings. ABCD is an experimental animation, decidedly crude in approach and part socio-political commentary and surrealist whimsy.

Some of the most exciting scriptures to Latter-day Saints are those that reveal events about the future. Dr. Skousen will have you completely fascinated as you look out over the Mount of Olives toward the Golden Gate and the Temple Mount and hear the stories about these places. These are the scenes of some of the most exciting prophetic events where the Temple will be rebuilt and where Christ will descend upon the Mount of Olives to save His people, the Jews. These places will become real as you actually see them and then hear about their significance in prophecy.

Live 1985 performance from British post-punk band, The Chameleons.

When Luitpold Leuwenhaupt sees a faboulous goose in the local pet shop, he can't resist buying it for christmas. But the three kids become friends with the goose, calling her 'Auguste'. So, is there any way left for Luitpold to make a fine christmas feast out of Auguste?

The head of a newly created office against illegal employment exchange is supposed to stop undeclared work and the shadow economy in his sphere of influence. At the end of the investigation, an international building tycoon, a desperate small businessman and an unemployed man are caught in his investigative net.

This is the theme of the film: The secret of objects in the huge space and time curve: the not-being-able-to-recognize, the not-being-able-to-grasp, the not-knowing. The curve is presented in the film as a miniature: 24 hours (morning, day, evening, night, morning) condensed into 40 minutes.

The miners' strike 1984 was one of the longest and most brutal in British labour history. A community fighting for jobs and survival was wholly denigrated and depicted as violent by the majority of the media. THE BATTLE FOR ORGREAVE puts the record straight, as miners recount their own history, their economic and political struggles over decades and the trial they endured for 48 days in Sheffield when charged with riot at Orgreave - facing life imprisonment. Containing compelling testimonies, emotive cinematography, in depth analysis coupled with meticulous detail of the mass picket and the ensuing events of June 18 1984 at the Orgreave coking plant, the documentary also has unique footage of police violence -- all these make this an historic and important document of our time

Called civil war has made the Majapahit War Paregreg lose credibility. A state of chaos, people suffer. Many governors who want to replace the Majapahit. In these circumstances coverted to Islam began to spread in Java. The guardians known as Wali Songo many who founded the school. Among them is the Sunan on. In addition, there is concern that proposes to attack the kingdom of Majapahit, and then transferred to the central government Zhou. Moreover, they've got a strong candidates: Ged. Sunan on opposed the motion, arguing that the King of Majapahit never interfere with the activity of the saints spread Islam.

Iranian film directed by Morteza Aghili.

A compilation of the Borghesia video clips (So Young, The Wild Bunch, He, Too Much Tension, Cindy, A.R., ZMR), issued in 1985 as the first video cassette by the FV Label. These are short, almost 'film-like' stories focused primarily on the iconography of the body in urban surroundings. One of the clips presents a pioneer use of computer graphics.

Bujang is a village boy who is always bullied by the slaves of evil. In one day, it was announced that a martial arts tournament to be held in the village. Bujang register himself to play, but the village children make fun of him. Bujang upset because he always despised went to see a martial arts teacher. At first martial arts teacher would not accept Bujang but after much persuasion, he began teaching martial arts teacher Bujang ways to learn martial arts so unusual.

See and learn what real firearms and bullets will and won't do. Forget the Hollywood nonsense. Machine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, and pistols are demonstrated and explained. Will a bullet really knock a man down? Which bullets will penetrate a car door? How quiet is a real silencer? How effective is full-auto fire? This program is used by thousands of law enforcement and military agencies.

One film projected two times with a difference of a couple of seconds.

Shot in America but edited in the UK, this and NEW YORK STREETS formed a more politicised, agit-prop, kind of production, but closer to the cut ups and scratch video of London Video Arts of the time, and still with some emphasis on formal editing strategies and disruptive soundtracks of the earlier film work. Our Dream is about the violence of the onslaught on democracy, the working class, nation states, and sovereignty that began with the years of Reagan in America and continues to this day. It was a dark time in history, echoed now in 2013. The sense of deep foreboding and future dread let up during the late '80s bubble and boom, but has returned with the financial crash of 2008.

Life in a coed army camp isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Homer's epic tale of Ulysses's return from the Trojan War provides the story for this heady 17th-century opera by Claudio Monteverdi. Our hero (Thomas Allen) struggles to get home to his wife, Penelope (Kathleen Kuhlmann), unaware that she's being pursued by three potential suitors. Throughout Ulysses's journey, the gods of ancient Greece intercede to reunite the couple. Hans Werner Henze conducts this performance from the 1985 Salzburg Festival.

The film records a day in a supermarket in the Brussels region. The story of this day's little events, both comic and touching, provides the general framework of the film. The situations which are conveyed through an accumulation of quick, light touches, highlight some of the ways we behave in connection with food, the repetitive element in our gestures and movements in this everyday, enclosed world which is so familiar. The film is based on the observation of a supermarket and the people who shop or work there. More and more of their various personalities emerge in the course of the day. They all have their importance: we get to know them from the outside, like people in a group photo where each has his own place. All these individuals cross each other's paths, meet each other, bump into each other again and fill in the framework of the film with a many-sided tableau.

An upwardly mobile businessman is called back to his sleazy roots when his hockey-player-gone-bad brother is murdered.

An inspiring contemporary story about women who strive to combine new roles and old values in our rapidly changing society. We are introduced to a lively Brooklyn neighborhood which, like many urban areas, faces problems caused by racial tensions and cuts in municipal services. But in this case, a group of 'traditional' homemakers from varied ethnic backgrounds rise to the challenge and become leaders in the effort to save their community.

Although this 60-minute film contains no opening or closing credits, 1985's The Bounty Hunters was directed by Bruno Pischiutta, an Italian director who had recently arrived in Canada. The plot is extremely straight-forward: a pair of Vietnam vets are hired to kidnap a wanted killer from his Toronto hideout and transport him across the border into the hands of the FBI. The fugitive is a fey photographer who recruits girls from an aerobics class to star in S&M snapshots and attend his vaguely satanic parties, where they are eventually tortured and murdered. With the help of an undercover female associate, the bounty hunters raid the photographer's party with smoke bombs, grab their hostage and head for the Niagara Falls border

Directed by Ken Jacobs, 1985. In Jacobs' own words: "I wish more stuff was available in its raw state, as primary source material for anyone to consider, and to leave for others in just that way, the evidence uncontaminated by compulsive proprietary misapplied artistry, "editing", the purposeful "pointing things out" that cuts a road straight and narrow through the cine-jungle; we barrel through thinking we’re going somewhere and miss it all. Better to just be pointed to the territory, to put in time exploring, roughing it, on our own. For the straight scoop we need the whole scoop, or no less than the clues entire and without rearrangement. O, for a Museum of Found Footage, or cable channel, library, a shit-museum of telling discards accessible to all talented viewers/auditors. A wilderness haven salvaged from Entertainment."

The second film begins in early April with Tarkan's return. He wanted to go back to Hamburg with the stolen 800 marks. The next night, Christian is gone. The group travels on to Lisbon to start investigating Christian's whereabouts. At the same time, school starts again. Christian has once again been caught by the police stealing a car. Three days later, he is back with the group. An educational attempt at clarification begins: Why did he run away? Why did he steal? Why the cars?

An outlook on working from home and how this could affect women.

The early short films by Cesare Ronconi, winners at Salsomaggiore in 1985—a festival directed by Adriano Aprà and crafted with the collaboration of Marco Melani—are a remarkable experiment in cinematic form. Featuring static framing, these films unfold in a cosmic/comic loop that defies traditional staging and video conventions, offering a groundbreaking approach to visual storytelling.

A documentary about abortion and single mothers.

A rock performs an acrobatic feat for the assembled crowd.

Adaptation of a musical play by Eva Bal set in Ghent.