Cinematic Era: 1985 Vintage

Japanese horror movie from 1985.

A widow is expecting a child.

Erotic-drama distributed by Nikkatsu.

A fresh, free-wheeling look at the mothers, daughters, teachers, and political prisoners in El Salvador and their struggle to come to terms with suffering and political persecution. A rare opportunity to witness the participation of Salvadoran women in the popular movement. Made in El Salvador, this film was part of a video series curated by El Salvador Media Project, a New York-based media organization.

“It’s not a natural desire to be a modern artist”. Malcolm Morley In 1984, Malcolm Morley was the first winner of the Tate Gallery’s prestigious award, the Turner Prize, for the year’s major contribution to British art. It came as something of a surprise because he has always been, by his own volition, an outsider who remains aloof from the art world. Since 1957, he has lived a reclusive life in America and harbours ambivalent feelings about his native Britain. Characteristically, he was not there to collect his £10,000 prize. It is impossible to label him as a painter, as he has always avoided association with the schools and styles of contemporary art, though he seems to have pioneered many of them. Art critic Robert Hughes calls him, “the man whose methods have been relentlessly plundered by a generation of artists.” This programme looks at Morley and his work. He talks at length about his art and is seen at work in his New York studio.

Sunlight and shadows whisk through time. Optically printed from Super 8 footage. Charleston, SC, with Randy Buggs and Ray Harvey.

Short film for CRETEIL film festival

Using the basic nutrients protein, fat and carbohydrates as examples, the film provides an introduction to the complicated processes of digestion. Our digestive organs are presented schematically. It is shown that the interaction of the digestive organs prepares the food we eat and makes it absorbable. The absorbable food components enter the organism's metabolism and serve to build up the body and generate energy.

This film started out as a sort of music video to a wonderful old song by Pat Suzuki (also known as 'Miss Ponytail'). The song is called Black Coffee. Shots of me crawling the walls and old coffee commercials. –H. M.

Who ? Or ? How ? A crime ? No... Continued in the next issue, in Toilets n°2.

Father and son are looking for a gift for Mother's Day. She dreams of “putting color” on the television, so it would be the most appropriate gift. However, indigenous malice and the desire for originality leads them to change appliances and prevent the gift from being repeated.

Documentary aspects of the city with old archive shots that allude to the “450 years of the founding of Cali.” A parallel is drawn between the memory of the past salvageable in photographs and the visual freshness of the present printed in each of its manifestations. The statue of the founder De Belalcázar, the chorus of “Hey, see”, the rumba in the peripheral neighborhoods, the photographer Fernell Franco and the afternoon light of Cali.

A politician who is emerging as a presidential candidate for his party loses his voice on the eve of the great convention that will elect him. His advisor, an unscrupulous and bold man, urged by the limited time they have left, hatches the idea of ​​replacing him with a “double” since he remembers a character who looks strikingly similar to the candidate. A modest barber prepares intensively and the applause for his first speech is thunderous.

Documentary about an archeological excavation in Greenwich Village's Sheridan Square.

The Paris-Dakar Rally is one of the last great motorsport adventures, travelling thousands of miles through the most challenging terrain on Earth. In 1985, desert heat, car-breaking conditions and dangerous sandstorms left the competitors battling against all odds to reach the finish. From the snow and ice of the Atlas Mountains to the baking heat of the Sahara Desert, this action-packed review follows the 572 cars, motorcycles and trucks as they tackle the 14,000km adventure. In the toughest Dakar Rally yet, the route proved too much for many - just 77 competitors would last the full 22 days. Spectacular footage delivers all the drama as the cars, bikes and trucks battle with the terrain, while interviews with the stars take you behind the scenes of one of the toughest rally raids ever.

A superb chance to see how the bespectacled Timo Salonen judges the event to perfection for a 48-second win after 50 very rapid special stages over 3 days and 285 miles. The Finnish master blasts his fabulous world-championship-winning Peugeot 205 T16 Group B car through the forests to take the factory’s 11th world rally win in the world-renowned Rally of the 1000 Lakes. As the Group B era reaches its peak of development, one can only admire the Finns who never seem to lift the right foot as ‘fly’ their 600 bhp projectiles through the forests and countryside. Marvel at the control they maintain while running at speeds the ordinary motorist can only imagine; the night time service halts in the pouring rain; the spot-lit dashes through the narrow lanes and undulating back-roads. All this is the backdrop to the no-holds barred contest between Peugeot, Audi and Lancia captured by Videovision's close-quarter ground cameras and in thrilling helicopter footage.

Experimental short film

Two dissimilar types – the earnest impassive Bede and the easy-going Luki – suddenly find themselves thrown together. Their difficulties with women, the world, each other and themselves force them to search together for their own way. Hesitant and somewhat helpless, they turn to each other. Thus begins an obstacle race that is not without ist amusing side.

Animation short about weather.

Snow Search finds four performers searching for each other, each carrying one quarter of a photographic portrait of Michael Snow. A lyrical exploration through the city and an homage to Michael Snow.

Rite of initiation of a Sangoma: medium, healer or sorcerer, which takes place in a neighborhood of Soweto.

The villagers of Salmé, in Nepal, farm a mountainside where different grains are grown at different altitudes.

This documentary was made by Roy Spence for the Ulster Folk Museum and showcases the work of Alex Ralston. Ralston is one of the few remaining shoemakers in Belfast who hand crafts shoes using leather and traditional skills. Alex takes us through the entire process from original pattern through to the finished pair of shoes.

A video compiling work from young people at the Four Corners' Cinema workshop. This film in six sections combines spontaneous improvisations, tape slide shows with colour and black and white photographs, interviews with 15 years old girls and boys from the Bethnal Green area, with facts and statistics compiled by the THIRRC Tower Hamlets Research and Resources Centre. The unusual format is used to communicate information about living and working conditions in the borough of Tower Hamlets, making a socialist and anti-government critique of the policies of the Conservative administration under Margaret Thatcher.

A portrait of a working man - Stefan Piętowski, a craftsman who, at the age of 85, sums up his professional life. In order to do so, he organizes "The History of One Working Life" exhibition.

Short film.

In one of his first video studies, Bielický explores the physical limits of video representation. He separates bodily movements into several monitors or lets them be deconstructed through rapid editing and the disruption of the video signal, creating a peculiar type of video-body.

In this perfomance Christian Marclay straps a turntable with the Jimi Hendrix album Are You Experienced onto his body, spinning the record. The artist channels the legendary rock guitarist by recreating Hendrix's body movements in the way he plays the LP, also creating moments of audio feedback the way Hendrix often did with his electric guitar.

The concept of visual music is explored in this quirky collage of imagery animated directly onto the celluloid surface of 16mm film. In the spirit of Dada, there are recurring themes that include graphic abstraction, mechanical rhythms and the absurd.

Andrew Sachs narrates this wildlife exploration of the Andes in South America, focusing in particular on the Condor bird. We look at the beautiful landscapes of the Andes seen through the condor's eyes. VHS abridged edit of the 1982 documentary.

Quaintly narrated and thoughtfully weaved with stock footage, this short film is a creatively homemade live-action interpretation of Walt Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Short educational film by Vladimir Kobrin.

“RETURNING THE SHADOW is an elegant, beautiful, tender film. … Holmes evokes the sensation of Proustian remembering through repetition and variation of carefully paced and composed images of two people looking at an apartment, fragments of old photographs, haunting shadows and gestures.” – Sandra Maliga, Experimental Film Coalition Newsletter

"Velkommen hjem, Anders" is the story of how much adversity a former criminal drug addict can experience when he returns to his home village.

Documentary on 4AD Records in-house design firm, 23 Envelope. Run by designer Vaughn Oliver and photographer Nigel Grierson, they were responsible for the "Look" of classic 4AD bands like Dead Can Dance, the Pixies, This Mortal Coil, etc. This film features Vaughn and Nigel interviewed in the 4AD offices, along with interviews from Ivo Watts-Russel, Robin Guthrie, and more. Along with plenty of video footage from 1980s-era 4AD bands.

A deaf athlete joins the sports club where Jacek works.

A man appearing in the finale of "The Big Game" learns about the death of his friend during the war.

Michał's father resigns from his responsible position and withdraws from his active professional life. This exacerbates family conflicts and involves adults. Meanwhile, the 10-year-old is going through one of the most important moments in his life.

A Jewish boy in the ghetto tries to get an extra portion of food by using the canteen card belonging to his deceased father.

Geller fuses the "look of television and the fantasy of film" in his feature-length work Everglades City. Set in the Florida Everglades, this ambitious piece is a contemporary fairy tale. A young woman struggles to free herself from a small town and her demanding, eccentric family. Her search leads to her doppelganger, a mysterious woman — half-human, half-bird — who lives in the mangrove swamps outside town. In confronting the psychological Other, she comes to terms with her own spiritual dilemma. This quest for self-identity resonates with the archetypal themes of such fairy tales as Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. In a narrative shot through with ambiguity and hidden meanings, the languorous, menacing landscape acts as a visual metaphor for the human imagination.

The Frontier Gandhi is a Black and White documentation of the life and works of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. From his childhood days in the undivided Punjab province to the establishment of Khudai Khidmatgar movement (the Servants of God), he lived a truly inspiring life and made notable contribution to the Indian independence struggle. His uncompromising integrity and total commitment to the path of non-violence and a belief in a united India is resonated through the biopic.

Dennis Dallison recounts his past life, and how he overcame the scars of it by joining Unarius.

Mr. B. is an old, ailing Jew who did not accept the changes. One day he sees Christ coming to Warsaw on a donkey. He is arrested. Mr. B. tells the doctor about it. He got bitter because nobody believed his words.

Józef comes to Krakow, where he is to participate in the jubilee of Nowa Huta.

Women in different situations of life, accompanied occasionally by images of nature. Men appear alone in different roles, like a ski athlete, a musician, and a judge, the latter, in a scene from Dreyer's film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).

An Animated Short Film by Bruno Bozzetto

"The little dancer followed the music..."

The alphabet is brought to life in a montage of songs, film footage and animation. A friendly giraffe animates each letter of the alphabet which are accompanied by clips of animals furnished by the National Geographic Society.

Leaving aside the Musica Picta series (1987), Pilař rarely worked with recordings of physical performances in his videos. In his art study Painting, he composes an artistic space from three motifs: dance choreographies, collages and paintings, and chroma keys images of fire, with Martin Hřebačka's abstract animations shining through occasionally.

This film is one of nine animated shorts released on 16mm in the mid-1980s by Benchmark Films as part of the educational “Fairy Tale Series.”

A two part TV documentary produced by Liverpool Black Media Group and Bea Freeman. First aired on Channel 4, the film reflects on the social conditions of Liverpool four years after the 1981 uprisings in Toxteth. They Haven’t Done Nothing interrogates the social conditions and institutionalised racism that continue to be responsible for uprisings in Liverpool since 1919.

Tells the story of the wildcatters of the Great East Texas Oil Field, providing a rollicking account of the risky business of those who drilled oil wells in areas not thought to be oil fields in 1930s East Texas, as well as the Wild West gyrations it put the oil industry, the economy and both State And Federal Government through.

One of the earliest films by one of the pioneers of documentary films in Egypt, Ali Al-Ghazuly.