Cinematic Era: 1987 Vintage

A New Year's story about a little girl's friendship with a carousel lion.

A typical criminal. A typical taxi driver. A typical route through the night of Porto Alegre, from the bus station to a deserted street. But at the time of the crime, the driver doesn’t react as he should. Meanwhile, on TV, Brazilian Minister of Justice make a speech against violence.

The protagonists of this surreal drama are seated at the kitchen table arguing over a broken biscuit. Evan Rude (voiced by Bruce Currie) resembles a medieval knight with a propeller head, Ropeshair (voiced by John E Hughes AKA Hobart Hughes) has a head that is a cross between a football and an African sculpture. Each figure sees a fish – supposedly the protagonists’ dinner – circling in space. Inside the biscuit, a hardworking ant works for a 'crust’ to feed his family.

The film uses photographic materials from the collections of the Historical Museum of Architecture of the Ossoliński National Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Provincial Office for Spatial Planning in Wrocław, and the Museum of the History of Photography in Krakow.

On how the dog was created

Characters on different parts of a female body point us in various directions as we follow along.

Two Lawalapiti young men from Alto Xingu learn to build a canoe from the bark of the jatobá tree, a quick and simple technique that leaves the tree still rooted and alive, and that has ceased to be used and is only known by the oldest Lawalapiti men.

I made this film by shooting around 180 rolls of 35mm slide film. I then hand processed the film in a very sloppy manner. I never mounted the film into slides I simply took the 35mm strips of film and spliced them together. Some of the rolls used in this film were shot by random people I sent a roll of film to that they shot and sent back to me.

The hero of the film tries to find the way out from his problems and difficulties.

This European Film Award winner documentary tells the story of Recsk, Hungary's most notorious political prison camp, which operated between 1950 and 1953. During the early 1950's the very existence of this camp for political prisoners at Recsk was one of the Hungarian communist regime's deepest secrets. Hundreds of people were taken there without ever actually being sentenced by any court, and had to suffer through the brutal treatment handed down by their sadistic captors. This documentary tells the story of Recsk from both the captors' and the prisoners' point of view, capturing the atmosphere of paranoia, humiliation and degradation that prevailed throughout the Stalinist gulag system.

It's payday and Adama, a factory worker, counts her meager salary trying to reconcile her needs with those of her family back in the village.

A history of New York City from Prehistoric times through the Space Age, composed entirely from documentary street footage.

Orphan Danny is in hospital. He is given a very special present by Professor Vriendelijk: a homemade robot with very special powers...

Wheels/Trails draws inspirations from John Cage’s cut-and-splice sound collage, “Williams Mix,” which he composed using chance operations by throwing I-Ching sticks. Wheels/Trails juxtaposes actors speaking inane commercial dialogue that was randomly gleaned from television by means of a recorder programed by weather statistics, with film projection of native beans, feathers, and squash in slow motion, to make the point that the roads and highways of our urbanized civilization are built over ancient footpaths worn by Native peoples. Ultimately, the performance expresses the idea that we live in a mashup of cultures, where the present is a thin veneer stretched over the past. A droning electronic soundtrack by the band Short-Term Memory also suggests a missing presence. - P. V. Z.

The word artist and musician Juha Vainio reminisces about his hometown, Kotka, and talks about his compositions and lyrics, including his famous drinking songs. During the program, Junnu's well-known songs are also heard.

The documentary shows how Cakchiquel Maya of a village on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala adapted to changes that took place in the decades before the film was made, when the lake became a favoured spot for holiday homes, and the village was filled with streams of tourists. While the filmmakers were officially welcomed and given permission to film, in practice many people hid their faces and did not co-operate. Some even threw stones at the camera crew. The film team tried to find an explanation of the Maya hostility to the camera.

A work produced in Brittany, France, with funding from the French government and employing local CG artists, the main subject is the Stonehenge.

After the end of the dictatorship, Uruguay was faced with the unresolved problem of what to do with the past. In this documentary the CEMA camera team roam the city streets and find out what Montevideans think about bringing armed forces personnel to justice. This tour reveals a climate of scepticism, a climate of fear and suspicion, but also a will and a desire that justice must be done.

The players in the Mouse Hockey League know that they must be quick and play by the rules to win the precious and delicious Cheddar Cup.

A group of farcical elite of mercenaries made up of dysfunctional members was hired and formed to rescue a group of kidnapped beauty queens and a gay pageant organizer from the hands of a retarded rebel group led by an insane insecure queen Madame Butterfly whose initial plan was only to kidnap Angela Mo Ray from the Kingdom of Kwe Kwe for a hefty amount of money as ransom.

Experimental computer imagery

On the eve of 1987, the metallurgists of Magnitogorsk reported an industry record - sixteen million tons of steel were smelted. However, New Year's Eve at the plant became tragic. The blast furnace, which was working hard, could not stand it. One of the air heaters collapsed. People died. This is one of the examples that allowed the authors of the film to raise a serious problem - focusing on quantitative indicators at the expense of qualitative ones, leading to harmful consequences in the economy and society.

Using only the surviving footage, Mōri assembled and completed the work as a standalone film. As a result, the finished version is probably quite different from whatever story was originally intended. It may be best appreciated in the same spirit as Bruce Lee’s unfinished film Game of Death a reconstruction pieced together from incomplete material. With that in mind, the filmmakers would be grateful if viewers approached it with understanding and a generous sense of curiosity.

Short documentary about the life of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos.

Barry Eugene White (real name Barrence Eugene Carter) is an American rhythm and blues and soul singer, songwriter, and producer.

Anna becomes the secretary of a respected writer who is working on a new book.

A 1987 animated/live action television compilation special that aired on TBS. The special includes live action segments hosted by Josh Jarboe and Audra Lee in various Halloween costume in a haunted house, where they would introduce the show's animated shorts.

Mexican feature film

P.A.N.I.C. in Griffith Park is a video tape of a popular Los Angeles play about late 1980s life had the so-called LaRouche initiative of 1986, Proposition 64, been approved by California voters. The authorities lack enough facilities to hold and test all those suspected of being seropositive for the AIDS virus, so L.A.’s Griffith Park becomes a temporary concentration camp. Four gay men and a drug abusing rock and roller are rounded up and must deal with life under the rules of Proposition 64.

Emshwiller introduces this work as a "tapestry of images and sounds suggestive of the hungers that human beings all share for food, love, sex, power, security and so forth." With collaborator Morton Subotnick, the noted electronic composer, and performer Joan La Barbara, Emshwiller weaves together sophisticated electronic and digital technology in conjunction with live performance and music, bringing his distinctive sensibility to a work of contemporary electronic theater.

The omen (Förebudet)

One of the most structured of Yufit’s reels with an elaborated montage work. This film combines three diverse worlds in an absurd manner to show the author’s passion for black humour: traditions of the avant garde cinematography of 20s, the social motives of contemporary Russia, and forensic medicine. —arsenals.lv

A film created for the 60th anniversary of the famous choreographer Yuri Grigorovich. The celebrant reflects on his life and recalls important milestones in his biography.

The chronicle of a WWII veteran who was sent into Nagasaki to rescue the Allied POWs after the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Japan.

Short film starring Maiko Kawakami.

A collaboration between City Pop artist Tatsuro Yamashita and pop artist Eizin Suzuki, known for his lush, vivid images of Americana.

The film shows a woman in front of a mirror, whose preparatory gestures are fragmented by re-photography. In an electrifying blue tone and hand-processed, the film reveals intimate moments of a couple at the table, caught in repetitions of media clichés of tenderness. Structural repetition and changing perspectives intensify the tension of waiting. The film switches to the male perspective in front of the mirror, followed by intimate scenes that address loneliness and unfulfilled desire.

A report on the oldest citizen of the GDR at the time, Emma Wagner from Gotha.

Margaret Peterson is a retired painter, now living in Victoria, British Columbia, where this production was shot. The film explores the psyche of the painter through her paintings, through interviews, through an interpretive commentary by the director of the film, and the improvised riffs of a saxophone soloist. The film is a scrapbook of ideas, memories, opinions, interpretations and paintings that render the artist eventful rather than biographical. Beyond the Sun reveals a character very much attracted to primitive religion and a painter drawn to colour abstraction, both qualities typical of the 'beat' movement of the 1940s and 50s.