Cinematic Era: 1989 Vintage

Short film about chemicals in cleaning products

The war between the Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijani SSR is the first crack on the body of the Soviet Empire, and this is the first war for the post-war generation. A war in which there are no rightists and no culprits. A war where everyone is a victim. The first war in recent history, but so similar to all the subsequent ones, the end of which is not in sight. The film crew spent several months at a checkpoint where the Russians separated the warring parties.

A work filmed in a room at the Washington Square Hotel in New York, created with the technique of multiple exposure. Scenes of a nude couple are overlaid with images of natural phenomena, such as blooming flowers and clouds in the sky. "The scenes of the man and woman were in filmed in the hotel room where they were staying in New York. The summer sky and clouds were shot time-lapse on the roof of a building in Nakano-ku, Tokyo, where I lived at the time. I can’t remember where the cherry blossoms were filmed, but I remember I only saw the petals on the ground rather than the flowers themselves. Three motifs taken at different locations: the activities of men and women, the hot sunshine every summer, and the cherry blossoms that bloom and fall in spring. Things that are fleeting and disappearing, but at the same time, only exist at that moment."

In a collision of media images and images of the media, Muntadas fuses films, video and television as a hall of mirrors that reflects contemporary culture. Seen in close-up fragments, television and video images from cinematic sources — Poltergeist, Videodrome, Network, The Candidate — and video art tapes are rendered as illegible, abstracted fields. Against this ground of scanlines and shadowy images, a series of isolated words — "manipulation," "context," "audience," "fragment" — comprise an index of the tactics of the television apparatus, as well as Muntadas' (video's) reflexive strategies of critiquing the media. As Glenn Branca's tense musical score accelerates to a climax, the final video image, which depicts television sets in a consumer display, fragments and disintegrates.

Kumar is a very wealthy businessman and lives a comfortable lifestyle with his lovely wife, Asha, in a palatial house. The only thing missing from their lives is a son. When Asha gets pregnant, Kumar knows that all his dreams will be fulfilled and his business will be known as "Kumar & Son". Unfortunately, Asha has a miscarriage which results in her death as well as in the death of their son. A devastated Kumar takes to alcohol and devotes his energy and finances to a school for needy children in scenic Mussoorie. It is here he gets to meet the College Principal's daughter, Kiran, who he knows is in love with a fellow-collegian, Ravi. Ravi must now find out why Kiran's father lied to him, and whether or not Kiran wanted to marry Kumar because of his wealth.

The music band Síntesis recreates the Yoruba music, a key part of Cuban cultural heritage, and fuses it with rock sounds. The result is a new rhythm with a contagious dancing character.

An autobiographical short film about the life of Jannat Aliyev.

Short film made by Chinese documentary filmmaker Fu Hongxing for the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio of the People's Republic of China. Held as a print at the University of South Carolina. English-language narration.

A man tries to hitchhike a ride by holding paper money in his hand.

Webb Wilder and his band bring blazing Country Rock to the French, opening for Jason & The Scorchers at Lyon's Le Truck in 1989.

The germs of a narrative stumbling between layered symbols in associatively interconnected interior environments focus on the female protagonists. They are wandering, waiting to be or being seduced, perhaps in relation to the submerged river of desire to leave their reflection on one of the pieces of the film medium that the man broods over at the end of the film.

Live performance by techno pioneer Adamski at Brixton Academy London in 1989

This film is one form of the director's explorative expression, utilizing the imagery of locks and keys to symbolize a society turning awry.

On Tomb Sweeping Day, in 1988, a film crew set out for the monument of the Tangshan earthquake to shoot a memorial ceremony for the victims. This marked the beginning of shooting for a documentary called "The Great Earthquake." The crew continued to shoot through the rest of 1988, even staging a large-scale rock 'n' roll concert and performance art event on the Great Wall, and into 1989, including footage shot at the famous 1989 Avant-Garde Art Exhibition, where one artist fired two gun shots at her exhibit. More footage was shot during the Tiananmen protests, up until the events of June 4th shut down production for good. Shortly before, a two-hour "rough cut" was assembled by main director Wen Pulin and Assistant Director Hao Zhiqiang, which screened only once (and is preserved at University libraries in the U.S.). The footage has been recycled in some of Wen's later films, notably "China Action," but "The Great Earthquake" itself was never finished.

Two men are on an elevator when fantasy intervenes. Going up? Going down?

A documentary about Jewish-American identity.

This is the second of two collaborations between Michael Scroggins and Barry Schrader in the late 1980s.

Love, sex and death in Paris. And why not? A series of three films, each built frame by frame but, depending on the subject, each using an individual structure. The whole series was done in the camera - nothing was cut, changed, arranged...

An image synthesized version of Mardi Gras festival in New Orleans, in which many colorized images flow slowly left to right as the parade of the floats goes by in front of the camera with the decorated messages. The title Scared to Death is one of them. The development of the images is somewhat similar to the old Japanese scrolled painting: Makie.

Victor comes to the village to erect a monument to his grandfather. Not finding the required photograph in the house, he turns to the village “collector” for help. The film is about the hero's senseless attempt to find peace of mind in the place where he spent his childhood. The background against which the action unfolds is a devastated Russian village with abandoned houses, uncultivated arable land, and a looted temple. Will life return here again?

A humorous but serious film about the "GARBAGE" in our country.

Aleksej Kalenkov is a famous chess grandmaster hiding his secret identity of KGB agent.

Short film by Jon Behrens

Tracks uses the character of a struggling female teacher in order to connect areas of pre-feminism such as the suffragette movement, contraception and abortion rights, motherhood, later feminist writings and poverty, whilst highlighting the contradictions and differences within feminist discourse at the time. It’s a collage film which combines photographic, animated and live-action parts, black and white and colour footage. The voice-over soundtrack is partly a reworking and rewording of individual experiences and also a reflection on perceived actions of women due to historical and contemporary circumstance. It draws on a rich collection of personal and public imagery, re-made and manipulated, layered and textured, while taking a critical look at certain feminist theories.

A journey that begins in a Kansas City hotel and ends up in New Mexico. The bumpy ride is fuelled with libidinous juices as it lurches through college dormitories and sun-baked ghost towns. Rocks are lifted and things crawl out for all to see.

No. 5 Reversal opens with a close up sequence of two women in animated conversation, followed by an aural page/station structure. The film combines elements of horizontal and vertical montage in the soundtrack, using white noise, and radio static as a fragmentation device. The visually striking black and white photography weaves lyrical, pastoral nature with the de- and re- construction of civilization. No. 5 Reversal ends with a filmic signature, an image of its maker framed in front of a window against a backdrop of ruins.

An experimental film about life on earth as a cosmic experiment and the curiosity and naivete of reaching out to alien life.

From 1968-1984, 60 minutes worth of history, on Super 8 film, were recorded. Out of this footage there were forty minutes of weddings and in each case it was the bridge that was related to our family. In reviewing this public record of interpreted events, I found myself living within memories of events that could not be seen. While watching these familiar faces represented in this official history, I recalled other versions of the events recorded, as well as other events that didn't get recorded but had occurred at the same time. I began to ask what else was being recorded here and whose histories were these images claiming to represent?

Stay Safe Stay Out

Be All, End All, Madhouse, Metal Thrashing Mad, Now It's Dark, Indians, Antisocial (Trust cover), Medusa, Guitar Solo, Across the River, A.I.R., I Am the Law, The Enemy, Finale, Drum Solo, Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.), I'm the Man, Caught in a Mosh

A small, computer-crazy employee falls victim to a diabolical plan.

In a small city in the east sea, Tak lives with his mother, who does rough work for a living. His father leaves home in order to make money. Tak bets with his friend and he takes the jumper, shoes and money of In-Ho because he wins in the bet. However, the parents of his friends insult him saying that he is a child without father. Owing to the pray of his mother, he becomes a good student and helps for the operation of a friend in his class. While Tak wins in a running contest, his mother falls down because of an anemia. He prays to God with tears.

"Horror Rock" combines terrifying, heart stopping scenes from the most spine-tingling horror films ever made with some of the hottest classic indie rock music performed by the absolutely wickedest bands! This sizzling collection explodes with searing renditions from such cult classic bands like Del-Lords, Judas Kiss, Hurricane, Over The Edge, Wrath, Children Of The Wicked, Pandoras, Run Down Love Battery, Dickies, Booby Trap, Elvis Hitler and Hot Rod To Hell. If you like your music from beyond the edge, "Horror Rock" will deliver devilish pleasure to your ears as highlights from your favorite horror films make your blood run cold! Get ready for the rock & roll ride of your life as "Horror Rock" burns a hole in your soul!

Bollywood 1989

Directed by Djakhongir Faiziev.

Recorded live in 1989. Incl. Apache, Wonderful Land, F.B.I., Foot Tapper, Atlantis, Theme from The Deerhunter and more...

A love letter arrives unexpectedly. The thought of opening the envelope feels almost too precious. Who could the sender be? While lost in such thoughts, the young man dozes off by a riverbank.

Tatsuya is a member of his university’s boxing club. He has been boxing continuously since his freshman year, but no matter how hard he trains, he never seems to improve and has never competed in an actual match. In fact, he has never even landed a single punch during practice.

Documentary about painter Víctor Lewis, from Colón, Panama.

Promotional VHS starring Aya Sugimoto.

Short film demonstrating particle system animation. Produced at Ohio State University.

Short film.

Documentary on Elephant poaching in Zimbabwe.

Short film.

Holy Week in the community of Porcón de Cajamarca is one of the manifestations that reflect the religious syncretism and magic inherent to the Andean being.

Short film.

A musical film featuring Sergei Letov's band "Tri O".

A moody vignette of Midwestern angst that centers on the ambivalent relationship of three days in the life of two brothers. Danny Marelli, the star athlete in a rural Ohio town desperate to learn if he has won a full athletic scholarship to Ohio State. When no letter arrives, he vents his frustrations on his younger brother Frankie, damaging the car they jointly own and hurting him in a tussle, and how the younger brother must painfully learn his own values apart from his insensitive brother.

On a day off, people escape from mind-numbing television and the dusty city to the almost-extinct natural world.

Through Azerbaijani folk heroes, the film address society's current problems.