All Films

The Last Flight

1989 • 25 min • Soviet Union

Night, crosses, a yellow bus rushes along a deserted highway, the driver is on his last trip, hurrying to his bride. On the way from the sea, a happy couple in love returns. Suddenly, four prisoners appear on their way from the darkness. Rushing past, the driver sees a brutal beating on the side of the road. The screeching of brakes! The doors swing open, the couple is pushed into the bus. The driver is ordered to keep quiet and drive. There are still 10 kilometers to the traffic police post, the guy falls unconscious on the floor, but she still resists...

Time Has No Name

1989 • 60 min • Sweden

A documentary which visually captures the day-to-day routines of a husband and wife on a small farm.

Die große Reise der alten Schildkröte

1989 • 13 min • East Germany, Germany

Somewhere in an unknown land of turtles, an old turtle wants to see the world. After hearing a cancan record she wants to dance and decides to take a ship to Europe - to Paris. Once there, she learns how to do the cancan, wears sequinned dresses, stiletto-heeled shoes and net stockings. She loses these wonderful things on her journey home but she still has her memories and the zest for life.

The Painter Came From a Foreign Land

1989 • 43 min • Germany

In this film, Dammbeck explores his own decision to relocate to Hamburg, West Germany, and tries to sort out his past as an artist. In the process, he interviews artists Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling, and Hans Scheib, who had been core members of the alternative art scene in East Germany. They had all worked together in the 8mm scene and organized or planned multimedia and crossover exhibitions, including Tangents I in 1976-77 and the First Leipzig Autumn Salon in 1984. Each left for West Germany in the mid-1980s. What has become of their former artistic strategies and positions? How do they deal with their past? What is the force behind their art now? And how do they cope with the western art market?

Das Celler Loch

1989 • 59 min • Germany

On July 24, 1978, a bomb blasted a hole in the outer wall of a prison in Celle, Germany. The attack was blamed on the Red Army Faction. Years later, in April 1986, the true background was revealed. The attack had been staged with the complicity of Lower Saxony's domestic intelligence service, the GSG 9 and high-ranking government officials. The result was the expansion of anti-terror measures to protect citizens. The documentary tries to get to the bottom of the affair, and at the same time asks whether this action is not just the tip of an iceberg, whether much more was not initiated to stir up public sentiment.

The Englishman and His Jukebox

1989 • 48 min • United Kingdom

Documentary on the fascination of jukeboxes and their owners. Made by Arena.

Norbert Smith: A Life

1989 • 50 min • United Kingdom

A mockumentary charting the life and career of the fictitious British actor Sir Norbert Smith.

The Magic Boy's Easter

1989 • 25 min

12-year-old Josh has a crippling disease in his leg and is cynical about the abilities of his doctor to assist him. After a visit from a Magician, he has a vivid dream in which he discovers that he doesn't need to be alone and that miracles are real. His faith in Jesus Christ is renewed and Josh wakes up with confidence that a miracle can save his leg.

Mano rubata

1989 • 52 min • France, Italy

A young writer meets an enigmatic girl who becomes his obsession. Over the course of a strip poker game at a wealthy household, an extreme game of seduction takes place that comes dangerously close to death. Lattuada switches the plot's timeline from the 60s to the 80s, and the setting from Rome to Paris.

A British Picture: Portrait of an Enfant Terrible

1989 • 50 min • United Kingdom

The updated autobiography of Britain’s most controversial film director, the maker of Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Tommy and The Rainbow, is as unconventional and brilliant as his best films. Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton, his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio), his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air Force, dancing days at the Shepherds Bush Ballet Club and of course his career as a film-maker, beginning with an extraordinary interview with Huw Weldon for a job on Monitor. Full of marvellously funny anecdotes and fascinating insights into the realities of the film director's life, A British Picture is a remarkable autobiography.

Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America

1989 • 60 min

The complex and controversial history of the mental institution in the U.S. through a detailed study of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Let Bygones Be Bygones

1989 • 10 min • Soviet Union

A man from the city arrives at the village to the house his grandmother Nyura. He didn't like his grandmother's inheritance, so Nyura's friend decides to teach her grandson a lesson and invites the house spirits Akulka and Dunyka. At night, they sing and dance, turning the house upside down, so that the heir remembers his childhood and comes to his senses.

Brian Eno: Imaginary Landscapes

1989 • 40 min

Here’s an interesting and extremely rare documentary from 1989, which features legendary producer and multimedia artist Brian Eno discussing his process and his thoughts on music in general.

Les Vamps

1989 • 60 min

Distinctive features: they love to wear floral jersey dresses and wear scarves straight out of ancient times. Philosophical principles: to gossip in a great and beautiful burst of thwarted and buffoonish bigotry. This Vamps show was recorded in 1989, at the Palais des Glaces. Dominique de Lacoste and Nicole Avezard play two raging vixens, unable to agree on any subject, but terribly in tune when it comes to sending out jibes and other slanderous remarks about their neighbors.

The Darty Report

1989 • 50 min • France

A daring deconstruction of consumerist behavior featuring a robot and Miss Clio Darty, with a voiceover by Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, this philosophical "report," like so many of Godard's commissions, was rejected by its funders.

Pillar

1989 • 10 min • Soviet Union

The film is for adults and consists of several sharply satirical episodes: “Help”, “Balance” and “Pillar”.

Sonic Soldier Borgman: Madnight☆Gigs!

1989 • 28 min • Japan

A music clip OVA using full versions of songs that were from the anime.

Nastya and Egor

1989 • 32 min • Soviet Union

The main characters of the film are members of the group "Nastya" Nastya Poleva and Yegor Belkin. The half-hour half-documentary tape included footage taken by Balabanov in 1985-1990. In addition to the main characters, the documentary footage captured many prominent figures of Sverdlovsk rock club, in particular Vyacheslav Butusov, Leonid Porokhnyu, and local actors.

Fatal Addiction: Ted Bundy's Final Interview

1989 • 56 min • United States of America

Ted Bundy, an infamous serial killer responsible for the murder of as many as 50 young women and girls, granted an interview to psychologist James Dobson just before he was executed on January 24, 1989. In that interview, he described the agony of his addiction to pornography. Bundy goes back to his roots, explaining the development of his compulsive behavior. He reveals his addiction to hardcore pornography and how it fueled the terrible crimes he committed.

Behind The Mask: The Making Of Toronto’s ‘Phantom Of The Opera’

1989 • 47 min

CBC documentary about the making of the original Canadian production of The Phantom of the Opera

Adorno - Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen

1989 • 43 min • Germany

Documentary aired on German television in 1989. Includes interviews with Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Alexander Kluge and more.

Histoire(s) du Cinéma 1a: All the (Hi)stories

1989 • 51 min • France, Switzerland

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art.

The Man Who Met the Trains

1989 • 12 min • East Germany

A top administrator in the Federal German armed forces measures the machinery of murder at Auschwitz according to the effiency principle, and deems it a triumph. Militaria dealers market all the components for a do-it-yourself SS officer. The film assembles on, piece by piece, from a price list: the complete Hauptsturmführer for 2,921 Deutschmarks, ready to meet the trains arriving at Auschwitz with the appropriate aluminium lurex armband at 45 Marks.

The Making of Yaaba

1989 • 34 min • Senegal

Djibril Diop Mambéty followed and filmed the shooting of Yaaba, Idrissa Ouédraogo's second feature film. A documentary full of humorous anecdotes regarding the dangers of shooting in Burkina Faso.