All Films

Seuls

1989 • 12 min • Belgium

Mental anguish is all that's present in the film Seuls / Alone (1989). Shot like a grungy medical documentary, Smolders and co-director Thierry Knauff intercut shots of several children at a Belgium psychiatric clinic. The kids are shown with forlorn expressions, twicthing their eyes, sometimes smiling, shaking, jumping, rocking their heads side to side, or smacking their heads with horrific glee against walls. It's a minimalist work that captures the intense monotony of lost and disturbed young minds, and maintains a gritty intensity.

Earthen Man

1989 • 38 min • Belgium

From the construction of a sculpture "life size" in the earth, the director Boris Lehman imagines a story that staged a sculptor (Paulus Brun) struggling with an impossible order. The man of land is "golemise", takes life in the countryside, and ends up dying on an opera stage.

La moglie ingenua e il marito malato

1989 • 57 min • Italy

A thief caught red-handed tells the landlord a very strange fact that happened to him looking through the keyhole of another apartment where he was stealing.

Epiphanies

1989 • 7 min

Fragments from a would-be abecedarium: E IS FOR ELEVATOR, J IS FOR JUMP, K IS FOR KISSING, M IS FOR MAGGOT and S IS FOR STRANGER.

Child of the Sabbat

1989 • 59 min • United States of America

Unsolved child abductions linked with covert satanic cults and "virgin sacrifice" inspired this 1989 controversial re-enactment which concludes with a verbatim, esoteric Luciferian ritual. A Catholic Priest investigates the abduction of an 11 year old parochial school girl who returns in a comatose state.

Paper Tiger Television, New York

1989 • 24 min

Film about the Paper Tiger Television non-profit, low-budget public access television program and open media collective based in New York City.

Alma the Younger

1989 • 30 min

Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah rebel against their parents and work to destroy the church of Christ. In answer to their parents’ prayers, they are visited by an angel. Alma is struck as if dead and his soul suffers the torment of sin. Alma later awakes as new person, converted by the mercy of Jesus Christ. Alma and Mosiah’s sons become the greatest missionaries in the Book of Mormon. Mosiah 26–28; and Alma 36.

Dog City: The Movie

1989 • 48 min

This parody of film noir and gangster flicks takes us through the dangerous town of Dog City, teeming with colorful Muppet Dog characters. Rowlf the dog is your guide through the underside of canine life during the 1930s in Dog City. Our hero, Ace, enters the world of bulldog gangsters and terrier molls when he inherits a saloon from his late Uncle Harry. Unwilling to pay protection money, Ace finds himself the target of Bugsy, a bulldog bully who owns most of Dog City. Life can be ruff!

La Verbotene Voyage

1989 • 40 min

Captain Steel must save his ship and passengers from a squad of evil mutinying sailors gone bad. Caught in a love triangle, things go from bad to worst as an explosion sets the ship on fire, landing our survivors on an hot rocky island.

Point 'n Shoot

1989 • 5 min

A lavish home is visited, shutters click, bottoms are exposed, water splashes and a welcome wetness stains an area unquenched for so long. A jacuzzi bubbles to life in a bedroom community that floats to sleep on aqua-filled rubber.

Ammon, Missionary to the Lamanites

1989 • 30 min

Ammon, one of the sons of Mosiah, forsakes kingship to become a missionary to the Nephites’ mortal enemy, the Lamanites. Ammon shows great humility as he asks to become servant to the Lamanite king, Lamoni. Later, Ammon defends the king’s flocks against a band of robbers. His faithful example brings Ammon the opportunity to preach unto the king, bringing him and many others to humility, repentance and conversion.

Visions of Ecstasy

1989 • 20 min • United Kingdom

The 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa, surrounded by candles and crosses, fantasizes about making love to a crucified Christ and her own psyche.

Swirlee

1989 • 16 min • United States of America

Tells the story of Mr. Softee, a mutant hybrid with an ice cream cone for a head, who was the victim of the anti-miscarriage drug "Nodroppinum" which changed the pregnant mother's child into whatever food she craved at the time (a parody of the Thyladimide scandal from the 60s.) Softee was the head of an ice cream company, until he was forced out of business by the artificial ice cream mafia, led by Don Tofutti.

Isle of Flowers

1989 • 13 min • Brazil

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

Eat the Kimono

1989 • 60 min • United Kingdom

EAT THE KIMONO is a brilliant documentary about Hanayagi Genshu, a Japanese feminist and avant-garde dancer and performer, who has spent her life defying her conservative culture's contempt for independence and unconventionality. She denounced Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal, and dismissed death threats made against her by right-wing groups.

Babylon Series #1

1989 • 5 min • United States of America

After a six -or seven- year study of Hammurabi's Code, original Babylonian Text and translation, I've tried to feel my way into the moving visual thought process of this ancient culture (whose numerical system is composed primarily of building materials, nails, joints and the like): this, then, is a visual music which balances the two thought processes of Structure and Nature.

Wild Women Don't Have the Blues

1989 • 58 min • United States of America

Recaptures the lives and times of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, and the other legendary women who made blues music a vital part of American culture. The film brings together for the first time dozens of rare, classic renditions of the early blues.

Jean Genet Is Dead

1989 • 33 min • Greece, United Kingdom

Young men find themselves scattered and defencelessly exposed to a merciless sun. Their gaze moves off searchingly into the distance. Deserted places appear to offer vague promises of refuge. On a prison wall, an explosive image of desire emerges, full of hope for freedom.

Santa Claus Tsukamaeta!

1989 • 23 min

A boy stays awake so that he can catch Santa Claus.

Little Golden Book Land

1989 • 30 min

A storm threatens the already damaged harbor breakwater, and Beamer, the Lighthouse, fears for the safety of all who live in Little Golden Book Land! When Scuffy overhears Beamer sharing bad news with the big ships anchored nearby, he promises to help. Undaunted, Scuffy recruits Tootle the Train, Poky Little Puppy, and Shy Little Kitten to join him on his mission.

The Knight of Justice

1989 • 45 min • Denmark

Benjamin act as a moral guardian as he saves both a female thief and a child during Christmas in a futuristic Denmark.

Julie Brown: The Show

1989 • 24 min

Uniared pilot for a fictional CBS TV talk program hosted by bubbly actress Julie Brown. The proposal was to relate her misadventures on and off the set. Other regulars are Grant, her co-host; Candace, the producer; Jeff, the director; Michelle, the secretary; and Rhonda, the make-up lady. Julie Brown performs the theme, "The Art of Being Fabulous."

A Nightmare on Drug Street

1989 • 40 min • United States of America

Middle class teenagers Jill, Felipe and Eddie, talk about their addiction and drug-related death.

Akko-chan's Got a Secret!

1989 • 25 min • Japan

Taisho's father plans to construct an apartment building on a vacant land he owns behind his own house. The spot is a playing field for the kids in the neighborhood who will fight to keep it as it is. Akko, being a friend to those in need, uses the powers of her magical compact to investigate and sway the decision to keep the kids happy.