All Films

Mircea Eliade et la redécouverte du sacré

1987 • 60 min • France

Mircea Eliade was a traditionalist Romanian novelist and philosopher. Following the disaster of the Second World War, he moved to Paris and Chicago, becoming a respected and influential historian of religions. He acquired something of the status of a guru, as poignantly told in the 1987 documentary Mircea Eliade et la redécouverte du sacré. The film features interviews with Eliade at the end of his life, artfully spliced with cuts to religious imagery on a background of moving spiritual music. It was released in 1987, the year after his death.

Eine Rolle Duschen

1987 • 5 min • Germany

A man wants to take a shower in a public shower, but it is only for "naked showerers". But he is wearing swimming trunks...

Valtos

1987 • 11 min • United Kingdom

Valtos is a story told from thirty years hence, in the last moments of its narrator, who awoke one day in 1987 'with the knowledge that I had been duplicated during the night, and that I was an inferior replica of myself'. There follows a relentless, epic, pursuit of an absconding phantom - his 'original' - which ends in catastrophe at Valtos, a place at once ethereal and terrifying.

AIDS: Sexual Knowledge Full of Mistakes

1987 • 30 min • Japan

My Weekend

1987 • 14 min • Soviet Union

My Weekend features sophisticated techniques of film tape processing and a creative poetic narrative about freedom.

The Blood

1987 • 48 min • Japan

Two women are trapped in a building with a vampire by night.

Cucharita

1987 • 11 min • Peru

"Cucharita" or Miguel Martínez, is an acrobat and popular musician, who tours restaurants delighting the public with an unusual instrument: a pair of spoons. Behind the few coins that he collects are the painful memories of his childhood, the effort to raise his large family and his religious faith in Sarita Colonia, a saint of marginal towns.

Gotska Sandön

1987 • 53 min • Sweden

A poetic documentary of its nature and of some rare people living on Gotska Sandön, an isolated island in the Baltic Sea, close to Ingmar Bergman’s home residence Fårö.

Museum of Wax

1987 • 21 min

The black-and-white, silent short, Museum of Wax (1981-1987), is the more classically structured of Ludlam’s recovered films. Fluently adopting a silent-era cinematic language, the vaudevillian narrative follows an escaped prisoner (Ludlam) who seeks refuge in a Coney Island wax museum. The set-up is a clever ploy to involve the rows of wax puppets (and boxes of celebrity heads) in a whimsical deracination of gender conventions.

The Flood

1987 • 10 min • East Germany

Two men sit on an island watching the sunset. When a storm gathers, they decide to build a boat. While one man is mindful of the coming danger and urges speed, the other wastes his time on decorative details. Dammbeck’s last film made in the GDR before he left for West Germany is based on a Chinese fable, with music by internationally known jazz musician Günter “Baby” Sommer.

Okhonoon

1987 • 28 min • Soviet Union

Okhonon (Athanasius) was film made for television at Gosteleradio YASSR and broadcast in 1987. For TV, the edited 16mm film was transferred to a video reel, where the sound, music, and titles were superimposed. In the 1990s, the recording suffered and only the last minutes were preserved. For a long time, the film was considered lost. In 2020, the edited film was found and digitized. The original credits, soundtrack, and soundtrack were not preserved.

Circuit Angel: Resolving Starting Grid

1987 • 45 min • Japan

Mariko is a downtown schoolgirl who loves motorcycles and wants to graduate from the street-racing circle of her friends to the world of pro racing.

Nick Cave: Stranger in a Strange Land

1987 • 40 min • Netherlands

Documentary made for Dutch television about Nick Cave in Berlin in 1987.

Priklyucheniya pingvinenka Lolo. Film tretiy

1987 • 31 min • Japan, Soviet Union

An animated film that continues to tell the story of the extraordinary adventures of the cute little penguin Lolo and his loyal friends. Lolo faces new challenges and learns how important friendship, mutual support, and ingenuity are in solving difficult problems.

Gotta Quarter?

1987 • 12 min • United States of America

In downtown Kansas City, a bunch of drunk bums get strangled with a radioactive chain of mutation.

Süleyman the Magnificent

1987 • 58 min • United States of America

Süleyman (or Süleiman) the Magnificent was the longest-reigning emperor of the Ottoman empire. Known for his military campaigns spanning three continents, as well as his religious tolerance and masterful diplomacy, he was also a poet, goldsmith, and dedicated patron of the arts. His rule brought a golden age of artistic and literary production to the Ottoman empire, exemplified by richly patterned textiles, pottery, calligraphy, and several monumental buildings by the architect Sinan. Shot on location in Istanbul, Edirne, and the Turkish countryside.

Da L'Mulud

1987 • 49 min • Algeria

An emblematic figure in the defense of Berber culture, Mouloud Mammeri (1917-1989) experienced numerous confrontations with the authorities in Algeria, including the suspension in 1973 of the teaching of Berber at university and the ban of the conference he was to deliver on March 10, 1980 at the University of Tizi Ouzou on ancient Kabyle poetry... which will be the detonator of the powerful and harshly repressed cultural demands movement of April 1980, also called the Berber Spring. Mouloud Mammeri is one of the "historians" of French-speaking Algerian literature from the middle of the last century who, through his pen, gave back the soul to a country by giving it back its voice.

The Night Waiter

1987 • 19 min • United States of America

A young man is hired as the new room service waiter at the Bay View Hotel, but he soon comes into conflict with the sinister night clerk.

Kalle Stropp och Grodan Boll

1987 • 34 min • Sweden

When Hönan is kidnapped, the mischievous green pranksters Kalle Stropp and Grodan Boll set off on a wild chase. After many perilous adventures, they manage to rescue their friend. But they would never have succeeded without Plåt-Nicklas' help.

The Jump

1987 • 4 min

Two parachuters jump from a plane, but everything goes wrong.

Voices For a Story

1987 • 43 min • Uruguay

Women in an isolated backwater in the countryside tell the story of how they live, and talk about their work in a cooperative that processes wool to make good quality clothing.

Tokyo Sanpo Vol.1

1987 • 28 min

Experimental film by Hiroyuki Sekine.

Hermann My Father

1987 • 52 min • Germany

"Hermann mein Vater" is a companion piece by director Helma Sanders-Brahms to her 1980 film "Germany Pale Mother". The latter work was focused on the impact of war on a German family. This made-for-tv documentary follows Sanders-Brahms and her father Hermann on a trip to Normandy, where he was stationed as a soldier in 1940-41.

Shadows

1987 • 3 min • United Kingdom

In the dark of night, a wandering drunkard encounters a captivating shadow. As their paths intertwine, the shadow undergoes a mesmerizing transformation, revealing an unexpected form that 'captivates' the drunkard's attention.