All Films

Career

1985 • 5 min • Soviet Union

An avant-garde film made in the technique of spatial animation, in which the idea of the vertical of power and the struggle with dogmas is played out. According to the newspaper "Literatūra un Māksla", it is the best animated film with an impeccable plot in the 1986 Latvian SSR amateur film screening.

A Fairy-Tale for Madmen

1985 • 23 min

A Tale for Madmen begins as a fable. The wolf, the main character, first escapes from an imaginary animal republic in the Prague Zoo. He moves around the city in human form, disguised as a clown, in an animal mask and later as a decadent girl. In the process, he confronts the realities of late socialism: he visits the Spartakiad, an amusement park and a dance hall at the Exhibition Grounds. At the end of the film, he transforms into the form of a bird and, under the pressure of the hopeless environment, voluntarily dies. The film authentically reflects the hopeless atmosphere of the timelessness of the late 1980s, combining documentary approaches with stylized scenes. Using this method, it captures the romantic conflict between free individuality and resigned society. The film was shot using Pigi's usual method – by setting a fictional character in authentic contemporary realities.

Larger Than Life

1985 • 2 min

“Larger Than Life” is a digital animation that incorporated early motion-capture techniques and other innovative computer graphics techniques. Using the university's molecular biology supercomputer, this was a project by then UCLA engineering/design student Dave Curlender and UCLA medical research doctoral candidate David S. Goodsell. This finished project premiered to the public at the collaborative event On the Threshold (see “On the Threshold” promotional video) and was one of a number of early computer graphic works screened at EZTV, first as a work in progress and then numerous times over the years. Most recently, this 1985 piece was used as part of the finale for the opening of the Getty Museum's Pacific Standard Time.

Laughter in Gabrovo

1985 • 40 min

Bulgaria - one of Russia's staunchest allies - isn't usually thought of as a great source of jokes -yet it is Bulgaria that mounts a unique biennial laughter festival in the House of Humour and Satire in Gabrovo. From around the world wits and comics converge on this Balkan town to exhibit, judge, or simply discuss the serious business of humour. There were two British participants at the last festival. One was exhibiting, the other, 'Larry' of Punch, was a judge. This film tackles the weighty question of whether humour can leap national boundaries, whether the same joke can reduce communist and capitalist to the same helpless giggles.

Fan Film

1985 • 12 min

A study in animation of Japanese ceremonial fans, accompanied by the music of Jason Hwang.

Chatarra

1985 • 8 min

The film follows artist Juan Loyola and his performative actions consisting on painting different kind of industrial junk like cars, appliances or abandoned swings with the colors of venezuelan flags

Eyeglass Adverts

1985 • 2 min

In 1985, M. Henry Jones crafted three Eyeglass Adverts for America's Best.

Über Carlos

1985 • 30 min • Venezuela

A story about the awakening of an artist after spending the night in bed with a mysterious woman. Dreams, hopes and memories are mixed in this modern opera with music by Klaus Nomi, Art of Noise or Goblin.

Kaji no Akuruhi

1985 • 20 min • Japan

A fire safety anime where two boys who work at a barbershop are accused of starting a house fire (when it was the barber's son).

By the Cornfield

1985 • 6 min • Romania

Two boys find a kernel of corn.

Man Is Stronger Than Fortress

1985 • 9 min • Soviet Union

A young man agrees to be buried in a rampart to save his community from invaders.

Charles Gatewood's Weird Mardi Gras

1985 • 60 min

At Mardi Gras, in New Orleans, there are a million drunk people in the streets, all masked and laughing. The energy really gets reporter/filmmaker Charles Gatewood going. It's not just the subject matter, it's also the energy of the event.

Haloperidol

1985 • 19 min

Experimental short by Harumi Fujii.

Rocky Two

1985 • 8 min • Belgium

As part of a school project, a group of children from Brussels create an animated film inspired by the theme of "play." Five stories come to life in sets made from black-and-white photos of their own living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms. From Monopoly to video games, each story offers a unique perspective on creativity and the power of imagination.

Cloudwalker

1985 • 54 min • United States of America, United Kingdom

Cloudwalker, the 1985 Banff Mountain Film Festival award-winning mountaineering film, follows Mark Wilford and Jeff Lowe as they prepare to climb a new route on this wild and majestic spire of the Alaska Range's Bear's Tooth South Summit (the south summit of the Mose's Tooth Massif). Featuring inspiring footage of the two climbers at the top of their game honing their mental and physical abilities to prepare for this challenge, then climbing the classic Naked Edge route in Eldorado Canyon, and interviews revealing the inspiring philosophies of two of America's most prolific and talented climbers, Cloudwalker helps preserve and celebrate the culture and heritage of climbing.

This Is Not an Advertisement

1985 • 5 min

In a project sponsored by the Public Art Fund, Muntadas installed the fifty-second message This is not an Advertisement on the electronic Spectacolor lightboard that then dominated New York's Times Square. Every twenty minutes, between commercial advertisements, the sign broadcast the text: "This is not an advertisement... subliminal... speed... fragmentation," alluding to the surrounding media environment of marketing and billboards. With each successive signal, the message became more distorted and abstract, until it was rendered virtually illegible.

The Impossible Decade

1985 • 51 min

One of many films commissioned by the U.N. to commemorate the Decade For Women, which began in 1976, The impossible decade assesses what has actually happened to women in those ten years.

The Kiss

1985 • 6 min • United States of America

In his film work from the early 1980s, the artist used an Apple computer hooked up to a laser disc player. He scratched the laser disc, creating a stammering image, and a disconnection between time and space.

Ten Cents a Dance: Parallax

1985 • 30 min

Confusion, underlying meaning and unspoken truths are often associated with the dialectic of sexual communication. Mingled with the intensity and unpredictability of a “one night stand,” they generate unique sensations – mixed emotion, risk, and excitement. The film employs formal devices in a manner that is exceedingly simple, yet very effective. Its subject matter, sexuality and communication, gains depth and poignancy through the artist’s decision to shoot the film’s three scenes for projection in a “double screen” configuration.

The Maintenance of Silence

1985 • 22 min • New Zealand

On November 18 1982, a 22-year old Aucklander, Neil Roberts, daubed a washroom wall with the graffiti slogan: ‘WE HAVE MAINTAINED A SILENCE CLOSELY RESEMBLING STUPIDITY’. He then placed a bomb outside the State Security Computer Centre at Whanganui where files are kept on all citizens. The bomb blew him to pieces.

Clouds

1985 • 25 min

A synthesis of documentary, dramatic, and experimental styles, this film follows two women recollecting their personal and familial experiences from World War II. One woman recounts the story of an aunt from story Hiroshima whose father had been a member of the peace party when the militarist government forced its way to power. Exiled from Japan they were then interned with Canadians of Japanese descent. The other woman recounts the details of her experience as a young nurse on the morning of August 6, 1945.

A Song of Ceylon

1985 • 49 min • Australia

A formally rigorous, visually stunning study of colonialism, gender and the body. The title echoes the classic British documentary and evokes a country erased from the world map. The soundtrack enacts a Sri Lankan anthropological text observing a woman’s ritual exorcism. Visually, the film brings together theatrical conventions and recreations of classic film stills, presenting the body in striking tableaux. This remarkable film is a provocative treatise on hybridity, hysteria and performance.

Rhonda Goes to Hollywood

1985 • 23 min

Rhonda Goes to Hollywood functions in a similar fashion, exploring the very existence of Hollywood's stars as merely social constructions. The film follows Rhonda Zwillinger as she reenacts glamour poses in her camp/trash bedroom, and as she walks down Hollywood Boulevard. This is intercut with found footage (depicting various stars, such as Elvis, Bardot, Marilyn etc), which, like that in Play Boy, is re-photographed and fucked up so that the celluloid itself is as much of the film's theme as the images it depicts. The film thus positions the ironic glamorous stances of Rhonda as part of a series of repetitious gestures which serve to signify glamour and stardom (for example Rhonda's star on the Boulevard), while film stardom itself is shown to be a transient myth.

Union Jack Up

1985 • 18 min • United Kingdom

The Union Jacking Up is an ode to friends, including Trojan and Leigh Bowery who feature in the film among others, as well as a collage of news footage of 80s Britain. The film’s haunting soundtrack is composed similarly to the video and 16mm footage that fades and dissolves on screen, often montaging two sources to create abstract combinations and juxtapositions. - ICA