All Films

The 1st Year UFOp

1983 • 5 min • Soviet Union

An experimental film where imagination, creativity, freedom are intertwined. Young people paint in the courtyard of a Riga apartment building. A young man closes his eyes and imagines himself flying over meadows, forests and rivers.

A Single Regret

1983 • 22 min

A man videotapes a confession of a long-held secret to his family.

Tracy's Family Folk Festival

1983 • 10 min • United States of America

This is an impressionistic portrayal of the 1982 folk festival at Tracy and Eloise Schwarz’s farm in Central Pennsylvania. The festival, dedicated that year to the legendary Elizabeth Cotton, includes Bluegrass, Old Timey, Cajun, Country, and Gospel music. In contrast to the easygoing atmosphere of the festival, the film is a frenetic swirl of elaborately collaged shapes derived from traditional Pennsylvania Dutch designs. While sometimes the music seems to animate the image, at others the image itself becomes visual music on its own, eliciting ephemeral and sometimes forlorn emotions. The film offers an unusual meeting of a folk tradition and the avant garde, implying a fundamental connection between the two.

Aquarium

1983 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Godzilla vs. Underground Monster Pagos

1983 • 1 min

Godzilla faces off against Ultra Q monster: Pagos!

Chance Encounters

1983 • 6 min

Minimum budget and maximum creativity marry to produce an ever-changing mandala of light and color. EZTV founding member James Williams created this short experimental art piece by videotaping a television set through a kaleidoscope and then editing the images together to create an abstract music video. Shot using a home Betamax analog video deck and a one-tube camera.

Quarup Sete Quedas

1983 • 14 min

Quarup is a ritual honoring the dead. The Sete Quedas (Seven Falls) were the largest waterfalls in the world by water volume. In 1982, the violent flooding of the falls and the lands of traditional communities in the region was completed to create the reservoir of the Itaipu Hydroelectric Plant. In this short film, filmmaker Frederico Füllgraf captures the final days of this natural wonder of Paraná, accompanied by verses from Carlos Drummond de Andrade (written in reference to the waterfalls’ destruction) and the Avá-Guarani Quarup ritual.

Baghdad 83

1983 • 27 min • Iraq

Recorded in 1983, Baghdad landmarks on a tour

A Peacemaking Expedition

1983 • 12 min • Hungary

This animated film with hints of Monty Python satire and early 20th century burlesque has Earthlings land on Mars with the intention of bringing peace to the warring natives.

Hommage à Hölderlin

1983 • 53 min • East Germany

Stream of visual images, inspired by Friedrich Hölderlin's works.

Dostoevsky's Doodles

1983 • 20 min • Soviet Union

An attempt to analyze Fyodor Dostoevsky's creative process through sketches and doodles in the margins of his manuscripts.

Fei Tien: Goddess in Flight

1983 • 23 min

Based on the play, "Pigeons," by Ginny Lim, this film focuses on the meeting between an older immigrant and younger American-born woman living in Chinatown. The linkages in their pasts and possible futures unfold as their friendship grows.

Vineri 35 martie

1983 • 15 min • Romania

It is a dystopian world set during World War II, where a couple flees from an invisible but present enemy. A terminal point for humanity, where no one seems to know where to go or from which direction death may strike them.

The Mysterious Hippopotamus

1983 • 55 min • Soviet Union

One fine morning, a handsome and dexterous Lion Cub realized that he did not have a "true friend." How can a clumsy and fat Hippopotamus Borya be a true friend? No! Only the "Mysterious Hippopotamus" can become the most. Upon learning about this, the Lion Cub, allowing the clumsy Hippopotamus to accompany him, went in search of a Hippopotamus. He had to experience many different adventures. And every time his ordinary friend, the Hippopotamus Borya, came to the rescue.

I’m the one who films

1983 • 60 min

Experimental film by Yosuke Okawado.

Aedniku talv

1983 • 20 min • Soviet Union, Estonia

A gardener won't rest even when the snow covers the ground and there are frozen flowers on the window glass. Now it is time to take part in the meetings and lectures held by the gardening cooperative as well as purchase new tools for the upcoming season. And of course one has to keep checking the gardening patch. Winter is an important time for a gardener to prepare for spring. The film serves as a continuation to TV films "Gardener's Spring", "Gardener's Summer" and "Gardener's Autumn".

Does This Town Need Beavers?

1983 • 25 min • Soviet Union

In the lush green town of Pushchino, scientific plans to establish a nature reserve meet opposition from industry.

Forbidden Colors

1983 • 4 min

8mm film work from 1983 by the Film Studies Department of Bunkyō University.

The Profession of Arms

1983 • 57 min

Professional soldiers from six different nations discuss their combat experiences, job demands, and the effects of new technology.

Anthem

1983 • 12 min • United States of America

A series of shots depicting "America" are laid over a classic Gregorian Chant recreated through the distortion of a woman's screams.

Zona inquinata

1983 • 21 min • France

La Zone - the poor, dangerous quarters of Paris (George Lacombe, 1928); the administrative zone where Orpheus looks for his lost Eurydice (Jean Cocteau, 1950); Interzone - the working title for Naked Lunch (W.S. Burroughs, 1959). In 1983, Ossang created a synthesis of all these territories of unrest under a banner of dead colours. - IFFR

Beats of the Heart: Chase the Devil: Religious Music of the Appalachians

1983 • 54 min

From Baptist to bluegrass, this PBS documentary examines the unique culture of religious music in the Appalachian Mountains.

Erholungslandschaft spanische Mittelmeerküste

1983 • 18 min • Germany

A look at the small village of Benidorm on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Within 20 years, the fishing village has become a magnet for tourists from all over the world, with unfavorable consequences for the locals.

The Netherlands

1983 • 15 min • Netherlands

Bert Haanstra was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make a short film about his own country. It had to be a piece of the work that mainly would be shown abroad, so that the rest of the world could make acquaintance with the beautiful countryside, with the modern side of the Dutch society and with historic building and old customs. After everything he had already made about these subjects, Haanstra was able to find a new angle, this time by observing the matter from the air. The result is a pretty mosaic of The Netherlands like it looked in the early eighties.