All Films

Varning! Harning!

1983 • 39 min • Sweden

The controversial Swedish author Anderz Harning (1938-1992) share component of his writing, his sources of inspiration and his never ending anger. "Didn't I say so/Vad var det jag sa" are the challenging words on his memorial stone. Anderz Harning was a major critic of the modern bureaucratic society, nepotism and abuse of power. In his autobiographical novels "Stålbadet" and "Asfåglarna", he reflects on his upbringing in a Nazi home in Sweden.

Macbeth a Tragedy

1983 • 4 min • United Kingdom

Clad in resplendent Scottish regalia, Macbeth sits next to a woman reading the Oxford Companion to English Literature's dry-as-dust synopsis before the "tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy finally introduces Shakespeare's original poetry. To emphasize this already Brechtian approach, the single-take treatment frequently (and deliberately) reveals both lights and a crouching sound recordist.

Electric Boogie

1983 • 30 min • Denmark, United States of America

Short film on the dance phenomenon of "Electric Boogie", and about 4 boys, 2 black and 2 Puerto Rican, who dance it together in the streets of the South Bronx.

Natural Selection

1983 • 35 min • United States of America

From student films, with additional material shot in New Mexico.

The Baker and the Chimney Sweep

1983 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Once upon a time a baker and a chimney sweep decide to change their jobs and it causes a lot of trouble.

The City

1983 • 60 min • Germany

Merlyn Solakhan’s feature documentary The City offers an unusual narrative on Istanbul. Solakhan roams every inch of the city, witnessing separate instances of standing stones, balloons, kites, cars, roads, and neighborhoods with her camera, whilst looking into the city’s nature, yesterday and today. The city from her perspective is intertwined with history. An essay film as well as a documentary, The City is a daring gaze on Istanbul. The movie goes beyond observation to working through and reflecting on the city, with no hesitation in bestowing a new image on it and seeing it in a new light.

Winter Journey in the Hartz Mountains

1983 • 8 min

"A single shot, taken from Douglas Sirk's film ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955), in which we see the camera pull out from Jane Wyman's tearful face as she looks out of her window at snow falling, is slowed down, repeated and blown up in different permutations on three screens to portray a sense of kitsch or overblown, yet authentic, loss. Edited to the length of Brahm's 'Winter Journey in the Hartz Mountains'." - C.S.

Ghost Town at Dawn

1983 • 47 min • Japan

UltraFlash! The Dancemusic Video

1983 • 40 min

An exciting dance/video program inspired by the hit film "Flashdance" is performed to some of the day's hottest dance music.

These Are the Rules

1983 • 5 min

In These Are the Rules, Doug Hall enacted an authoritarian pose to deflate the power vested in political symbols.

Martina

1983 • 30 min

Nine years ago Tom Alandh included five year old Martina Schaub as part of a program about how society dealt with people with various handicaps. Martina, who has Down's Syndrome, is now fifteen years old.

Give Us a Smile

1983 • 13 min • United Kingdom

Shows the effect of the harassment women live with every day, ranging from ‘street humour’ and media stereotyping to actual physical violence. The film was made by women who lived in Leeds during the 1970s and early 80s, when a series of murderous sexual attacks by the so-called Yorkshire Ripper led to a virtual ‘curfew on women’. In response, the many women’s groups already active in the area decided it was time to put their own point of view.

Dulce, la cantante

1983 • 45 min

Mexican feature film

Ohio at Giverny

1983 • 19 min

Praised by The New York Times as a "stunning paean to Monet," Ohio at Giverny is the title of Lucier's highly acclaimed two-channel, seven-monitor installation. Writes Lucier, "This work is an investigation of light in landscape and its function as an agent of memory, both personal and mythic. It deals with the convergence of disparate entities — geographies, epochs, sensibilities: with transitions from one state of being to another, and how within the frame of imagination and collective memory these 'dissolves' take place. "Nostalgic images from Lucier's native Ohio — the pastoral countryside and a Victorian home — are fluidly juxtaposed and correlated with the lush beauty of Impressionist painter Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny, France.

Une journee de vacances

1983 • 22 min

Claire Simon films her ill father during his day: from breakfasting with his nurse to his evening phone calls, when it's time for his daughter to return to the city. An intimate, brave film conceived as a salutation.

The Good Life

1983 • 3 min

A country club member gives new definition to the phrase "having a bad day".

Listen, You'll See...

1983 • 6 min

An animation film that illustrates how closely eye and ear are linked, and how one acts on the other. The film is divided into three sections--game, conflict and flirtation--that repeat themselves without seeming to do so. This illusion is created by the sound track, which varies and colours the action. A film without words.

How the Dinosaurs Really Died

1983 • 2 min • United States of America

Claymation short shows the real reason behind the demise of the dinosaurs.

Chillida: retrato en casa

1983 • 23 min • Spain

Short film on the basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida.

Lao shu jia nü (Love Story of Rats)

1983 • 10 min • China

Reality Fever

1983 • 6 min

An early, single-channel version of Bender's video collages, one with found, created, and manipulated imagery, including a Folgers coffee commercial, a children's superhero cartoon, and Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Likely Stories, Vol. 3

1983 • 60 min

"Likely Stories" was one Pay-TV's first original comedy programs. The one-hour shows were a mixed-bag of short films, videos, and animation that helped define the cutting-edge of today's no-holds- barred cable comedy programming. Each episode was chock-full of notable comedy stars eager to dabble in pay-cable's new found freedoms.

Verão

1983 • 11 min • Brazil

In a beach house, snapshots of a couple's relationship are interspersed with flashbacks to a political past that still threatens their lives.

Home Was Never Like This

1983 • 7 min

Step-printed images of a “home” - a suburban house, no people in sight - combine with a children's story, told in saccarine tones, about the country mouse who discovers that "there's no place like home." A gently told tale of alienation.