All Films

Adynata

1983 • 29 min • United States of America

A formal 1861 portrait of a Chinese Mandarin and his wife is the starting point for this allegorical investigation of the fantasies spawned in the West about the East, particularly that which associates femininity with the mysterious Orient. ADYNATA presents a series of oppositions-male and female images, past and present sounds-which in and of themselves construct a minimal and fragmentary narrative, an open text of our imaginations, fears and fantasies.

Leopold the Cat's Summer

1983 • 9 min • Soviet Union

Leopold the Cat is going to the country house. The mice are trying to ruin his vacation.

Dance of Death

1983 • 9 min • Australia

An animated satire on television violence, set in a world where the skeletal Don Death runs a popular variety show called “Dance of Death”.

Cement the Land

1983 • 4 min • United Kingdom

Made with a standard 8 Bolex camera and possibly Andrew Kötting’s first film. Shot alongside a wall in Mottingham with Danny Baker whilst they were still students at Ravensbourne College of Art in Elmstead Woods. Music by Being Karnal, Kötting’s music band with Heilco Van der Ploeug.

The Right Way

1983 • 55 min • Switzerland

A bear and a rat explore dark forests, treacherous ravines and snow-swept glaciers. With no real aim in mind, the bear and the rat bungle along in a folk tale of their own devising, wondering what they should do and where they should go, enjoying nature together, foraging for sustenance, getting lost, squabbling, joking and making music along the way.

L'Histoire du cinéma 16

1983 • 53 min

Jean-Jacques Rousseau has just finished his last film, shot in unworthy conditions. He is preparing to show it to the movie critics of a local newspaper. The filmmaker launches the first images but these reveal all the problems that a non-professional filmmaker may encounter.

The Bullfinch

1983 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Once a boy in a pet store saw a red-breasted bullfinch and asked his mother to buy him this bird. But the mother refused to buy, citing the boy's bad behavior and the coat he had ruined. He was very upset, but then, after thinking a little, he decided to correct his behavior and stopped fighting. Mom was pleasantly surprised by such drastic changes in her son's behavior and bought him a bullfinch.

Mózg

1983 • 19 min

The story of a valued professor named Szop. One day, a scientist commissions a routine study. A computer analysis shows that, on the basis of the study that Szop is dead. The professor and his colleague, Swalski, try to explain the unusual result.

Sonia and Stan Paint a Portrait of Ronnie

1983 • 14 min

In Sonia and Stan Paint a Portrait of Ronnie, VanDerBeek and artist Sonia Sheridan assemble a pastiche of images of Ronald Reagan, metamorphosed through digital computer graphics.

The Camelia Boy

1983 • 16 min

An autobiographical film about Eric M. Nilsson's experiences of Swedish health care and the limits of polite society.

Une Soirée Elégante

1983 • 60 min

SOV feature by Bill Bordy, produced in French, and left deliberately untranslated into English as an American homage and pastiche of the "French farce" genre. [This film was completed in 1983 and seemingly shelved until Vinegar Syndrome's blu-ray release in 2024 without English subtitles added to the presentation.]

Daughter of the Moon

1983 • 4 min • Japan

Drawing animation. I visualized the music of the band "Zelda", which I often went to the live show. (Yuko Asano).

Manekiny Tadeusza Kantora

1983 • 25 min • Poland

Tadeusz Kantor’s “Theatre of Death” is based on a singular reversal of traditional values: in this work, which indirectly relates to the world of puppetry, death is seen as a positive counter to the values of a consumer society. Thus, in accordance with this perspective, the actor was to appear to the viewer with the same strangeness and the same distance as though surrounding a corpse.

Norwood

1983 • 25 min

Norwood (1983) continued the 'story' of Stonebridge Park and the technique, in another London suburb. Short films of increasing technical sophistication climaxed in 1989 with The Clouds, a further topographical exploration combining another anxious fictional commentary with imagery derived from a journey across the north of England from Jodrell Bank to Whitby.

La Rényon lontan

1983 • 51 min • Reunion, France

A documentary about 1950's Reunion island.

Joker

1983 • 3 min

1983 short by Tessa Hughes-Freeland

The Occult Philosophy

1983 • 2 min • Germany

An attempt to visualize a secret knowledge about the nature of man —a philo-clip—, through the use of structures of dissociated geometry and laser beams, with direct references to the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and the work of Agrippa von Nettesheim.

Angels of War

1983 • 52 min

ANGELS OF WAR captures the experiences of villagers who lived through the Papua New Guinea campaign. Caught up in a war they could not understand or influence, they had no choice but to obey whoever held the gun. Their homes were bombed. They starved as refugees in the bush. They were conscripted as carriers. They fought as infantrymen and guerillas. In Japanese-held areas, they were forced to collaborate or risk execution; some were later hanged for treason by the Australians.

In My Pocket

1983 • 8 min • Soviet Union

A variety of animals go on a musical adventure though the countryside.

Honeymoon in Reno

1983 • 4 min

I was hoping to strike it rich on our honeymoon in Reno. In a way I did, seeing that the camera was filled with very rich imagery in recording this visual journal of our brief visit. The soundtrack is a creation of Katie Steinorth who translated the Buddhist chant of “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum” into the words “Oh, Money Bring Me A Home.” —Canyon Cinema

Avant Coureur / Raster Relief

1983 • 17 min

Two video art pieces reflect the artist's concern with the relationships between "electronic imaging, vision and hearing, language/text/music/sound, abstract cognition and perception under the investigation of the maker/observer and observers." "Avant coureur" utilizes the video screen to project and display highly contrasted images that cut quickly from frame-to-frame, thereby creating a room-size flicker/environmental box. The music throughout is by Kraftwerk. "Raster relief," a work in two parts, provides a conceptual literalization of the terms raster (video) and relief (sculptural and difference from the ongoing). The look of this work is dedicated to the "isms" of modern painting and sculpture and the respective pioneers of abstraction.

Mirage

1983 • 6 min • Canada

Mirage offers a thoughtful and disturbing meditation on a wide variety of cinematic problems - the portrayal of women in film, the ability of a reassuring male commentary (“Dreams come true in Blue Hawaii”) to direct our gaze and our conventions of fantasy/dreamland. The film tests ones ability to pay attention. We keep seeing essentially the same image and hearing the same phrase yet we have a difficulty grasping what this film is about. The film has a mystery or haunting feeling to it that perhaps surfaces well after one has seen it, and is the basis of thought on the subject of the sexual portrayal of women on film. Mirage could be seen many times; perhaps the tail could be spliced to the head resulting in a continuous loop - as there is no clear beginning, middle, or end to the film – somewhat like the nature of our own existence. – Martin Rumsby, The Invisible Cinema

Spärlich gelungener Wurf mit bösem Löffel

1983 • 2 min • Germany

Insultan

1983 • 24 min

A rude awakening for a man who battles the world on his way to a permanent deep sleep. (3/4 in. video; color)