All Films

A South Sea islander boy receives his first outrigger canoe and tries to save a sacred talisman that is stolen by enemy warriors. It was prepared for the American television show, but did not air. First aired in Canada on October 22, 1983. It was later shown on The Disney Channel.

The bizarre rituals and disturbing characters found in Liverpool's Casablanca Nightclub.

Sonbert was also a noted film critic, and his writings about feature films are among his more extraordinarily profound and insightful creations. In them, he expressed admiration for a pantheon of American directors working within the studio system, including Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray and Douglas Sirk. An indication of his enthusiasm for Hitchcock was his reputation for conducting tours for visiting friends, associates, and filmmakers of the locations around San Francisco used by Hitchcock while filming Vertigo (1958), and for signing his reviews under the pen-name Scotty Ferguson, the so-named protagonist of this renowned film. In 1986, Sonbert gave a lecture at the Pacific Film Archive, in which he spoke of the "schizophrenic split" in Marnie between "images of /en/closure and escape", representing the interplay between male domination and female independence. Sonbert paralleled these conceits in his own film, A Woman's Touch. -- Jon Gartenberg

Sensuously dark and foreboding, Az Iz rouses an ancient and atavistic trance. – Kathleen Brennan-Waits In Az Iz, Bromberg builds what might be considered a jazz opera – it's all saxophone riffs, repetition and fragments, but swells to epic proportions, essaying notions of origins and archetypes. The deepest blues highlight the sky behind three people in the mountains, and later, black-and-white images of twisted and torqued trees resonate with all the mystical glory of Being. Az Iz, with its sense of grandeur and beauty, is downright breathtaking, and the effect is sublime. – Holly Willis, IFilm

A portrait of a homeless woman living on Pacaembu Avenue in São Paulo, surrounded by mansions. In the patch of land she chose to sleep on, she talks about various topics such as housing, foreign debt, her multiple marriages, the situation of the homeless, and more.

A melancholic meditation on the capital, considering official narratives of ancient elegance alongside the reality of long welfare lines and neglected monuments.

Part Brechtian in its distancing of language, and part-Warholian in its funtime-exploitation of a circle of friends, I You We typifies the strong textual focus of many → ↑ → films and videos of the time.

An experimental documentary following the busy life of an office worker in São Paulo, Marly, and how he manages to have a personal life beyond that.

This film was produced to be included in a compilation of films against the construction of atomic bombs and nuclear powerplants. Some trees and bushes, a clearing. A young man tries to wrap himself in a foil, and a girl who sings about love accompanies herself on a children’s bandoneon.

BBC documentary about the traditional form of Greek music

The short film depicts the neglect of an injured homeless man by the public service.

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

Rubnitz’s short cooking clip showcases a chicken casserole recipe from the kitchen of Elaine Clearfield. All you need is chicken, rice, a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, a can of cream of mushroom condensed soup, and water!

A loner shows up to a gang fight.

A tornado sweeps Dorothy away to the land of Oz, to get home she must seek out the Wizard. Along the way she makes friends with Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion who want a brain, a heart, and some courage. The Wizard agrees to fulfill their requests after they destroy the Wicked Witch of the West. The Wizard of Oz (オズの魔法使い Ozu no Mahōtsukai) is a 1983 Japanese 10-minute OVA. Part of Toei Animation's World Famous Fairy Tale Series (世界名作童話まんがシリーズ Sekai Meisaku Dōwa Manga Shirīzu) video series, it was originally released in February 1983 on Fujifilm's Single-8 film. Later, it was released on VHS a few times by Toei Video. In the United States, it was dubbed in English and released as part of Volume 4 in the My Favorite Fairy Tales video series, produced in 1986 by Saban Productions and released in 1987 by Hi-Tops Video. It was re-released twice: 1990 by Video Treasures, and 1995 by Anchor Bay Entertainment.

An entire summer, van der Elsken walked through Amsterdam an filmed in the same manner as he used to shoot his photos, strolling through the city centre and making contact with people that fascinated him. It became hís portrait of the city and its inhabitants.

A documentary about four African-American comediennes set in 1984. Restored in 2021 by the Academy Film Archive. 

An exclusive look behind the scenes of a magazine production.

Alf Sjöberg (1903-1980) was Swedens greatest theater director of the 20th century and as a film director the first of international importance since the silent film era. He won the Grand Prix du Festival at the Cannes Film Festival twice.

A profile of the East Village personality John Sex.

The history of war correspondents.

The formation of the Gay Black Group was a landmark in gay black history. Meeting at Gay's the Word, a bookshop in Bloomsbury, London, it provided a sounding board and support for gay and black communities of the 1980s.

After a flirtatious encounter, a young man finds it difficult to organise the hoped-for reunion with the object of his desire. Calls remain unanswered and he is left with only a drink, his bed and images of soldiers in combat to fill his inner void. Meanwhile, the boundaries between imagination, reality and dream dissolve, and a cinematic chess game ensues in which queer identity is pitted against patriarchal violence.

A short documentary about gospel recording artists Reba Rambo and her husband Dony McGuire, featuring clips of performances of various songs and interviews with the couple.