All Films

The Third Coast

1981 • 55 min • United States of America

This documentary seeks to capture the evolving character of Houston. The film pays special attention to the city’s rapid expansion—investigating not only what attracts so many people to the Bayou City but also its ongoing drawbacks, from a struggling mass transit system to alarming statistics about the use of deadly force by Houston police officers. Of particular note is footage of the premiere of French fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld’s Chloé collection at Neiman Marcus and an open casting call for Urban Cowboy (1980).

The Path of the Ogre

1981 • 25 min • Canada

Identifying himself intimately with serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the director uses the camera to take hold of the actors, constructing fantasies that lead them to believe they are the victims in a film yet to be made. The young men, aged 19 to 26, speak from the heart about love and prostitution. Their search leads us into another world. Is this the world of John Wayne Gacy?

Adventures of the Avant-Garde

1981 • 11 min

Davidovich searches in vain for the meaning of "avant garde." The artist travels to Iowa City, where he conducts a series of "man on the street" interviews with artist Michael Smith, painter and critic Walter Robinson, University of Iowa professor of art history W.J. Tomasini, a security guard at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, an art school secretary, and strangers on the street.

Show Us, We Are Interested

1981 • 10 min • Soviet Union

An outline about the place of television in the life of an ordinary Soviet citizen and about the huge growth in demand for TV sets before the program dedicated to Laughter Day.

The Ladder of Senses

1981 • 26 min • Soviet Union

A Pushkin scholar Valentin Berestov analyzes the works of Aleksandr Pushkin. In particular, he proves that the “folk” songs in them were written by the poet himself.

Inconsequential Doggereal

1981 • 15 min • United States of America

Initially created as an editing exercise for his students at UCSD, Jenkins’ Inconsequential Doggereal mixes poetic narrative fragments of self-shot footage with moments ripped from the unending flow of TV news, advertising, and entertainment. The images and sounds of mainstream television are jammed, freeze-framed, looped, overlaid and rewound—clips of science documentaries, movies broadcast on TV, nightly news commentary on the minimum wage, and a 60 Minutes style interview with the actor Peter Sellers are all jumbled together. Jenkins interjects several original threads, which show pickup football games gone wrong, a young white couple doing chores and hanging out at home, and Jenkins himself laying on a green suburban yard as a lawnmower moves perilously close to his body.

Tempest

1981 • 5 min • United States of America

Abstract video art created in 1981. Music by Vibeke Sorensen and Walter Michael. Abstract video art created in 1981 at EUE Video in NYC.

Philip Whalen

1981 • 8 min • United States of America

This film portrays my friend Philip Whalen, a Zen Buddhist monk and poet, reading from his book The Art of Literature. There is a play of spotlight and shadow in this work which emphasizes the elusiveness of truth in poetry.

ベリザンナ

1981 • 3 min • Japan

Rare-tsu

1981 • 40 min • Japan

Mark

1981 • 5 min • Japan

An animated film by Cine Calligraphie.

Walden: A Short Legacy Film

1981 • 11 min

Walden combines delicate and brilliant images filmed on location around Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts with readings by poet, John D. Ogden, bringing to life the heart and soul of Thoreau's writings. Stunningly filmed by Rick Cardin at the height of New England's fall foliage season, Walden is one of the first films to capture the magical sense of place that inspired Thoreau. Through the selection of quotes, images and a soulful score by legendary musicians this film gem suggests the major themes of Thoreau's work: the reflection of the universal in the tiniest leaf or pebble, the connectedness of all things, the quest for eternal truths and the search for a way of living in harmony in the world.

Spectrum

1981 • 4 min • Canada

Experimental animation techniques give an impressionistic view of a day's weather in Atlantic Canada.

Paris non stop

1981 • 60 min

Slide projections, film clips and film extracts form this showcase of the capital, its monuments, its history, its celebrities and its curiosities.

Haunted Indiana

1981 • 19 min

A short anthology of folk stories about supernatural happenings in the state of Indiana, produced for WTTW Channel 4 Indianapolis.

Arbres de Noël à vendre

1981 • 52 min

Documentary focused on Christmas tree production in Rivière-du-Portage, New Brunswick.

Ana Mendieta: Selected Performance Works (1973-1981)

1981 • 53 min

1. Sweating Blood, November 1973 2. Blood Writing, February 1974 3. Body Tracks, March 1974 4. Burial Pyramid, Summer 1974 5. Untitled, Summer 1974 6. Flower Silueta No. 2, June 1975 7. Alma Silueta En Fuego No. 2, November 1975 8. Silueta de Arena, August 1978 9. Isla, 1981 10. Filmworks, August 1980 11. Esculturas Rupestres, June 1981 12. Anima, 1976 13. Fire Silueta 14. Untitled Silueta 15. Esculturas Rupestres, June 1981 (either mislabelled, or split into two parts or outtakes)

In Search of Marcus Garvey

1981 • 28 min

Leon Brown, a young psychologist, find pamphlets, handbills and other critical materials concerning Marcus Garvey and his period in a trash can in Philadelphia. Intensely motivated, he follows the leads to the still active Universal Negro Improvement Association.

A.r.t.

1981 • 3 min • Israel

The artist becomes two, or four, or still more - the videotechnique makes a group formation of just one person.

Koit ja Hämarik

1981 • 35 min • Soviet Union

An evening in Tallinn's variety shows.

Le sang du sagou

1981 • 55 min • France

Ritual ceremonies and daily life among the Yafar of the village of Hopwan Kbik, western Sepik in Papua New Guinea.

Fifty Miles from Times Square

1981 • 47 min • United States of America

A colorful portrait of life in Putnam County, New York, with its "old-time fiddlers, farmers, commuters, and hippies," where an earlier, more traditional, relaxed style of life continues. This now-classic documentary will generate discussion in a range of classes in American studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, and popular culture. It was produced by renowned filmmaker and musician John Cohen.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

1981 • 5 min

In this retelling of the fairy tale, everyone is sexually charged. Little Red ventures through the woods to visit her grandmother, who seduces the wolf when he comes to her house. The wolf and Little Red, grandma and the woodsman, and Little Red's mom and the milkman are just a few of the pairings. The basket of goodies goes ignored.

Eat

1981 • 3 min

Made by Ralph Miller, a USC School Student on 16mm. Eat won first place in the 16mm category of the 1981 CINEMAGIC/SVA Short Film Search. Ralph Miller is now working on special effects for big budget movies!