All Films

Habit

1981 • 18 min • United States of America

An alcoholic falls in love with a woman who might be a vampire. Remade in 1995 by the same director.

Iron Maiden: [1981] Beat Club Bremen

1981 • 33 min

Setlist: 1. Prowler 2. Sanctuary 3. Phantom of the Opera 4. Iron Maiden 5. Wrathchild 6. Innocent Exile 7. Sanctuary 8. Another Life

The Pink Panther in 'Pink at First Sight'

1981 • 30 min • United States of America

It is Valentine's Day and the hip feline has no love and no money except for seven cents. He goes to a messenger service for a job but messes his rehearsal up. He then buys a cassette player and pre-recorded cassettes with the seven cents he had left and goes back to the messenger service miming to "Vesti la giubba", an aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, and gets hired as a messenger on Valentine's Day

Punch and Judy: Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy

1981 • 47 min • United Kingdom

An unusual documentary from the Brothers Quay and Keith Griffiths about the history of the Punch and Judy puppet show.

Casey Stengel

1981 • 56 min • United States of America

Charles Durning appears as the legendary baseball manager Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel in this one-man show presented before a live studio audience.

The Best of Times

1981 • 48 min • United States of America

This ABC pilot starred seven teenagers in an '80s-style laugh-in. It told the light and dark side of teenage thoughts with dancing and singing added in for color.

B.C. A Special Christmas

1981 • 30 min • Canada

Peter enlists his sarcastic one-legged friend Wiley to help conjure a myth based around the idea of giving. Seeing the chance to make a profit off the selflessness of others, the two cavemen create a figure that develops into the first Santa Claus but are then baffled when the "myth" they've created apparently becomes real. Substituting gain for fulfillment, Peter and Wiley experience the true meaning of Christmas.

Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown

1981 • 24 min • United States of America

After Charlie Brown spots a girl briefly shown in a sports event broadcasting, he is smitten enough to go in search of her with the help of Linus. Unfortunately in his search, he has his usual amount of luck. As Charlie Brown is watching a football game, he spots a girl in the stands that he immediately attaches himself to. When the game ends, he is desperate to find her, so he enlists Linus to help him and, because of his absolute nervousness, to do the talking for him. However, that move could wind up spelling doom for the love-starved Charlie Brown once they finally find her.

The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid

1981 • 60 min • United States of America

The award-winning Coke commercial becomes a heart-warming story!

Let the Princess Stay with Us

1981 • 55 min • Czechoslovakia

Modern version of Snowhite fairytale. Girl Katka is frustrated and restless. She escapes from home and find herself in the orphanage. Seven orphan boys hide her and call her "Princess". But Katka is soon uncovered and her frantic mother is on the way...

No Visible Scar

1981 • 60 min

A wounded member of a rebel terrorist organisation is tended by an English nurse. She is imprisoned, interrogated, then released to face another form of interrogation.

Zločin na poště

1981 • 43 min • Czechoslovakia

A report of embezzlement is made against Helenka, a popular clerk at the village post office. The investigation reveals that she is 200 crowns short and the girl commits suicide. Her protector and friend, the gendarmerie sergeant Brejcha, does not believe that the girl is capable of any crime, and he investigates how the money was actually stolen. Apparently, someone stole her money when she turned away from her window. He gets further clues from the new clerk who took over after Helenka...

She Drinks a Little

1981 • 48 min • United States of America

16-year-old girl is in denial about her mother's drinking problem and refuses to join Ala-Teen.

A Toast to Melbourne

1981 • 37 min

Using archival film, aerial photography, stills, prints and contemporary footage, this documentary presents the city of Melbourne and its lifestyle. Looks at the unique Victorian architecture that transformed Melbourne from a tent city during the Gold Rush to a modern and prosperous city. Captures the vibrant streetscapes, the trams, the elaborate arcades and some of the institutions that cater to Melbourne's elite such as the Georges store and the Melbourne Club.

Backs to the Blast: An Australian Nuclear Story

1981 • 52 min • Australia

A document of Australia's nuclear industrial history, from uranium mining and its toxic legacy to the nuclear weapons tests conducted at Maralinga in South Australia.

The Trolls and the Christmas Express

1981 • 30 min • Canada

The Trolls and the Christmas Express is an animated classic about six roguish trolls who are determined to sabotage Christmas by infiltrating Santa's village disguised as elves. After a week of wreaking havoc but still not completely ruining Christmas, they are about to give up when they get a devilishly clever idea. On the day before Christmas Eve they get the reindeer dancing and singing songs all night long. The poor reindeer are so tired the next day that they cannot find the energy to pull Santa's sleigh. Christmas looks like it has finally been ruined - but everyone knows you can't stop Christmas! The elves quickly devise a plan to link the train from Santa's village with tracks that travel all over the world. Santa can deliver the toys using the Christmas Express.

One Village, One Villager...

1981 • 20 min • Greece

A documentary shown on Greek television in 1981, that describes the plight of Greek villages abandoned by their inhabitants. Some scenes from this film were rewritten into Voyage to Cythera.

Great Barrier Reef

1981 • 39 min • United States of America

Mysterious and only superficially explored by generations of the native Aborigines, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is one of the world's most extraordinary natural life systems. Twelve hundred miles long and made up of coral, it is the Earth's largest structure built by living things, in some places extending 120 miles into the sea. So many varieties of life call the reef home that more than a dozen species can be found within any square meter of its surface. This IMAX film brilliantly captures the visual splendor of this environment with splendid underwater photography typical of the format. Sharks, sea turtles, anemones, and the coral itself are the living subjects of the camera's probing eye. Overall, this documentary is a comprehensive look at this long-studied web of life that leaves a lasting impression of its depth and beauty.

Static

1981 • 5 min

Short film by John Sanborn

Coupla White Faggots Sitting Around Talking

1981 • 60 min • United States of America

Megalomedia

1981 • 29 min • Australia

A satirical enquiry into the origins of media, their distribution and their effects on the way we behave. Those familiar with cartoonist Bruce Petty’s award winning film Leisure will enjoy the same sharp wit brought to bear on another institution, the media. This three-part film is a satirical enquiry into the origins of media, their distribution and their effects on the way we behave. The first part provides a brief history of print, radio, television and film. The second part proposes that a market-placed media produces the problem of monopolisation leading to mediocrity. Finally, Petty produces a caricature of the way ideas form in the mind from reading print, as distinct from passive looking and listening.

Frank Sinatra: The Man and His Music

1981 • 50 min • United States of America

Though it was taped 16 years after the first A Man And His Music special, this final installment continues to uphold the high standards of the series, thanks in no small part to the accompaniment of the legendary Count Basie and his orchestra.

Sync Touch

1981 • 10 min • United States of America

A lesbian/feminist aesthetic proposing the connection between touch and sight to be the basis for a new cinema. The film explores the tactile child nature within the adult woman filmmaker, the connection between sexuality and filmmaking, and the scientific analysis of the sense of touch.

Arequipa

1981 • 12 min • United States of America

“Shot in the Peruvian convent of Santa Catalina, AREQUIPA analogizes the building blocks of film (frames, color and black and white stocks, negative reversal, superimpositions) to the frames of architecture (doorways, windows, walls, corridors). The confinement of the frame, the convent, changed for Hammer as she realized there could be beauty and a self-willed delineation of activity within the ‘imprisoning’ frame.” – Kathleen Hulser, Centre Pompidou Brochure, 1985