All Films

Firefly

1980 • 4 min

John improvises a performance for the camera, spinning a bright, pinpoint light on a long cord, around himself in a variety of patterns, against a black background. A one-shot film, shot in one hour, at one frame per second. And with one-second time-exposures, the light streaks are multiplied and more complex by refracting in the lens. A Camera Dance, inspired by John's earlier film Amusement Park (1978/79).

Jerry Brown: The Shape of Things to Come

1980 • 30 min • United States of America

A live, half-hour campaign broadcast for Governor Jerry Brown during the 1980 Democratic primaries—produced by Francis Ford Coppola and staged in Madison, Wisconsin—experimenting with real-time video effects. The production was plagued by technical mishaps (audio failure, on-screen typos, and misfiring composites), earning the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Apocalypse Brown.”

メキシカン・マウンテン

1980 • 5 min • Japan

A man falls in love with a cactus at first sight and takes a bite out of it. He takes a bite and runs around the fantasy world. When he is chased by a witch and runs away to the sea, his eyes are filled with the void! The next thing you know, your body shrinks and you're scurrying around like an ant on a stone slab. The next thing you know, your body shrinks and you're scurrying around like an ant on a pile of rocks. First, the movements of the characters are broken down into hundreds of still photographs, which are then colored, and then they are moved one by one in stop motion to create unrealistic actions. In addition to the method of creating unrealistic action by moving each image frame by frame, the film successfully combines live-action time-lapse photography to express the unique perspective imbalance, tropical color design, and obsession of the chase.

Parasolka In The Circus

1980 • 9 min • Soviet Union

A ridiculous and funny man nicknamed Parasolka have ancillary jobs in the circus, which he is trying to do and simulteniously watch everything going on behind the scenes, as well as during performances. Once the actors get into a difficult situation, and to everyone's amazement it is Parasolka who helps them out, thus earning himself a clown job. And then the circus director sees how Parasolka deftly juggles behind the scenes, he immediately realizes to send him to the arena, so he in turn performs with the shows of a juggler, a strongman, and a magician, although he is not entirely successful, but the audience liked him and they were laughing. As a result, Parasolka became a circus clown.

Wonder Wall

1980 • 40 min • Japan

The story of a serial gourd robbery murderer and the police pursuing him is interspersed with episodes from a film director whose motif is based on Ueoka himself.

The Luncheon

1980 • 5 min • Hungary

The first animated short film to feature Varga's clumsy claymation character Augusta.

Tissues

1980 • 18 min • Australia

Jane Campions first short film (Sydney College of the Arts)

Parataxis

1980 • 3 min

"Am I the story I sell myself?" Fragmented memories of a chance meeting are dissected and rehashed.

Angela Noite

1980 • 12 min

The nightlife of Praça Tiradentes, in the center of Rio de Janeiro, a traditional meeting place for musicians, circus, theater and transvestites. A poetic observation of a transvestite who sings in the streets every weekend, in the best tradition of popular artists.

Souvenirs/Marseille

1980 • 19 min

Shine

1980 • 36 min • Hungary

Ragyogás is a polyphonic series of studies on film and light; it creates and reshapes cinema’s mythical world and language.

Stepping Out

1980 • 48 min • Australia

One of the most honoured and distinguished documentaries in Australian film history. Stepping Out draws attention to the talents of people with intellectual disabilities. The group went on to perform at the Sydney Opera House.

A Documentary

1980 • 20 min

A short documentary by Nikos Koutelidakis, about Galaxidi.

The Fear Vendors

1980 • 20 min

Video documentary about a dentist who treats patients with severe cases of fear of dentistry.

Paradise of the Damned

1980 • 3 min

Rock Ross' ironically titled, time-lapse record of a 1980s Gay Pride parade in San Francisco is hardly the celebration of a celebration one would expect. By stationing his camera at a jog in the route so that the floats and people head right at us and then veer off at the last minute (and speeding up their movements in the process) he transforms the pageant's erratic asphalt ambling into an anxiety-ridden urban expedition. - Michael Fox

The Tale of the Stork

1980 • 10 min • Soviet Union

A fairy tale about a magical stork who punished a rich man for greed and thanked the boy for his kindness.

Canada Vignettes: Melvin Arbuckle, Famous Canadian

1980 • 5 min • Canada

W.O. Mitchell recounts Newton's Law of Falling Backhouses, a story based on the youthful pranks of his prairie childhood.

Group VIII: Hidden Tracings/Exposed Fragrances

1980 • 10 min

“Since all matter in the Universe pulsates rhythmically, it is therefore , in constant motion. My film/videos become an activated metaphor to elucidate this phenomenon . I attempt to create psychically charged images that are in a constant state of flux- structured formally but with a poetic intent. Through the use of slow movements and small changes the images become felt, eliciting an almost tactile response."-Director Statement

Brighton Beach

1980 • 60 min • United States of America

A 1980 documentary on the historic Brooklyn neighborhood.

Paris Birth Film

1980 • 40 min • United States of America

"Like STREET FILM PART ZERO, PARIS BIRTH manifests with the employment of four projectors running simultaneously with image overlap. The film opens with one projector showing the film-maker's wife walking down a Paris Street. Short bursts of film, flash frames, jumps, and the gentle flow of motion and subtle color highlights the scene. When the other projectors are switched on, shown are isolated events leading up to the birth of a child. The mystical beauty of the film cannot be ignored and the pacing of the four images afford a kind of universal intimacy into the human condition of constant flux. Ordinary events, such as walking down streets, pouring coffee, talking on the telephone become extraordinary on the level of recognition of the regenerative process going on inside and outside the viewer."—Susan Headley

The Drop Card

1980 • 15 min

A young woman must face her insecurities when she is tasked with an assignment for her speech class.

Filmworks, August 1980 (La Ventosa and San Felipe, Mexico)

1980 • 10 min • Mexico

Featured in Ana Mendieta's "Selected Performance Works"

A Fejenincs Írástudó

1980 • 58 min

The Chief Officer found dead on a morning in his well isolated room, doors locked from inside, armed guards outside at the door. The inspector find it weird, as seemingly no one was there when he stabbed in his heart. Turns out soon he has a wife, who is kept in a cage. The inspector want to meet her, and she says she actually not the wife of the Chief Officer, but she came to the palace with her husband who was killed by the CO.

Superficies (Gerardo Rueda)

1980 • 10 min

One of our part of the sculptural and pictorial work of Gerardo Rueda, they inspire sequences of different and opposite times, from the slow camera movements with which wooden constructions are treated to the liveliness of the rhythms achieved with brightly colored surfaces.