All Films

When Did Saint Patrick Die?

1980 • 45 min • Soviet Union

Journalist Mitchell Brown meets a tipsy woman at a bar and takes her to his house to spend the night because she is very drunk and cannot control herself. He looks for her documents, but finds only a checkbook with a strange number. The next morning the stranger disappears. Some time later, in the same bar, Mitchell meets her again in the company of a man who turns out to be her husband. She pretends not to recognize Mitchell. It turns out that there was a murder in the city that evening and she needs an alibi.

The Solar Film

1980 • 9 min • United States of America

Educational film about solar energy, told with striking imagery and animation.

Love Without Limit

1980 • 9 min • Denmark

A Danish coming of age film by Lasse Nielson showing bisexual relationships.

The Kingdom Has Come

1980 • 52 min • Canada

We follow the wedding preparations of two childhood friends; the groom is a mechanic and member of the local "roller derby" team who has recently lost his father. At the church hangs a banner that reads "The Kingdom Has Come".

Canada Vignettes: Calliope

1980 • 2 min

A vignette on the travelling calliope (also known as steam organ), a musical instrument that produces sound by sending steam through large locomotive whistles.

Pif-paf, oy-oy-oy!

1980 • 17 min • Soviet Union

A parody of the theatre world. The same piece is played out in a few different theatre styles: opera, avant garde, children's theatre, vaudeville etc.

Genesis in Liverpool

1980 • 38 min • United Kingdom

Granada Television (UK) documentary, following Genesis on their 1980 Duke tour.

Man and a High Speed Society

1980 • 6 min • Japan

The rise of man has been filled with toils and adventures, from learning to build fire to turning to religion, from going into space to inventing feature films and beyond. Though each space flight seems to result in a sharp jab in the eye for the moon, there's still plenty to explore in the path of human history. Whether it’s roasting pigs or cooking ramen on the stove, experience the journey of a man in a high speed society. Short film chronicling human progress, or lack of it.

Gung Ho - Rewi Alley of China

1980 • 50 min • New Zealand

Expat Kiwi Rewi Alley became one of the best known foreigners in 20th Century China and advocate for the Communist Revolution. When China was under siege from Japan in the late 1930s, Alley instigated an industrial co-op movement he termed ‘gung ho' (work together). Its success led to the phrase entering the global idiom. For this documentary a Geoff Steven-led crew travelled 15,000km in China in 1979, filming Alley as he gave his account of an engrossing, complex life story. Co-writer Geoff Chapple later wrote a biography of Alley.

The Edge of the Ceiling

1980 • 25 min • United Kingdom

Alan Garner was the author of The Owl Service, one of the key texts within the recent fad for the English Wyrd. This early 1980’s documentary features Garner talking about his life and influences, and comes loaded with narrated excerpts from his books and eerie musical interludes and recorded screams that are curiously reminiscent of The League Of Gentlemen. Other scenes of Garner wandering around his key sites of inspiration – mainly around Alderley Edge in Cheshire – look like they’re from the early days of pop videos, with shaky hand-held footage and sudden zooms into blacked-out windows and strange rock formations. Somehow it all adds to the sincere intention of introducing Garner’s unusual body of work to the unsuspecting viewer.

Sensual Massage: The Touch of Love

1980 • 27 min • United States of America

Massage can be a thoroughly sensual experience for two people, providing pleasure though touch. The Touch of Love... Massage presents a simple and beautiful way for adults to learn the techniques of full body massage. The steps involved in giving and receiving a massage are portrayed as nude couples demonstrate how to stroke and relax each area of the body. This videodisc invites you to learn and experience, in the privacy of your home, the art of sensual massage--a special form of physical communication.

Throbbing Gristle - Recording Heathen Earth

1980 • 59 min

The recording of the Heathen Earth album. This video cassette was made at the recording of the album Heathen Earth, between 8.10 and 9.00 pm on Saturday 16 February 1980 in front of an invited audience at the studios of Industrial Records Ltd. In addition to the single camera recording of the performance, certain visual information from our files has been included. The soundtrack of the tape was taken independent of the 8-track audio master recording and it remains "live" and unremixed - it consequently differs from the album in some places. Like the TG sound itself, the quality and content of this recording cannot and should not be compared with conventional commercial recordings.

Kapitoshka

1980 • 9 min • Soviet Union

Animation film about a friendship between young Wolfy and Kapitoshka. Wolfy tries to learn how to be scary and threatening. But then he meets a drop of rain, Kapitoshka, which makes him realize that it is not necessary to be scary.

Larisa

1980 • 20 min • Soviet Union

Elem Klimov's documentary ode to his wife, director Larisa Shepitko, who was killed in an auto wreck.

The Treasure of the Grotoceans

1980 • 16 min

Octopus-like puppets cut out of foam rubber are the central characters in this delightful underwater fantasy with its message about ecology and conservation. Two Grotoceans sent on a special mission find all kinds of surprises awaiting them as they roam the sea in search of treasure. Film without words.

New Mornings

1980 • 58 min • Albania

First days after the liberation... Agron and Nora, two young partisans are charged with important tasks in a coastal town. They are soon getting married but Nora suffers from glaucoma. The doctor who cures her, Epaminonda, does not help her to overcome the illness because Nora is the representative of the people s power.

Our Little Cat

1980 • 35 min • China

While looking for his cat, a young boy meets and befriends his neighbor, who is a biology professor.

The Courtyard

1980 • 10 min • China

Based on the Wang Anyi story "Life in a Small Courtyard"

La stella Alpina

1980 • 59 min • Georgia

The film was shot at the opening ceremony of the Georgian Partisan Memorial in Italy and tells the story of the hero Fore Mosulishvili.

From Raquel with Love

1980 • 60 min • United States of America

Musical Special designed to showcase the minimal talents of Raquel Welch. Highlights include: a scene featuring Welch and Mickey Rooney, portraying a cab driver with seemingly magical abilities; a scene featuring Welch in a subway station performing a medley and dance sequence; a scene wherein Welch attempts to sing “Money Makes the World Go Round”; Raquel performing a version of “We Are Family” in a martial arts training class; Rooney and Welch performing “Heaven on Earth”; Welch performing “Don’t Rain on My Parade” while escaping from a straitjacket; Welch performing “A Quiet Thing”; and Welch and Rooney performing “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”

Toyah

1980 • 52 min

Documentary following English musician and actress Toyah Willcox for over half a year, capturing band rehearsals, studio recording sessions, play rehearsals and in her home, the famous Mayhem warehouse in Battersea, London.

Madonna and Child

1980 • 29 min • United Kingdom

A middle-aged British man struggles to reconcile his homosexuality and his Catholic upbringing.

Other

1980 • 3 min • United States of America

A film photographed in Amsterdam but dedicated to capturing a quality of mind engendered there - not, certainly, alienation (as often in travel) but rather some heightened sense of being other.

The King and the Goblin

1980 • 9 min • Czechoslovakia

Wealthy but alone, a king spends his days obsessively polishing shiny objects throughout his opulent castle. After a visit from a puckish forest wizard, the king earns a blessing – or curse – that turns anything he touches to gold.