All Films

The Rainhill Story: Stephenson's Rocket

1979 • 49 min • United Kingdom

First transmitted in 1979, this programme looks at the Rainhill Locomotive Trials in Rainhill, Lancashire (now Merseyside) in 1829, a competition to find the best passenger steam locomotive in Britain.On the 150th anniversary of the trials, replicas of its famous winner - Stephenson's 'Rocket' - and two of its competitors are rebuilt by modern day designers, and the trials are reconstructed in Hyde Park.

Peru: The Revolution that never was

1979 • 28 min

Shows the abject poverty and miserable life style still endured by Peruvian peasant farmers, and notes how the changes to the land tenure system brought about by the 1968 revolution have failed to bring any change in the deplorable living standards of the Peruvian peasant farmer

Tudor Style

1979 • 8 min • Ireland

A short documentary film on the privately owned Tudor Cinema built and run by Roy Spence’s identical twin brother Noel. The film shows the preparation and organisation involved in running the small 66 seat private cinema and is a loving tribute to classic cinemas of a bygone era.

Carles Salvador (Elogi a un xiprer)

1979 • 27 min • Spain

Documentary about the vital, intellectual and political trajectory of the poet and grammarian Carles Salvador, one of the main promoters of the linguistic normalization of Valencian.

Public Interventions for the City of Milan

1979 • 6 min • Italy

The film is ironic about the lack of actions for transforming city spaces; the few actions undertaken are almost always limited to the positioning of “poles and chains”: the temporary signs of a hypothetical transformation on the city. The film shows sequences of innumerable “pole and chain” barriers, commented on by architects, councillors, members of activity groups… who all underline the impermanence of these objects in view of some “elusive” transformations of the city.

The lake

1979 • 14 min • France

How we destroy the site of Lake Trémelin in Iffendic, in the name of tourism of course. The lake becomes the prey of promoters for a "marina"! A nature museum will be built there.

Pichón en el Obelisco

1979 • 5 min • Argentina

During the 1980s, Hirsch made a series of documentary films about various events in the city, like the appropriation of a monument in PICHÓN EN LE OBILISCO.

Speedy Life

1979 • 2 min • Italy

Two frantic views of Roberto Taroni and Luisa Cividin’s private life in New York. The first faces a double window at night, with Cividin smoking and getting dressed while Taroni putters around; the second shows a studio-like wide room, a toilet and ironing board, with Taroni looking lost in some work while now Cividin putters around. – Olaf Möller

Camera Car

1979 • 23 min • Italy

Doing the America thing: riding around in a car, looking out at the landscape (desert, trees and bushes, cities), observing the driver, enjoying the ride as a pure, almost primeval cinematic act. All bookended by phantom rides through the bright lights of Las Vegas. – Olaf Möller

No, No, Pickle

1979 • 5 min

A claymation adaptation of Arlo Guthrie's classic "The Motorcycle Song."

Quattro Delitti: Quasi Due Metri

1979 • 60 min

A corpulent two meters tall man goes to Turin for a fair. There, by chance, he finds the daughter of two people he knows "walking the streets". With various expedients, he convinces her to return to her native land

My Mother Was a Star

1979 • 23 min • France

A film by Joseph Morder

The Hole

1979 • 26 min • Soviet Union

A man digs a hole in his yard while everyone is against him.

Fantasy Fling

1979 • 28 min • United States of America

A documentary on the disco phenomenon using cinema verité techniques. Explores a disco dance class, disco clothing, the disco record industry, and the lives of four people as they prepare for a night at a disco.

Game of Don Quixote

1979 • 8 min • Bulgaria

School Break

1979 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Photo Album

1979 • 4 min

Color UCLA Student Film, presreved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. A rocker gets sucked into a photo album, dancing across the images, only to have a maid close the album while she's still inside. Shot on video with a blue screen technology.

Cinématon n°43 : Nicole-Lise Bernheim

1979 • 3 min • France

Portrait of Nicole-Lise Bernheim

Requiem for Sally

1979 • 18 min • Northern Ireland

A mother and father’s grief following the loss of their daughter in a road accident is mapped alongside the changing seasons in this contemplative short film written by John McCullagh and produced and directed by Terence McDonald.

Septiembre Margo

1979 • 11 min

UCLA Student Film, Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Dramatization of the aftermath of the military coup d'état in Chile on September 11, 1973 led by Augusto Pinochet and the story of the desaparecidos (the disappeared), those were imprisoned and killed by the Pinochet regime. The story follows the kidnapping and murder of Manuel, a filmmaker and teacher, Maria, artist, and their daughter Fabiana.

Report on Nicaraguan Revolution

1979 • 15 min

UCLA Student Film, Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Documentary about the Sandanistas, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and their supporters in the United States. Features interviews with organizer Julio Virseños, Alex Palacios (Nicaraguan Representative to the Organization of the American States Human Rights Commission), and footage of protests in McArthur Park. It also includes news footage and excerpts from "Patria Libre O Morir," a film made about the Sandanistas in 1978.

Better than Heaven, Worse than Hell

1979 • 3 min

Two men climb out of a pit in the earth and dissolve into a wild collage of patterns, images and bodies. Barysas’ most experimental film.

The Finish of the Sports Year

1979 • 5 min • Soviet Union

About the figure skating competition for the prize of the Nouvelle de Moscoux newspaper

Split/Flow

1979 • 11 min

The screen is slit into colors. Through this moves a pattern that is constantly warped by waves. Another space opens up; level upon level of form is revealed. Clusters of voices repeat themselves. Alternating percussion and sharp edits counerpoint the auiovisual flow.