All Films

Women's Things

1978 • 45 min • Mexico

A young sociology student has an unintended pregnancy and is subjected to the terrible humiliation of an incompetent doctor. The girl falls ill from the poorly performed abortion and is taken by a friend to the General Hospital. Film that reports clandestine abortion in Mexico, with interviews with women who have had abortions in that hospital and shocking maternal death statistics from procedures carried out under unsafe conditions.

Future Perfect

1978 • 11 min

Future Perfect is an early algorithmic film, based on a collection of decreasing mathematical series that produce visual and auditory rhythms beyond the control of the filmmakers. (Grahame Weinbren) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

Phantom Conception

1978 • 4 min • Sweden

A crushed fly. An outline of organic forms, an illusory trip. (Filmform)

Mis en pièces

1978 • 11 min • France

Mis en pièces means in French taking into pieces, but it could mean to set up a play, or to deconstruct a play. The film is about a theater play which is shot against the medium theater. This film is an attempt to destroy the representation of the perspectivist point of view. Disorganizing a process to see…

We Stop Here

1978 • 30 min • Australia

Describes life on the Aboriginal reserve of Palm Island in Queensland. Old men from Dyirbal language group tell stories of the massacres and poisoning of their people when they first came in contact with the white settlers.

Guestworker's Road

1978 • 60 min • Sweden, Turkey

The trans-European motorway, also known as the "Guest Worker's Road", is full of dangers for the migrants who drive to Turkey for their summer break. This portrait of this highway is a powerful documentation of the history of labor migration to Europe.

Do You Get It No. 4

1978 • 15 min • Netherlands

Footage of a sunny village square in Sardinia leads to humorous, philosophical reflections on reality and the role of the ‘objectively recording’ documentary maker. Van Gasteren sees the square as a backdrop in his film, and the chance passers-by as extras. Then, as a ‘director of reality’, he gives an ironic commentary on what he sees. “For a moment I thought, from what source of information am I thinking up what I see. Or, did I just see exactly what I thought.”

Think Bike - Jimmy Hill

1978 • 1 min • United Kingdom

Featuring well known sports presenter Jimmy Hill, ‘Think Bike’ encourages motorists to take extra care to look out for motorcyclists when pulling out from junctions. Using the slogan ‘think once, think twice, think bike’, the film features a graphic depiction of an accident to shock the audience. A very similar tactic is still in use today in the recently launched ‘Think – take longer to look for bikes’ campaign which also shows a motorcyclist crashing into the side of a car. A Department for Transport report from 2006 concluded that the most common cause of motorcycle crashes is a ‘right of way’ violation…the majority of these incidents occur at T-junctions and it is usually the motorist – rather than the biker – who is at fault.’ ‘In around 65% of these ‘right of way’ incidents, a driver somehow fails to see a motorcyclist who should be in clear view.’

Arba

1978 • 9 min • Soviet Union

The old man was riding a cart to the bazaar. The road ran through a mountain and the horse began to resist and refused to pull the watermelon. The old man tried his best to get the horse to climb the mountain, but he couldn't do anything. It was only through kindness and mutual help that the old man managed to cross the mountain.

Canon

1978 • 12 min • Yugoslavia

Short documentary by Aleksandar Ilić.

Is It Worth Rushing?

1978 • 5 min • Soviet Union

A propaganda film in the form of a fictional narrative urges pedestrians to be alert and cautious on city streets.

Pendulum

1978 • 2 min

Peter Bundy & Jan Millsapps film

Water Motor

1978 • 8 min

A filmed record of a solo performance by American postmodern dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown. In order to better understand the dance, Mangolte learned to perform it herself. Mangolte shot Brown as she performed the solo twice, and then on the third take she decided to film in slow motion: "I shot slow motion, knowing that it would reveal the dance and the movement in a totally different context... the slow motion version permits a second look at the choreography, and the spectators can marvel at what they remember and also what they missed the first time around."

The Enchanted Prince

1978 • 9 min

A mouthy frog gets his wish when a princess’s kiss turns him into a human. But just because he’s got a voice doesn’t mean he has much to say.

The Beach

1978 • 3 min • Canada

An experimental animation about four people at a beach, three men and one woman.

A Filmmaker's Film

1978 • 23 min • United States of America

Saget’s short film is a precursor to his subsequent successful career as a stand-up comedian. In the film, he projects himself as a successful art-house filmmaker, like Bergman or Fellini, and proceeds to poll passing pedestrians about their knowledge of the “famous” local filmmaker, Bob Saget.

Pool

1978 • 25 min • United States of America

Pool is a melange of documentary and fiction, about its actors’ lives: a 14-year old girl, a Chilean exile, a French actress and an unfulfilled shoestore manager. No plot runs through it, but the characters all move in and out of their roles. When we get too close, we are reminded It’s only a movie. The young girl who appears at the beginning of the film is Ally Sheedy at fourteen. She has since appeared in many feature films including The Breakfast Club and High Art.

Louis Aragon, a mask in Paris

1978 • 20 min • France

There is a gap separating the surrealism from the Interwar period and that of the post-war era, and that is the way this movement would understand racial difference. At first, the other or "primitive" was the opposite of the bourgeois subject. In this documentary, Sarah Maldoror interviews one of the most influential surrealist poets from the former surrealism, while at the same time we witness the movement's anachronist views regarding the affirmation of other identities.

Home-Daycare

1978 • 9 min • Brazil

A community daycare experience in Vila Kennedy, Rio de Janeiro, where resident mothers works in the neighborhood.

The Sage and the Donkey

1978 • 9 min • Soviet Union

The story of a sage who travels on his donkey and gives people advice. Based on Georgian folklore and the texts of Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani.

Starmania 78 - le best of

1978 • 41 min • France

Live concert of the french musical with original cast.

February

1978 • 9 min • Bulgaria

In the village, snow-covered, you can hear the terrible howl of a wolf. One by one, the peasants ride on a sledge to kill him. However, each time the sleigh returns without a person. The women from the village are scared. They take it upon themselves to find their men and find them in a pub to eat and drink. The men are having fun, but don't forget to send someone outside to howl like a wolf. Women attack men.

Hog

1978 • 4 min • United Kingdom

An experimental film by Aardman's Nick Park which combines animated sketches and live-action footage of rain and hallways. Produced during his time at Sheffield Polytechnic.

Peter Gabriel: Live at Rockpalast

1978 • 60 min

Live at Rockpalast Essen, Germany, Sept, 15, 1978, Peter Gabriel - voc/piano, Tony Levin - voc/bass, Jerry Marotta - drums/voc, Sid McGuiness - guit/voc, Larry Fast - keyb, Timmy Capello - keyb/sax