All Films

Trappist Preserves

1977 • 5 min • United States of America

"The film acts as an epithet for what everyone knows about our meager place in the universe. Succinctly stated in Jack Arnold’s "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957) and loosely ad-libbed by me in an inspired Cageian manner via a pompous (but difficult to produce) single-frame optical pan traversing the lofty soliloquy. The toilet paper in the bare autumn tree was encountered early one morning outside the school of the Art Institute of Chicago on Columbus Drive. With eclair and 12-120 zoom in hand, it was a no brainer. The combinations illustrate a mocking attitude that is much in line with most Hollywood expressionism, lofty ideals via a crass medium."

Make A Face Grandma

1977 • 1 min

"A friend whose name I have regrettably forgotten (Beth?) took pictures of her grandmother making faces. I created a soundtrack looping her whispers and used a sound trigger video switching circuit to switch to the soundtrack. By switching 4 cameras and zooming in on the photos I created this video in real time. Creation date was around 1977. I played this in public schools during Artist in Residencies and scared too many kids." -ET

Duel-Duo

1977 • 2 min • Canada

An animation film about a clarinet and a trumpet that meet, clash, compete, compromise and harmonize.

The Game

1977 • 9 min • Poland

A man observes the movement of pawns in a game. Under the board, people work hard at the big mechanism that drives the pawns. The film shows a blind and destructive force that causes and fuels war.

Festa do Rosario de Pombal

1977 • 23 min • Brazil

Aspects of the religious and profane event that takes place in the Paraíba city of Pombal, gathering a large crowd.

Four Trousers And One Calico Dress

1977 • 28 min • Soviet Union

Ispahan: A Persian Letter (The Chah Mosque at Ispahan)

1977 • 39 min • France

Jean Rouch’s camera follows his friend, filmmaker/actor/critic Farrokh Ghaffari, as he walks and talks us through the famous Shah Mosque in Esfehan. While guiding him and answering his questions, Ghaffari makes Rouch discover the beauties of the architecture of the mosque and its impact on the city. Throughout the tour, they discuss Islam’s complex relationship with death, sex and cinema.

Oregon Presents: A Serious Look At Chainsaw Safety

1977 • 22 min • United Kingdom, United States of America

Presented in the interest of chain saw safety by the Oregon Saw Chain Division, Omark Industries. (Ft. Chainsaw Charlie)

Facial Treatments #2 and #4

1977 • 4 min • Canada

Video art by Ernest Gusella made between 1975 and 1980

ひとかけらの青春

1977 • 40 min • Japan

The two are confused about their first relationship with a man and a woman... This is a coming-of-age film that defies the conventional wisdom in that everyone except the director is a first-year junior high school student.

Close your eyes

1977 • 33 min • Japan

Lips, gun, murderous intent, darkness, loneliness, and a woman...

Foot No.3

1977 • 7 min

A bare foot rests on the monitor, while at the same time the screen of the same monitor shows another foot. This picture, however, is upside-down (suggesting a mirror effect) so as to hint that both feet are one and the same. Consequently this symmetry partly conceals the contrast between the two feet: dressed and bare, reversed positions within and outside the video screen, recorded and again registered.

How TV Works

1977 • 27 min

is an informal, offbeat lesson in the electronics and mechanics of television. Sandin demonstrates basic video procedures, including use of the camera and editing decks, and explains the transmission of the television signal.

Peripeteia I

1977 • 10 min • United States of America

Peripeteia I and Peripeteia II, shot by the artist in Oregon’s rainforest, alone and without electricity.

Fat Freedom

1977 • 6 min • Canada

The waking dream of a fat man who, through the magic powers of animated cinema, transforms himself, taking the form of the different things he tries to interpret.

Sliced Light

1977 • 15 min

Buena Vista Park in San Francisco like you've never seen it. "Playing" my 16mm Beaulieu camera like a musical instrument with extremely rapid zooming and inverted images. The virtuoso musician Peter Plonsky plays his Chromatic Khaen, an ancient Laotian instrument. He had never seen the film. One fourteen minute take, responding directly to the images in the studio.

Little Things in Life

1977 • 9 min • Soviet Union

Two vignettes on drunkards and their enablers.

Frammenti Montagnola 1977

1977 • 8 min

Filming for a movie that will never be made, starring Gianni Celati and Roberto Freak Antoni of Skiantos, shot at Montagnola in Bologna in the winter of 1977.

Porträttet

1977 • 28 min • Sweden

Interview with the Swedish artist John E. Franzén.

Women

1977 • 22 min • Yugoslavia

With limited means to feed their families, the women of wartime Dalmatia turn to what they do have: the sea. After extracting salt by boiling sea water, they travel with their product, far inland over inhospitable terrain, to barter for food.

Akaoni to Aooni no Tango

1977 • 2 min

A video for the song by Isao Bitou that was featured in Minna no Uta program.

Still Life

1977 • 10 min • Poland

The production is a poetic impression, its tone is mournful. The film shows the landscape of Vietnam two years after the end of the war. There is no commentary in the production, the image is accompanied by Mozart's composition.

2 Eylül Direnişi (Resistance of September 2)

1977 • 24 min • Turkey

Documents the daily life struggle for survival by tens of thousands of rural Turkish immigrants who make their home in 1 Mayis Mahalllesi, a squatter's shanty-town on the outskirts of Istanbul, and their march on Istanbul to prevent the government from demolishing their home. (parahrapsed from Kathleen Modrowski) Işıtan’s documentary displays the conflict between the neighborhood residents and the police, with graphic images of violence. It uses a voice-over narration with a dramatic tone describing the events and Turkish folk singer Hakkı Bulut’s song—Gecekondu [Shantytown] (1978). The end of the film declares that it is dedicated to Hasan Kızılkaya murdered on September 2, 1978. It is highly likely that Işıtan’s film is the only surviving film of the People’s Cinema Group. (via the Amateur Cinema Project)

Flagrantes da Vida Rural: Fazendas Clássicas

1977 • 12 min • Brazil