.Yl 1981 - 269

In Search of Ladino follows Ladino speakers, their culture, their memories and hopes for their mother tongue. This unique film is one of the earliest works presenting Ladino-speaking Holocaust survivors in Israel, and it provides rare documentation of their testimonies and songs. Filmmaker David Perlov’s camera glances on the faces of the people, as he listens carefully to their stories and songs. The film was meant to be part of a trilogy about languages: Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino, but Perlov only managed to make the first film.

Hajj Ali makes a living as a taxi driver during the day, carrying citizens safely across the city, but he also runs a funeral home, waiting for “customers” to be delivered daily. As he documents one man’s existence in a civil war-ravaged Beirut, Amiralay creates a tragicomic portrait of a society held captive by conflict.

Here Come the Puppets! is a special that was taped for PBS during the 1980 World Puppetry Festival. Co-hosted by Kermit the Frog and Jim Henson, it featured performances by Burr Tillstrom, Shari Lewis, Bil Baird and the Muppets. Other performers included Sergei Obraztsov, Manteo's Sicillian Marionettes (from NYC), Albrecht Roser, Bruce Schwartz, Martin Stevens, and Frank Ballard's (at the time, Puppet Arts head at University of Connecticut) "Ring of the Nibbelung."

On 12 July 1981, six small airplanes, flying in perfect formation over Santiago, Chile, dropped 400,000 flyers discussing the relationship between art and society.

An early "walking" performance shot on super-8 in 1981.

A trip inside a Steel Valley workers’ magazine, which looks like raw material for a Bruce Springsteen song.

Waldorf education overview from the perspective of the Toronto Waldorf School.

Aspiraciones is the beginning of a series in which Vadi-Samvadi is the second film. The grammar of Indian music suggests a micro-interval in a cinematic space-time.

Two brothers do laundry at a laundry mat. The older brother goes out to smoke and a policeman searches him and handcuffs him for finding a swithcblade. When the boy fights back the officer takes out his gun to shoot him. The younger brother pulls a gun for the officer’s partner’s belt and shoots the cop before he can shoot his brother. The younger brother is then put in the squad car. The film has little dialogue and has an African drum beat for a track.

A frightening vignette about violence and hatred in American society.

"Esculturas Rupestres" (Rupestrian Sculptures) was made in Jaruco Park outside of Havana. The low relief sculptures that resembled petroglyphs, were influenced by Ana Mendieta’s interest in the indigenous Taíno people of Cuba.

"Abstraction in Gehr behaves like an X-ray, revealing unexpected patterns of order under the skin of things. A film like Mirage, one of those most sensuous of Gehr’s abstract films may resemble superficially a strip painting by Kenneth Noland. But it is essential to realize that the bands of color Gehr captures come from the world, shot through a simple clear tube that strips away form and lets only chromatic patterns and motion come through. Even in his most abstract films, Gehr is relating to a world outside his consciousness and trying to stake out a relation to it, testing its order and chaos, its beauty and its threats." – Tom Gunning

The film is a superimposition of 6 to 8 takes. In each take, a horizontal piece of white paper was moved around in front of the camera by hand.

In the distant primitive world, where our ancestors lived - primitive people, amazing flowers bloomed, amazing animals walked and these events take place. Two little primitive people, two children, with all their curiosity explore the new world, observing the wild chickens that inhabit it, rhinoceroses with trees instead of horns and many other equally interesting and amazing creatures. One day, while playing hide and seek, they meet a cute puppy on their way, who will become their faithful friend and brave defender.

Animation short.

How friends saved a green meadow from drought.

Super8, colour, silent.

The advantages and disadvantages of adolescence in a poor urban neighborhood are examined in a series of candid interviews on the daily lives of Black and Hispanic teenagers, primarily girls.