Oily Peloso the Pumph Man

Documentarian Jon Boorstin follows architect Frank Gehry and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, as they attempt a new method of teaching elementary school children in Los Angeles. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the siblings work together on a pilot program of “design-based learning” that would restructure the typical classroom curriculum, replacing rote math or civics lessons with an imaginary city designed and built entirely by the students themselves. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive.

A collage of human-created worldly surfaces - sidewalks, streets, storefronts - that evoke subtle and mysterious noises. "Chromesthesia" is a condition whereby one sees a color or shape and experiences a sensation of taste, smell or hearing. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

"Gary Beydler's last, and possibly least-seen, film is an exhilarating tour down the length of the Venice Pier, shot over the course of an entire year. It's a particularly cinematic walk in many ways. Gary investigates the way a single film stock responds so diversely to different seasons, light, weather, time of day. He also beautifully exploits the power of editing to compose or recompose events. Shot spatially out of order over the course of a year, Gary recomposed the footage in editing to make it proceed consistently forward in space, resulting in an intricate mixing up of chronology, so some cuts could represent a jump of months either forward or backward in time. The result is one of gauzy impressionism brought into vivid and breathtaking clarity." Mark Toscano via Canyon Cinema. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2008.

As Christmas approaches, Frannie Stein learns from her snide friend Gloria Oestriger that there is no Santa Claus. Frannie's disbelieving, but her father confirms the horrible truth. Frannie enlists the help of her younger brother, Kenny, and they go to a graveyard to dig up some parts, which they assemble in the Stein basement. Soon, they've finished their creation and are ready for revenge on Gloria. Who says there's no Santa? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Regrettably, the labour of projectionists is usually only considered by the audience when they ‘screw up’. This film offers an alternative opportunity. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

No montage, no human subjects, minimal visual content, and the artists basically pissing on the fourth wall by calling attention in every way possible to the artifice of what they’re doing. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender person who prefers to be identified somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film – an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité – is the first of Spheeris’s films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate, uncompromising. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter's lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.

In a dilapidated rural mansion, the last generation of the degenerate, inbred Merrye family lives with the inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress from the age of 10 or so on as they physically develop. The family chauffeur looks out for them and covers up their indiscretions. Trouble comes when greedy distant relatives and their lawyer arrive to dispossess the family of its home.

Drunk and disillusioned Roman, Marcellus Gallio, wins Jesus' robe in a dice game after the crucifixion. Marcellus has never been a man of faith like his slave, Demetrius, but when Demetrius escapes with the robe, Marcellus experiences disturbing visions and feels guilty for his actions. Convinced that destroying the robe will cure him, Marcellus sets out to find Demetrius — and discovers his Christian faith along the way.

“After wishing for years to be given the opportunity of filming some of the more “mystical” occupations of our Times – which the average imagination turns into “bogeyman”… viz: Policemen, Doctors, Soldiers, Politicians, etc. – I was at last permitted to ride in a Pittsburgh police car, camera in hand” - Stan Brakhage. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2011.

A renegade police captain sets out to catch a sadistic mob boss. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.

Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

The bizarre adventures of the cartoon character Foska, drawn by 22 animators working in collaboration. Each animator worked on his or her own sequence only and did not know what action preceded or followed his or her sequence, except that the first drawing of a sequence is the last drawing from the previous sequence. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

Kavery Kaul’s engaging documentary traces the history of calypso and soca music from their birth in the African-East Indian traditions of Trinidad and Tobago through its worldwide diaspora, including its popularization in the 1950s by Harry Belafonte and the new independent distribution networks that arose to serve the expatriate community in the 1980s. North American restoration premiere at To Save and Project: The 19th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation on January 27 and 31, 2023. Digital restoration by the Academy Film Archive and the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film & Television; courtesy of Riverfilms.

Odds & Ends is a sly comment on the collage film and Beat culture. To discarded travel and advertising footage found at a local film laboratory, Belson Shimane added a mélange of animation—assemblages, cutouts, color fields, and line drawings—and faux hipster narration by Jacobs (credited via the anagram Rheny Bojacs) punctuated by a bongo backing. Strung together with doublespeak and non sequiturs, the monologue skirts the edge of nonsense as Jacobs waxes on about poetry, jazz, “reaching the public,” “having a good time,” and—although “money doesn’t count”—the “possibility of subsidy” through grants. Footage of champagne, tropical beaches, and exotic peoples intermingle with rhythmic drawings and stop-motion flights of fancy. The visuals race on through dazzling transformations, both amplifying and undercutting the patter. —National Film Preservation Foundation. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Iota Center Collection in 2006.

Follows a crusading lawyer as he embarks on a campaign to save an African-American man, Paul Crump, from the electric chair. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2007.

“When Picasso died I wanted to make the first post-mortem documentary, as I knew would happen anyway, and cheaply. The film took four hours to finish from camera to print and cost a little under $5." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2008.