The Independent Film and Video Distribution Center preview tape

A thirteen part series of award-winning independently produced documentaries.

0:00Copy video clip URL Color bars, count-in.

1:07Copy video clip URL “Final Marks: The Art of the Carved Letter” Frank Muhly, Jr., Peter O’Neill. Slow tilt down of massive grey wall. Sound of chippings. Inside airy modern art space. Man carves into stone with tools. Talks as he carves the letter “T”; talks about the emotional appeal of carved letters, as part of their buildings, historical associations, most ready communications with the materials themselves. Talks about the pre-production that does into a job. Carver talks about how he thinks the actual carving is much more important than the designing. Designing is ancillary to carving.

5:30Copy video clip URL “Death Row.” A film by Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian. A man talks about how he came to prison in 1941 to do two life sentences. He talks about life of inmates, how long they’ve been there, the respect from one cell for the other. One inmate talks about being caged and beaten and asks what human behavior can be under such conditions.

7:55Copy video clip URL “Goodnight Miss Ann.” August Cinquegrana. Man claims that there is nothing higher than fighting, even “good Colombian marijuana.” How fighters feel in the ring, Olympic Auditorium. How the coaches, the cries, the ring, make everyone want to be a fighter. Everyone’s glad to see you, you want to see everyone.

09:32Copy video clip URL “American Shoeshine.” Titan Films. Man raps/talks as he shines shoes. When someone walks in looking bad and leaves looking good, “the shoe shine man” is proud that he has accomplished something by making people look good and smile every day. Produced and directed by Sparky Greene.

11:50Copy video clip URL “Diary of a moonlighter: a continuing log of an emergency physician.” Gar Lasal. 71-year old Japanese man under cardiac arrest, defibrillated 7 times. Narration about a man who is brought in. Can’t turn away anyone, can’t ever close down. An exciting profession, but sometimes are so tired after work that can’t drive home, and can’t sleep once home

13:55Copy video clip URL “Beginnings.” A ballet class of teenagers rehearses in a studio to classical piano music. A class of small girls learn the basics. A class of small boys do the same. A class of small girls do tondues. The teenagers/adults do it again. Instructor talks about the importance of the counts and off-counts. Young girls describe the ballet uniform. A professional performance.

17:45Copy video clip URL “Sylvilla: They Dance to Her Drum.” Ayoka Chenzira. Black and white. African drum beats. A dance class led by an older black woman. Her studio became a home, where refugee artists stay with her. Instructor talks about what she wants for the future. Dances alone to Asian woodwind music.

20:30Copy video clip URL “El Otro Lado.” (English: The Other Side). by Danny Lyon. Mountainsides, woman baking bread in fire in street. Mexican music . People run as it starts to pour. Men play pool as men with guitar and violin sing in Spanish as it pours outside. Thunder rolls in background.

25:39Copy video clip URL “The Woman of Hodson.” 1980. Black woman talks about her experiences growing cotton, corn, peanuts, chicken, and made their own syrup on her father’s plantation. The two gin houses in their small Georgia town. Older black women dance with each other in a gym with a stage.

27:43Copy video clip URL “Louie.” Short older man in plaid jacket with crazy tie. Men recount how Louie brought them food, took them in, tried to turn them around, make their lives more concrete. Louie has made a place for himself in NYC, on Bleeker St in Greenwich village. There is only one Louie, but there are many who do what he does.

30:13Copy video clip URL “Thoughts on Foxhunting.” Camera on a horse’s back. Enthusiasm of foxhunting is its best support. In the Countryside, beagles and hounds chase one fox through woods, across fields. Fox escapes into hole. Camera sees from fox’s perspective in hole

32:30Copy video clip URL “Horse Trainer.” Jon Tannen. Man in blue suit anticipates and predicts horse race. At the track, a crowd hollers. His horse loses, and he walks off angrily.

35:00Copy video clip URL “Radiation Workers: Reprocessing.” Man in yellow t-shirt recalls in press conference the ventilation duct that ran through clean areas and most radioactive processes. So much radiation in room that workers can’t work that many hours at a time. Footage of U.S. Govt. film of man cleaning lab. Picking up 4/5 of yearly exposure in a week. Man in blue describes processes. Man talks about how people are going to die of radiation and nuclear production. Man calls working in a nuclear plant the lowest risk in his life.

38:45Copy video clip URL “Life after breast cancer.” Woman undergoes radiation treatment at UC. Surgery vs. radiology. Black woman recounts how it’s hard for a woman to be single and have had a vasectomy; how men have turned her away when they discover it.

41:24Copy video clip URL “Fast and Clean.” Young people kayaking on the rapids. Girl recounts the sacrifices necessary for training, that she gladly takes on. Training and racing. The importance of doing things fast and clean.

43:29Copy video clip URL *NOT ONLINE* “Memories of Berlin: The Twilight of Weimar Culture” by Gary Conklin. Black and white and color film, 1976. This film looks back at the golden era of arts and culture in Berlin during the Weimar period, through interviews with artists of all disciplines who lived through the era firsthand. “Berlin, the newly emancipated capital of the Weimar Republic, was celebrated not only for moral freedom, but also artistic freedom. During the brief span of fifteen years following the first World War and ending with the ascension to power of Adolf Hitler in 1933, despite economic and political upheaval, Berlin attracted the most dazzling artistic and scientific talent of this century.”

46:29Copy video clip URL “The C.I.A. Case Officer: John ‘Bob”‘ Stockwell” by Saul Landau. Color film, 1975. A brief insight into the life of a C.I.A. officer, John “Bob” Stockwell. Interviews with family members and Stockwell himself describe the career as simply another job, but undercurrents of more troubling aspects of the job occasionally bubble to the surface.

50:00Copy video clip URL “Hard Work.” 1977. By Durrin Films. Margo is out running. Friends talk about how great Margot is. Doesn’t sell her body, just sells her time and keeps her body. The Washington Hooker Convention. Interview in Washington . Man tries to tell them they must have permit. Want to change prostitution law. Want to change laws that divide women from women, and women from men. The greatest thing a woman can do today is to stand up for her whore sister. Women kept at disadvantage in men’s world.

54:40Copy video clip URL “Sorority.” Still photographs of parties. Voiceover about making friends in college, esp. in sororities. Hundreds of rushies at Berkeley. Competition among rushies. College Girls run happily down frat row. Former sorority member talks about the importance of being attractive. Former sorority pledge talks about being the token minority. The Dean Sorority Adviser says that minority students are not “ready” to join sororities since they are not yet secure with themselves. What a sorority girl wants.

58:53Copy video clip URL Tape info.

59:26Copy video clip URL End tape.