Ephemera
see all genres ›Archivist/filmmaker Rick Prelinger coined the term “ephemeral film” to describe films produced outside the contexts of art and entertainment. He has referred to the style of the industrially-sponsored films as “capitalist realism.” Films made with practical purposes in mind are considered ephemeral: advertising films, educational films, training films, government-produced films and home movies all fit the bill (as well as works that incorporate found footage in new configurations).
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Genres / Ephemera
SUB-GENRES · Newsreel · Educational · Advertising · Industrial
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Tribulation 99
Upon its release in 1991, TRIBULATION 99 became an instant counter-culture classic. Craig Baldwin’s “pseudo-pseudodocumentary” presents a factual chronicle of U.S. intervention in Latin America in the form of the ultimate far-right conspiracy theory, combining covert action, environmental...Watch Movie
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Mock Up on Mu
Notorious Bay Area kino-renegade Craig Baldwin tops his earlier found-footage operas SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM and SONIC OUTLAWS with the rapid-fire pulp serial-cum-political-tract piss-take on California's major industrial complexes: military, entertainment and religious. Hitting upon everything...Watch Movie
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Sonic Outlaws
Within days after the release of Negativland's clever parody of U2 and Casey Kasem, recording industry giant Island Records descended upon the band with a battery of lawyers intent on erasing the piece from the history of rock music. Craig Baldwin follows this and other intellectual property...Watch Movie
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Spectres of the Spectrum
The director of TRIBULATION 99 and SONIC OUTLAWS returns with his grandest work to date! SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM plunders Craig Baldwin's treasure trove of early television shows, industrial and educational films, Hollywood movies, advertisements and cartoons, combining these...Watch Movie
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The Voyagers
In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth....Watch Movie
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The Smell of Burning Ants
THE SMELL OF BURNING ANTS is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness. Through formative events of...Watch Movie
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Postcard from Sun City, Arizona
Joshua Oppenheimer sets images of life in a retirement community in Arizona (as seen through television commercials) to a talk radio interview with a female convict extolling the benefits of her time on Sherriff Joe Arpaio's chain gang. It is two different kinds of sale jobs...Watch Movie
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Wild Gunman
Mobilizing wildly diverse found-footage fragments, obsessive optical printing and a dense "musique concrete" soundtrack, a maniac montage of pop-cultural amusements, cowboy iconography and advertising imagery is re-contextualized within the contemporary geopolitical crisis in this scathing...Watch Movie
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The Big Bounce
An exploration of the visual, political and scientific development of satellite communications from the first message bounced off a balloon to the current communication industry. The first message sent to the other side of the world was developed during the 1950s and Eisenhower administration...Watch Movie
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The Phantom of the Operator
This wry and delightful documentary reveals a little-known chapter in labor history: the story of female telephone operators' central place in the development of global communications. With an eye for the quirky and humorous, Caroline Martel assembles a dazzling array of clips...Watch Movie
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Everything is Better Now
EVERYTHING IS BETTER NOW is an infomercial on the importance of ambiguity in life. The main presenters start out with a cheerful and upbeat presentation but slowly become lost in their examples and drift into a personal argument regarding a handwritten note. The camera work...Watch Movie
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¡O No Coronado!
This black-comic Conquistador chronicle aggressively reconstructs the 1540 Spanish invasion of those Pueblo Indian lands now known as the American Southwest through a multifarious, mixed-tense montage. Live-action vignettes are densely woven into wildly diverse "found" footage, video-to-film FX...Watch Movie
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Command Performance
A must-see for audiophiles and vinyl hounds, this promotional film brings the viewer inside RCA Victor's teeming record plant. Behind steel doors "guarded day and night," we tour a vast archive of master discs, an orchestra standing ready with the "The Blue Danube" and the...Watch Movie
