Len Lye Movies

Lye completed his last great film a few months before his death at the age of 78. The film returned to the black-and-white techniques of Free...

The story of how newspapers were distributed during the Blitz, stressing the importance of an accurate and objective press on the home front.

This was another sample promotional film, which Lye offered to television stations. He scratched some dramatic black-and-white abstract images,...

In 1944 Lye moved to New York City, initially to direct for the documentary newsreel The March of Time. He settled in the West Village, where he...

For Kaleidoscope, which was sponsored by Churchman Cigarettes, Lye animated stenciled cigarette shapes and is said to have experimented by cutting...

Documentary about women factory workers.

While stocking the shelves at work late at night, Mike finds a mysterious tape that calls upon The Peanut Vendor.

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.

Documentary about the Kiwi artist Len Lye and his legacy.

Lye created a series of scratched images in the 1950s – more regular or geometric than his usual style – to accompany Rock...

Len Lye scraped together enough funding and borrowed equipment to produce a two-minute short featuring his self-made monkey, singing and dancing to...

Correspondence between young lovers nearly ends in disaster through a mistake in postal district. Fortunately the GPO spots the error and all ends...

Life’s Musical Minute, recently re-discovered, is a short promotional film of this kind, based on Gene Krupa’s drum solo from...

With the screen split asymmetrically, one part in positive, the other negative, the film documents the evolution of simple celled organic forms into...

A perfect fusion of poetry and film, with dense layered imagery and music from electro pioneers Louise and Bebe Barron. The writer Anaïs Nin...

This film documents the major directions in modern American art during the first seven years of the 1960s. The keynote is that the artist has...

Len Lye’s camera-less film animates “swing” versions of the popular Lambeth Walk—featuring Django Reinhardt on guitar and...

Len Lye made Pictures for Percussion as a sample for television stations while living in the United States.

Commissioned by the Pittsburgh Bicentennial Association to celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary, PITTSBURGH was created by a team of...

This documentary, made seven years after the death of legendary filmmaker and kinetic artist Len Lye, tells Lye's story: from being a young boy...