Len Lye Movies

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

Several well-known and pioneering abstract filmmakers discuss the history of non-objective cinema, the works of those that came before them and their...

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

Lye edited together “swing” versions of the popular Lambeth Walk (including Django Reinhardt on guitar and Stephane Grapelli on violin),...

In this powerful abstract film with a soundtrack of African drum music, Lye scratched "white ziggle-zag-splutter scratches" on to black leader, using...

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

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

Documentary about the Kiwi artist Len Lye and his legacy.

Documentary about women factory workers.

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

A fictional enactment of the deadly contest between a British soldier and a German sniper hiding in a tree. Kill or Be Killed differs from most army...

In 1959 the United Nations commissioned Lye to make this one-minute film, “Fountain of Hope,” to publicize United Nations Day (24th...

Experimental documentary about recycling.

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

Short comedic documentary about crops.

Documentary about New York night clubs.

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

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

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...