Len Lye Movies

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

Short comedic documentary about crops.

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

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

Surrealism, avant-garde sound montage, and irreverent wit might be the last thing you'd expect from a government-sponsored film about wartime...

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...

This riot of color was a showcase for Lye’s hand-painted and stenciled imagery. Sponsored by Imperial Airways, it incorporates the...

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,...

Documentary about the Kiwi artist Len Lye and his legacy.

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

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

Documentary about New York night clubs.

A British WWII propaganda short warning citizens that Nazi sympathizers could be listening to their everyday conversations to discover important...

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

Documentary about women factory workers.

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...

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...