AMERICA: EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER DREAMED OF (Official Trailer)

As funny as they are unsettling, as affectionate as they are trenchant, and made with a refreshing concision that belies the depth of their cultural and social observations, the short documentaries of Rhody Streeter and Tony Ganz are ripe for rediscovery. Featured in their day on the public television series “The Great American Dream Machine” and “The 51st State,” and screened in the 1970s at MoMA, Film Forum and the Whitney Museum, as well as in a program curated by Amos Vogel at the Annenberg School for Communication, Ganz and Streeter’s work (which was produced under the banner of Tunbridge Films) has since fallen into obscurity, kept alive only through the devoted efforts of film collectors and programmers, notably Bradley Eros, Brian Frye, and Marie Losier. But now, a number of the films have been newly restored and are poised to regain their rightful place as some of the most eccentric and hilarious examples of 1970s documentary filmmaking in the U.S. Turning their mordant, deadpan eye on a wide variety of uniquely American phenomena – from retirees in Sun Valley and honeymooners in the Poconos, to sign painters in Brooklyn, phone help-line operators, female comportment instructors, Muzak executives, and the denizens of a Bowery men’s shelter – Streeter and Ganz’s films deserve to be set alongside such masterpieces of satirical Americana as Errol Morris’s early films, Garry Winogrand’s photographs, and John Wilson’s short films and television work. -Anthology Film Archives

“Kitsch hotels for newly-weds, well-fed Jesus freaks, plastic retirement villages, Muzak executives who confirm one’s worst suspicions: these slashing self-indictments – entirely documentary – are among the most controversial political films in America today.” –Amos Vogel, 1974

"Amazing collection of short portraits - the invention of Muzak, a hotline for people that just need to talk, etiquette classes, billboard painters. I especially connect to the one they filmed at the Cove Haven honeymoon hotel - somewhere I've been to many times." –John Wilson

THE BEST OF YOUR LIFE (aka SUN CITY) (1971, 8.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
HONEYMOON HOTEL (1971, 3.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
RISEN INDEED (aka CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CHRIST) (1972, 5.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
HOI – VILLAGE LIFE IN TONGA (1967-69, 8.5-min excerpt, 16mm-to-digital)
A BETTER DAY IN EVERY WAY (aka MUZAK) (1972, 5.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
HELP-LINE (1972, 5.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
WOMAN UNLIMITED (1972, 4 min, 16mm-to-digital)
SIGN PAINTERS (aka SIGNS) (1972, 6 min, 16mm-to-digital)
BOWERY MEN’S SHELTER (1973, 10 min, 16mm-to-digital)
A TRIP THROUGH THE BROOKS HOME (1971-73, 7.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)

Total running time: ca. 65 min.