Warsaw's Central Railway Station. 'Someone has fallen asleep, someone's waiting for somebody else. Maybe they'll come, maybe they won't. The film is about people looking for something.
Long treated with indifference by critics and historians, British silent cinema has only recently undergone the reevaluation it has long deserved, revealing it to be far richer than previously acknowledged. This documentary, featuring clips from a remarkable range of films, celebrates the early years of British filmmaking and spans from such pioneers as George Albert Smith and Cecil Hepworth to such later figures as Anthony Asquith, Maurice Elvey and, of course, Alfred Hitchcock.
Down the gangway, photographers leave the deck of a riverboat in large numbers.
The official record of Mallory and Irvine's 1924 expedition. When George Mallory and Sandy Irvine attempted to reach the summit of Everest in 1924 they came closer than any previous attempt. Inspired by the work of Herbert Ponting (The Great White Silence) Captain Noel filmed in the harshest of conditions, with specially adapted equipment, to capture the drama of the fateful expedition.
High-speed film and time-lapse photography combined to create breathtaking images of the night sky and Halley's Comet in this astronomical short subject.
La remise des décorations
An account of the life and work of the Spanish clown, mime, acrobat and actor Marcelino Orbés (1873-1927), known as Marceline, who, between 1900 and 1914, was unanimously acclaimed as the best in the world.
Christopher Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films and played dozens of other roles that displayed his talent and range as an actor, before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After becoming a quadriplegic, he became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care.
Czech painter and illustrator Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) ranks among the pioneers of the Art Nouveau movement at the end of the 19th century. Virtually overnight, he becomes famous in Paris thanks to the posters that he designs to announce actress Sarah Bernhardt’s plays. But at the height of his fame, Mucha decides to leave Paris to realize his lifetime project.
A 1936 documentary film about the London to Portsmouth railway. A lesser known contemporary of Night Mail, also featuring the music of Benjamin Britten and poetry of W.H. Auden.
Chambord, the most impressive castle in the Loire Valley, in France, a truly Renaissance treasure, has always been an enigma to generations of historians. Why did King Francis I (1494-1547), who commissioned it, embark on this epic project in the heart of the marshlands in 1519? What significance did he want the castle to have? What role did his friend, Italian genius Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) play? Was he the architect or who was?
Little Monsters presents some of the animal kingdom’s strangest survival strategies: poison dart frogs, chameleons, praying mantises and scorpions, to name but a few. Thanks to 3D visualization, large audiences can experience a chameleon thrusting out its tongue at close range, rattlesnakes striking at their targets to within fractions of an inch, praying mantises hunting and hummingbirds feeding, filmed from inside the flower! And with its ingenious combination of slow-motion 3D and timelapse 3D, “Little Monsters” even improves upon state of the art 3D for greater impact, yielding unbelievable scenes the world has never seen and “felt” before.
A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
Students in Lyon.
These two views were taken during the celebrations given in 1896 on the occasion of the millennium of the foundation of the kingdom of Hungary. Horsemen and men on foot parade, all dressed in historic uniforms.
Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.
This was a very human account of the lives and deaths of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI focusing primarily on Marie. It is an account of their lives from birth to death and the circumstances leading to the downfall of the French monarchy.
Andy Warhol directs a single 35-minute shot of a man's face to capture his facial expressions as he receives the sexual act depicted in the title.
An epic journey through Don Quixote's troubled mind, from which five paths to the unknown are opened: to reason, to freedom, to love, to friendship, to adventure; although only three destinations await at the end of an imaginary and audacious existence: the narrative of the adventurous life of Cervantes; the survival of a legendary novel in these heathen times, when the one-armed gentleman is nothing but dust and bones; the memory of the living, writers and scholars, where both the tormented captive and the insane hero, are immortals beings and will be forever.