Am Wege nach Schlaraffenland

Woman Draped in Patterned Handkerchiefs is a 1908 British short silent documentary film, directed by George Albert Smith as a showcase his new Kinemacolor system, which features a woman displaying assorted tartan cloths, both draped on her body and waved semaphore-style. The patterned handkerchiefs are, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, “presumably the same cloths featured in Tartans of Scottish Clans (1906), this time shown from various angles.”

A gentleman is here shown partaking of a little lunch of bread and cheese, and occasionally is seen to glance at his morning paper through a reading glass. He suddenly notices that the cheese is a little out of the ordinary, and examines it with his glass. To his horror, he finds it to be alive with mites, and, in disgust, leaves the table. Hundreds of mites resembling crabs are seen scurrying in all directions. A wonderful picture and a subject hitherto unthought of in animated photography. Notable for being the first science film made for the general public.(IMDB)

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

A film about the career and methods of the master silent comedy filmmaker.

Footage of the German airship Hansa over Copenhagen.

A languid, beautifully shot collection of landscapes, edited into a whimsical and touching film.

This scene is a part of the very first film shot produced by the Manaki Brothers. Despina, the Janaki and Milton Manaki's grandmother, was recorded weaving in one high-angle shot. For no apparent reason, the first shot made in Macedonia, in the Balkans in fact, made by these two cinematography pioneers, contains peculiar symbolics: at the moment when the grandmother Despina spins the weaving wheel, film starts rolling in our country.

Almost 200 women file by a device on the wall from which they take their time checks. A man runs half-way across the screen at the end of the film.

A camera on an overhead crane travels down a large, long aisle where men are shown working on large machinery on either side. Carts carrying equipment are shown traveling on rails down the aisles. There are also men walking in the aisles. From Bitzer's Westinghouse Works series.

On the left of the screen, a small group of men lift the top off of what appears to be a turbine with a crane and continue to check the machine, tightening various parts with wrenches. On the right side, a few men appear to be testing the workings of what may be a turbine.

Spring comes every year and brings us hope for recovery and development. But time is inexorable and fleeting. Not for everyone will come next spring ...

Danish documentary following different locations and situations in Greenland anno 1914. It comes around settlements, hunters, steamboats, umiaks, a kayak race, and a football match. Photographed by W. Thalbitzer.

Danish documentary filmed in Greenland. Shows a lot of Greenlanders, skiing, hunting for birds, seals and whales, and ice fishing. Filmed by Dr. Leif Folke.

Danish documentary that follows fishermen in Greenland, from the time when fishing got industrialized. The filmcrew also captures ships fighting the thick ice, meet some locals and some hunters. Also, look out for a 'cameo' by the legendary Danish polar explorer Knud Rasmussen, who played a big part in exploring Greenland. He died short after in 1933 from food poisoning. Produced by H.B. Film.

The film Terre Magellaniche represents the fruit of multiple and risky trips that the explorer Alberto M. De Agostini made in the Patagonian mountain range and in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. Executed with rare mastery and exquisite artistic sense, the film shows the explorer in the labyrinth of Patagonian channels, penetrating the deep fjords between large masses of floating ice of curious shapes, coming from the immense glaciers that descend from the Cordillera and bathe its frontal walls on the waters of the sea. Transported to regions of extraordinary beauty, situated in front of gigantic mountains, from which majestic waterfalls rush, the viewer experiences the illusion of finding themselves in a mysterious kingdom of dream and enchantment.

Andy directs Lou Reed drinking a Coke.

Women getting onto a rickshaw.

Lumière's documents life in Palestine.

The film shows a parade down Fifth Avenue, New York. In the foreground many children, both black and white, can be seen following alongside the parade. The participants in the parade include cowboys, Indians, and soldiers in the uniform of the United States Cavalry on horseback and riding horse-drawn coaches. Buffalo Bill can be seen on horseback, lifting his hat to the crowd. Filmed on 1 April 1901.

In the background is a row of three-masted sailing ships, at anchor, their sales furled. In the foreground, a simple pier that's more like a yardarm juts out above the water; about 15 boys of six or seven years of age are on the jutting wood, and they jump off into the water below. The water looks to be about three feet deep. They swim back toward the pier. A small motorized boat passes. It's a stationary camera; one take.