To popularize the idea of automobile travel, Ford Motor Company produced Ford Educational Weekly, a film magazine distributed free to theaters. One 1916 series featured "Visits to American Cities." In this episode, Los Angeles is featured at the very beginning of the boom created by oil, movies and aircraft. On the occasion of its centennial in 1953, Ford donated its film to the National Archives and Records Service; this copy derives from a fine grain master printed from the Archive's preservation negative. Music by Frederick Hodges.
A journey that follows the Ganges from its source deep within the Himalayas through to the fertile Bengal delta, exploring the natural and spiritual worlds of this sacred river.
The anti-Slumdog Millionaire in documentary form, "Buzz" charts the tumultuous rise of India's most famous tattoo artist as he struggles to overcome the demons of his poverty-stricken childhood through art.
This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.
The reception ebbs and flows as the unfamiliar landscape whirls by the window of a plane or train or car. Communication is delayed, fragmented, interrupted. Memories of a distant country.
This episode from the Czech Journal series examines how a military spirit is slowly returning to our society. Attempts to renew military training or compulsory military service and in general to prepare the nation for the next big war go hand in hand with society’s fear of the Russians, the Muslims, or whatever other “enemies”. This observational flight over the machine gun nest of Czech militarism becomes a grotesque, unsettling military parade. It can be considered not only to be a message about how easily people allow themselves to be manipulated into a state of paranoia by the media, but also a warning against the possibility that extremism will become a part of the regular school curriculum.
Documentary short about the disastrous dangers of aging, ailing dams.
In Abby Martin's second feature documentary, Earth’s Greatest Enemy reveals a hidden truth behind the climate crisis: the role of the U.S. military as the world’s largest institutional polluter. Drawing on powerful testimonies from veterans, scientists, and frontline communities, it uncovers how military operations poison ecosystems, accelerate global warming, and sacrifice the future for endless expansion. From Alaska’s melting glaciers to contaminated bases across the U.S. and toxic battlefields abroad, Earth’s Greatest Enemy delivers a provocative and unflinching examination of the untouchable institution playing an outsized role in the climate crisis.
Stretching along the river Ganges rests Varanasi, the holiest of India’s seven sacred cities, and a place where devout Hindus go to die in hopes of achieving moksha - becoming liberated from the cycle of rebirth. Hindu scriptures say that a soul has to undergo 8.4 million rebirths before reaching the human form, the only form one can attain moksha, and dying in Varanasi and being cremated along the banks of the river is believed to be the ideal way of achieving this. Several so-called ‘death hotels’ exist to accommodate believers who abandon their lives and come here in wait for death - some for as long as 40 years.
An exploration of the 'respectable' and 'immoral' stereotypes of women in Indian society told from the point of view of two striptease dancers in a Bombay cabaret.
Ice has always moved. When glaciation took hold some 34 million years ago, interconnected rivers of ice combined to produce the Earth's vast ice sheets. As temperatures slowly warmed glaciers developed a unique balancing act; advancing and retreating to calibrate their annual winter accumulation against summer melt. Sometimes calving colossal icebergs into the sea. A positive feedback loop that has regulated the movement of ice for millions of years.
This film describes the nature and impact of major religions in India, artistic monuments and contributions of each dynasty and cultural development of the people in different regions of the vast subcontinent.
Sue Perkins immerses herself in the complex life of Kolkata and sees how it is reinventing itself as a megacity with a reputation for eccentricity, culture and tolerance.
My Vietnam Your Iraq tells the stories of Vietnam veterans and their children who have served in Iraq. Their stories examine the pride, challenges, fears, and the myriad of emotions they have experienced during and after deployment.
Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.
The work of a district officer in the province of Bengal.
Journey alongside a young tigress raising her cubs in the fabled forests of India.
Somi is pregnant with her second child. A girl, she hopes. Together with her husband she prepares for this new phase of their parenthood. It means that their son has to go to school, but as an ex-Naxalite that is tough to achieve in contemporary India, where people like them are third-rate citizens. They lack the certificates and an opaque bureaucratic process doesn't help. Directors Isabella Rinaldi, Cristina Hanes and Arya Rothe of the NoCut Film Collective concentrate on Somi's close family ties, painting a portrait of ex-Naxalites in India. Once, Somi and her husband were communist rebels fighting for the rights of Indian tribes. However, to safeguard their family's welfare, they surrendered to the government in exchange for marginal compensation and simple accommodation.
Journey across India, a breath taking land shaped by a myriad of cultures, customs and traditions. Come face to face with the Bengal Tiger and explore the work of this majestic creature with stunning clarity. Soar over blue-hazed Himalayan peaks and sweep down towards the thundering Indian Ocean as we celebrate the power and beauty of India's greatest ambassador - the mighty Bengal Tiger.
A short film showing the industrial process of jute works in India.