Childish Quarrel

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.

A short documentary about the work of the National Trust in Great Britain

Commissioned by Philips, Europa Radio celebrates the company’s experimental PCJJ shortwave radio station in Eindhoven that went on air in 1927 and broadcasted to Europe as well as the rest of the world in various languages. Hans Richter’s film covers one day from morning to night, showing the range and scope of the daily radio programs – from stock market news and sports events to live concerts and a speech by Albert Einstein. (via: impakt.nl)

La remise des décorations

Consisting of a single shot, Spiders on a Web is one of the earliest British examples of close-up natural history photography. Made by one of the pioneers of the British film industry, G.A. Smith, this short film details spiders trapped in an enclosure, and despite the title, does not actually feature a web.

Madame Ondine performs a serpentine dance surrounded by big cats.

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.

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.”

Documentary about the lost 1914 film "Sperduti nel buio". Film historian Denis Lotto journeys across Europe following the trail of the lost movie.

A documentary about the cultural effect of film censorship, focusing on the tumultuous times of the teens and early 1920s in America.

The Heart of 'The Natural'

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

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.

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.

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.

The mute documentary-experimental film "Ten Minutes of Silence" is a film expression of the trends embodied in the painting "Black Square" by Malevich and J. Cage in music.

Down the gangway, photographers leave the deck of a riverboat in large numbers.

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.

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.

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.