A Switchback Railway

A day in the life of a train station.

Part 1 of the History of Australian Cinema series. Australian cinema from the very beginning, from the newsreels, ethnographic and actuality films, to the controversy of "The Story of the Kelly Gang" and the success of "The Sentimental Bloke".

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.

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.

Early Balkan footage.

Early Balkan footage.

An overview of the works of French film pioneers Louis and Auguste Lumière from 1895 to 1897.

The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.

A film about the expansion of the Central Line beyond Stratford.

Charles Dekeukeleire, then a questioning Catholic, was spurred into making this documentary on a pilgrimage with the Catholic Young Workers’ Movement. The director’s approach is one of critical reflection; A film emotional and fervent, even acerbic.

"[Hutton’s] latest urban film, New York Portrait, Chapter III, takes on a unique tone in relation to Hutton’s ongoing exploration of rural landscape. The very fact that Hutton is dealing with older footage, with archives of memory more than immediacy, gives it a different texture than his earlier New York films. Hutton always found the presence of nature in the city, not only in his many shots of sky and vegetation, but also in the geometry and texture of the city itself, which seemed to project an independence from the human." (Tom Gunning)

This short documentary film captures the natural movement of the moon mixed with an experimental musical track that accompanies the rhythm of the "walk" on the stage that the protagonist occupies, the sky.

Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.

This bicycle-safety film shows children what can happen when bicycles are driven carelessly and recklessly.

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.

A group of Macedonian women are shown hard at work.

Chapter Two represents a continuation of daily observations from the environment of Manhattan compiled over a period from 1980-1981. This is the second part of an extended life's portrait of New York.