Documentary footage of the author and his two daughters at home.
A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.
A BFI collection of 7 short films from the USA, England and Italy scored for Piano, Guitar and String Quartet.
Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.
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.
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.
Ultimate Frisbee is founded on fair play and Spirit of the Game. There is no referee and players call their own fouls. Will Beefree, a team from Turin, be able to maintain the balance between the soul of Ultimate and the desire to win the Italian Championship?
A group of Macedonian women are shown hard at work.
A new film compiled from the BFI National Archive's unparalleled holdings of early films of China, features films from 1900-48 filmed across China. The cinematic journey of Around China with a Movie Camera contains many films which may never have been seen in China, or at the very least not for over 70 years. These travelogues, newsreels and home movies were made by a diverse group of British and French filmmakers, some professionals, but mainly enthusiastic amateurs, including intrepid tourists, colonial-era expatriates and Christian missionaries.
The opening of the Kiel Canal in Germany by Kaiser Wilhelm II on 20 June 1895.
"[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)
Early Balkan footage.
A short prior to World War I film which captures festivities at a fair near a church in Bitola.
A documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.
An overview of the works of French film pioneers Louis and Auguste Lumière from 1895 to 1897.
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.
Two part biography of Greta Garbo - 1. The Temptress 2. The Clown. Reminiscences of her early life in Stockholm, with excerpts from her films. Narrated by Bibi Andersson.
Jean Painlevé is interested here, with the help of Eli Lotar, in crabs and shrimps. He is particularly interested in detailing their anatomy and observing their mating and fighting behavior.
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.