Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
In a dark, ambiguous environment, minuscule particles drift slowly before the lens. The image focuses to reveal spruce trees and tall pines, while Innu voices tell us the story of this territory, this flooded forest. Muffled percussive sounds gradually become louder, suggesting the presence of a hydroelectric dam. The submerged trees gradually transform into firebrands as whispers bring back the stories of this forest.
A compilation reel of local movie theatre trailers for upcoming events, such as a “Bug-o-Rama” festival and a “Marathon of Fright.”
Likely in June 1897, 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.
Boys play a rough game of leap frog.
Filmmakers Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey chronicle a year in the lives of an Alaskan brown bear named Sky and her cubs, Scout and Amber. Their saga begins as the bears emerge from hibernation at the end of winter. As time passes, the bear family must work together to find food and stay safe from other predators, especially other bears. Although their world is exciting, it is also risky, and the cubs' survival hinges on family togetherness.
Produced by the Highway Safety Foundation in 1964, this shocking film deals with a subject quite taboo for its time. The short serves as a dramatized warning, ending with graphic case studies.
Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.
Almost every single day, Homeboy goes bottom-fishing in front of Grenada's west coast from noon until midnight, whether the fish bite that day or not.
A anti-ethnographic film that looks at the traditional folklore surrounding the celebration of Fasnet (carnival) in the small Schwabian town of Bad Buchau which is haunted by the violent story of a father drowning his family in the nearby lake, Federsee.
This equine odyssey travels such little-known turf as General George Patton's involvement in a daredevil World War II coup called "Operation Cowboy" that rescued 500 of Austria's famous white Lipizzans. It is a stunning behind-the-scenes production on the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, spiced with legends even linked to the prophet Mohammed.
Costa Rica's motto is Pura Vida - Pure Life - and this deceptively small country is bursting with some of the most spectacular wildlife and pristine ecosystems in the world. All this diversity thrives, in part, thanks to one surprising little creature: hummingbirds. Venture across Costa Rica's wild and rugged landscapes, from volcanic peaks to coastal jungle to misty cloud forests and discover the nation's dazzling diversity of hummingbirds. Watch how these tiny birds play an outsize role in maintaining some of the richest and wildest environments on Earth, where a whole community of creatures, such as macaws and monkeys, enjoys The Hummingbird Effect.
Green lights dance across a star-filled sky, and snowflakes sparkle on the trees. It is little wonder Lapland is famous as a realm of elves and flying reindeer, the magical home of Santa Claus. This northernmost region of mainland Europe, however, is a real place, with real animals such as reindeer, Great Gray owls, wolverines, eagles, wolves, musk oxen and Brown bears who live out their lives in the tundra and forest.
A three-minute visual essay on African-American stereotypes regarding sexuality, and their connections to pornography and modern society.
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)
Fragments of fairy tales alternate with observations of children. Documentary and staged sequences are combined. There is no break and no contrast between reality, the children's behavior and the imagination; they merge into one another.
Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly is a 56-minute narrated film that unfolds along the shores of Cape Ann and in the heart of Mexico’s forested volcanic mountains. Every stage of the butterfly’s life cycle is experienced in vibrant close-up, from mating to egg to caterpillar to adult, and set against the backdrop of sea and forest, sun and wind.
A sociological meditation on the different "exits" that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps.
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)
Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.