A detailed account of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I. Between February and December 1916, the French and German armies relentlessly fought in the devastated camps around the village of Verdun.
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.
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.
Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
A fascinating pictorial document: On an old, cluttered work ship, a man is helped on with a bulky, old fashioned diving suit. It's a complicated process, many layers and sections are carefully applied. He goes over the side. Some men row out to what looks like a wrecked barge and set dynamite. Then the diver returns and now laughs and acknowledges the camera. The other men, now safely away, blow up the barge.
This documentary shows how the Berliner workers lived in 1930. The director Slatan Dudow shows through images: a) the workers leaving the factory; b) the raise of the rents; c) the "unpleasant" guest, meaning the justice officer that brings the eviction notice; d) the fight of classes of the houses of capitalists and working classes; e) the parks of the working class; f) the houses of the working class, origin of the tuberculosis and the victims; g) the playground of the working class; h) the swimming pool for the working class, ironically called the "Baltic Sea" of the working class; i) the effects of humidity of basement where a family lives, with one member deaf; j) one working class family having dinner while the capitalist baths his dog; k) the eviction notice received from an unemployed family and their eviction.
The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.
The world appears black on black until it separates from itself, looks at itself, includes itself, and sees colour.
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
This 10-minute short documentary exploring the shifting state of the American poultry industry was preserved in 2015 from an original nitrate print. More information is available on the film's page in the National Film Preservation Foundation's website, where this version can be found featuring original music by Michael D. Mortilla.
In 1926, Buster Keaton was at the peak of his glory and wealth. By 1933, he had reached rock bottom. How, in the space of a few years, did this uncontested genius of silent films, go from the status of being a widely-worshipped star to an alcoholic and solitary fallen idol? With a spotlight on the 7 years during which his life changed, using extracts of Keaton’s films as magnifying mirrors, the documentary recounts the dramatic life of this creative genius and the Hollywood studios.
Topical Budget 545-2. Newsreel of the 1920s aerial stuntwoman and barnstormer, Sara “Babe” Kalishek. We see her on the ground at first, standing in front of a plane before we see her wing walking on a plane in flight, then climbing from one plane onto the wing of another.
What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Côte d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.
Life on the breadline in the 1930s was hard enough, but times were desperate when you fell beneath it. Hunger marches organised by the National Unemployed Workers' Movement drew attention to the cause, but this left-wing collective picked up a cine-camera. The fictional story at the heart of the film is somewhat melodramatic, but the authentic surroundings give its message realism and weight.
Newly restored and assembled by the International Olympic Committee - the earliest comprehensive moving-image record of the modern Olympic Games that survives today.
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
Documentary film with play scenes about the rise and fall of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 from the perspective of various well-known poets and writers who experienced the events as contemporary witnesses.
Documentary about the making of Buster Keaton's silent comedy classic, Sherlock Jr. (1924).