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.
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.
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.
Late 1800s cigarette advertisement produced by Thomas Edison Manufacturing.
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.
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.
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
The "unsinkable" Titanic was a dream come true: four city blocks long and a passenger list worth 250 million dollars. But on her maiden voyage in April 1912, that dream became a nightmare when the giant ship struck an iceberg and sunk in the cold North Atlantic. More than 1,500 lives were lost in one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century. Now, using newsreels, stills, diaries, and exclusive interviews with survivors, Titanic: The Complete Story recounts the sensational history of the premier liner. In Part I: Death of a Dream, the largest ship ever built is christened in Ireland before a cheering crowd of 100,000. Witness the disaster this trek becomes as numerous iceberg warnings go unheeded and the ship sinks in the icy North Atlantic. In Part II: The Legend Lives On, over-packed lifeboats edge away from the crippled liner as a futile SOS signals flare into the night--leaving 1,500 passengers to a watery grave.
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.
Newly restored and assembled by the International Olympic Committee - the earliest comprehensive moving-image record of the modern Olympic Games that survives today.
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.
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
William K.L. Dickson brings his hat from his one hand to the other and moves his head slightly, as a small nod toward the audience. This was the first film produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company to be shown to public audiences and the press.
Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.
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.
A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.
Roald Amundsen's South Pole Journey is a Norwegian documentary film that features Roald Amundsen's original footage from his South Pole expedition from 1910 to 1912.
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
Everyday wintertime life of Sámi reindeer herder Inka Länta and her family, mingling authentic and fictionalized takes.
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.