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.
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.
Early Balkan footage.
An overview of the works of French film pioneers Louis and Auguste Lumière from 1895 to 1897.
A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.
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.
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.
A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Short documentary on the Antwerp Ford Motor Company plant.
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".
"[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)
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 group of Macedonian women are shown hard at work.