Diary of a Short

Johann Lurf‘s film Endeavour slides between documentary, avant-garde film, and science-fiction. This highly singular combination of materials and techniques gives the viewer of Endeavour a feeling of flight, as the film continually evades the gravity of genres and definitive definitions. Lurf uses NASA footage from a day and a night launch of the space-shuttle that follows the booster rockets from take-off to splashdown.

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

A group of military men uses explosives to de-root trees.

Various street scenes from Copenhagen in 1907.

A BFI-produced documentary about documentary filmmaker John Grierson speaking about documentary.

A short news reel documentary about poster art.

Footage of the German airship Hansa over Copenhagen.

A documentary about unemployed workers in Walbrzych, Poland.

This documentary is an informal portrait of the great modern composer Igor Stravinsky. Proudly American, though still very much an Old World figure with a long and alert memory for people and events in music, literature and art, Stravinsky is depicted here conducting the CBC Symphony Orchestra in a recording of his Symphony of Psalms.

A Dutch couple, Martin and Margo Verfondern, move to a remote Spanish village of Santoalla to start a new life. There is conflict with the Spanish residents resulting in the disappearance of Martin.

This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.

A group of treasure hunters discover a mysterious object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in this documentary. Theories abound about the large object's origins. It might be a UFO, manmade, or it might be a naturally occurring phenomenon. Nobody knows.

First it's paint bombs, followed hard by riots. Tweets proclaim what is to be done. Resistance is everywhere. Something has to give. Two young activists meet amid turbulent events. They dance. The city belongs to them.

David Hockney is unquestionably one of the most passionate and versatile experimental artists on the contemporary scene. In the late 1970s the British artist developed a pioneering concept which also changed his perspective on painting – his “joiners”. In this film, the artist himself talks about this photographic approach, a kind of Cubism-inspired photocollage which explores the space-time continuum. Hockney allows the viewer to share in the creative “joiner” process and leads us step by step into the universe of his artistic creativity.

The Ax Fight (1975) is an ethnographic film by anthropologist and filmmaker Tim Asch and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon about a conflict in a Yanomami village called Mishimishimabowei-teri, in southern Venezuela. It is best known as an iconic and idiosyncratic ethnographic film about the Yanomamo and is frequently shown in classroom settings.

This is a story about people whose invisible job is to clean up the world that is hidden from our society.

The incredible true story of nature’s greatest explorers—lemurs. Through footage captured with IMAX 3D, audiences go on a spectacular journey to the remote and wondrous world of Madagascar. Join trailblazing scientist Patricia Wright on her lifelong mission to help these strange and adorable creatures survive in the modern world.

A rare "inside" view of a motorcycle club in Toronto, one of the network of such fraternal groups in the large centers across North America. The names they adopt (Satan's Choice is only one) are as individual as their special ethics and views of life, all freely expressed in this film.

Kitty Tsui, Chinese American writer, poet, body builder, and lesbian activist, tells of her arrival as an immigrant to San Francisco and, amidst the anti-Vietnam war protests, finding her way to San Francisco State, which influenced her on her path as an activist and poet. In this first ever documentary about a Chinese American Lesbian, Tsui brings to life her coming of age in San Francisco in the 1970s, her challenges, and her continued rise to celebrity by being re-discovered by a whole new generation of Feminists.

DIYSEX is a film that reflects on the use of the image and the language of mainstream pornography, and wonders how far this use can transcend when making your porn film.