Between East and West

Part documentary, part expose, this film follows one-time child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the "church tent" Revivalist circuit, commenting on the showmanship of Evangelism and "the religion business", prior to the start of "televangelism". Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

Highlights the increasingly important roles women occupy on the various fronts of WW II. In England, their more active jobs include ferrying planes from factory to airfield and operating anti-aircraft guns. In Russia, they are fighting on the front lines as well as acting as parachute nurses, army doctors and technicians. In Canada women have joined active service auxiliaries, and thousands labour day and night in factories turning out the tools of war. From the Canada Carries On series.

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.

"Whereas SQUARE INCH FIELD was composed largely in the camera, Rimmer's next film, MIGRATION, made full use of rear-projection rephotography, stop-framing, and slow motion. The migration of the title is interpreted as the flight of a ghost bird through aeons of space/time, through the micro-macro universe, through a myriad of complex realities. A seagull is seen flying gracefully in slow motion against a grainy green sky; suddenly the frame stops, warps and burns, as though caught in the gate of the projector. Now begins an alternation of fast and slow sequences in which the bird flies through time-lapse clouds and fog and, in a stroboscopic crescendo, hurtles into the sun's corona. Successive movements of the film develop rhythmic, organic counterpoints in which cosmic transformations send jelly fish into the sky and ocean waves into the sun." - Gene Youngblood. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The costume designer must design clothing that is correct for the film historically and geographically, and must be appropriate for the mood of the individual scene. We see famed costume designer Edith Head at work on a production. The Costume Designer was part of The Industry Film Project, a twelve-part series produced by the film studios and the Academy. Each series episode was produced to inform the public on a specific facet of the motion picture industry. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

One of Les Blank's industrial films, which follows a Holly Farms "broiler" chicken from factory incubation to the county fair barbecue pit. A hilarious, disturbing and surreal look at a large-scale chicken farm producing 156 million chickens a year! Film includes lots of chicken songs and music recorded live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

A historical film contrasting the two Germanies – the good and the evil – which struggled for power between the two world wars.

This is a film made in Toronto, in memoriam, so to speak - a memory piece, a "piecing-together" of the experience of living there. The consciousness of the maker comes to sharply focused visual music - not to arrive at snapshots, as such, but rather to "sing" the city as remembered from daily living...complementary, then, to an earlier film, "Unconscious London Strata." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

Kavery Kaul’s engaging documentary traces the history of calypso and soca music from their birth in the African-East Indian traditions of Trinidad and Tobago through its worldwide diaspora, including its popularization in the 1950s by Harry Belafonte and the new independent distribution networks that arose to serve the expatriate community in the 1980s. North American restoration premiere at To Save and Project: The 19th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation on January 27 and 31, 2023. Digital restoration by the Academy Film Archive and the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film & Television; courtesy of Riverfilms.

Documentarian Jon Boorstin follows architect Frank Gehry and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, as they attempt a new method of teaching elementary school children in Los Angeles. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the siblings work together on a pilot program of “design-based learning” that would restructure the typical classroom curriculum, replacing rote math or civics lessons with an imaginary city designed and built entirely by the students themselves. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive.

Chick Strand's SOFT FICTION is a personal documentary that brilliantly portrays the survival power of female sensuality. It combines the documentary approach with a sensuous lyrical expressionism. Strand focuses her camera on people talking about their own experience, capturing subtle nuances in facial expressions and gestures that are rarely seen in cinema. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2015.

Short film in support of the Red Cross showing civilian volunteers'work, radio and movie personalities at a fund-raising gala and encouraging recruitment. Deanna Durbin performs a song dedicated to the nurses. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Short film made up of various clips showcasing the Cinecolor process, including a visit to a Marx Brothers film set. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.

A film's art director is in charge of the set, from conception to construction to furnishing. This short film walks the viewer through art directors' responsibilities and the demands on their talents. They read a script carefully and design a set to capture the time and place, the social strata, and the mood. They must be scholars of the history of architecture, furnishings, and fashion. They choose the colors on a set in anticipation of the lighting and the mood. Their work also sets styles, from Art Deco in the 20's to 30s modernism. Then it's on to the next project. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

A sideshow barker uses magic and visual aids to alert the public that proper food management is both a resource and a weapon that could be to America's advantage if conserved properly in winning the then current World War. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, Academy War Film Collection, in 2008.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

This Oscar-winning documentary tells the story behind Japanese daredevil Yuichiro Miura's 1970 effort to ski down the world's tallest mountain.

A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender person who prefers to be identified somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film – an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité – is the first of Spheeris’s films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate, uncompromising. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.

Follows a crusading lawyer as he embarks on a campaign to save an African-American man, Paul Crump, from the electric chair. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2007.

A portrait of artist, actress, poet and occultist Marjorie Cameron, it shows images of her paintings and recitations of her poems. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.