The Making of Me

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

For anyone who has ever confronted a difficult decision in which none of the solutions seems like the right one, CROSSROADS will have a special resonance. Made at a time when the director was facing great uncertainty in his life, the film is an extended, often humorous, look at a man pulled in too many directions, in a world in which everything keeps changing and all roads seem to lead back to the beginning.

This tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale by Croatian director Zlatko Grgic traces man's checkered history with fire, and shows how growing carelessness in the form of overloaded sockets, smoldering cigarettes and other fire hazards can have highly undesirable consequences.

What happens when Humanity arrives at the technological singularity and achieves digital immortality? Where do we go from here?

On a night out with the lads, one individual decides that there is more to socializing than mere face value.

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)

This short tells the story of 4 wounded soldiers recovering In a hospital room, and only one of them can see out a near window as he describes to the others what is happening outside.

Take a four-minute journey to some of the planet’s most spectacular glaciers, waterfalls, beaches, rivers and waterways. Destinations include, Iceland, Igauzu Falls Brazil, Atchafalaya Basin Louisiana, Lake Tahoe California, Black Canyon of the Gunnison Colorado, and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

Rae Ripple, a welder from the outskirts of West Texas transforms neglected metal into works of art and in the process finds healing from her traumatic past.

A seamstress is waiting for her husband to come back from the war.

Indian and Cowboy are about to set off on a magnificent cruise on a luxury liner, but they have made a big mistake. They completely forgot that today is the first day of school! Goodbye tropical islands, our friends are back at their desks in school listening as the teacher drones on and on.

The animated short is a humorous fantasy, for which the starting point is a routine visit by a certain patient to the dentist.

Stole Popov's Oscar-nominated Dae depicts a group of Roma celebrating St. George's Day. The documentary doesn't contain dialogue, just footage of the festivity.

Some game trolls in the United States make a sport of getting other players “swatted” live during the game: they find out someone’s name and address, fake his caller ID, and make a bogus 911 call. The next thing you know, a SWAT team armed to the teeth is bursting into his house and giving him the fright of his life. This is all streamed live on camera, of course, so everyone can be in on the joke. Swatted is a cinematic exploration of this phenomenon based on 911 calls by offenders, YouTube videos of games and raids, and first-hand accounts of what it’s like to be swatted.

Pestilent City covers Manhattan from South to North, from Times Square to Harlem, finding along the way ever more poverty, violence, rage and tragic drunkenness.

On the edge of a mangrove, a group of girls live to the rhythm of the climate and the wild geese around them. They watch each other live and grow up at different ages. As time passes, tensions arise and rivalries develop.

Billy Batson tries to use the wisdom of Solomon to pass a school test, but finds that wisdom causes squabbles among the gods.

This technically quite well-made cartoon from pre-war Nazi Germany is a commercial (or propaganda piece) for Volksempfänger ("people's receiver"), inexpensive radios. First we see agricultural statistics: the far-away village of Miggershausen is quite below standards in milk and egg production. An anthropomorphic radio undertakes the long voyage by express train, steam train, hay carriage to Miggershausen to advertise its services. It is not well received. Then, it collects and leads an army of radios to try again. They flood all the farmhouses and seem to be more convincing that way - at day, they spread agricultural knowledge to bring milk and egg production up to standards; later, they just play music and illustrate how various people enjoy various kinds of music.

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.

A traveler is confronted by spirits in an abandoned shrine; a story of honor and firefighting in ancient Japan; a white bear defends the royal family from a monstrous red demon; ragtag soldiers battle a robotic force in futuristic Japan.