L’esclavage au cinéma, la fin d’un tabou ?

Hawaii, May 1977. After the success of Star Wars, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg meet to find a new project to work on together, the former as producer, the latter as director. The story of how the charismatic archaeologist Indiana Jones was born and how his first adventure, released in 1981, triumphed at box offices around the world.

Fifty years after its release, the special effects makeup team behind Planet of the Apes reflect on making the iconic film.

In this visual essay John Bengtson, author of Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton, provides a tour of where Seven Chances was filmed, comparing archival images with contemporary photos, and sharing stories of Mrs. Eleanor Keaton's visit to the Seven Chances church.

Four visual essays by Silent Echoes author John Bengtson identifying Buster Keaton's shooting locations for his many short films produced between 1920-1923, many in the streets surrounding his former Hollywood studio, the same studio where, a few years earlier, Charlie Chaplin had made his brilliant series of Mutual shorts.

A lyrical and nostalgic analysis of how Casablanca, the mythical film directed by Michael Curtiz in 1942, has influenced both film history and pop culture.

A documentary about Buster Keaton's "Italian" villa in Beverly Hills.

Documentary illustrating the birth of sound cinema.

Remarkable life story of Henri Diamant-Berger, a director and screenwriter whose devotion to cinema led him to collaborate with some of the greatest actors and filmmakers of his time.

Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick and released in 1982, is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its depiction of Los Angeles in the year 2019 is oppressively prophetic: climate catastrophe, increasing public surveillance, powerful monopolistic corporations, highly evolved artificial intelligence; a fantastic vision of the future world that has become a frightening reality.

They created and performed the iconic action sequences of 007, Indiana Jones, Superman, Rambo, Star Wars, Conan, the Alien films and pretty much everything since. They crashed cars, jumped from burning buildings, shot, stabbed, kicked and punched their way into cinema history. This is the first feature documentary to unite the legendary community of stuntmen in telling their story and, as you'll see, there's life in the old dogs yet.

Japan, 1954. A legend emerges from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastated by atomic bombs in 1945. The creature's name is Godzilla. The film that tells its story is the first of kaiju eiga, the giant monster movies.

Jacques Villeret, drôlement tragique

The life and professional career of the Spanish filmmaker Florián Rey (1894-1962), a brilliant artist who began his career in silent films and had great commercial success during the Second Republic (1931-1936): a journey to the early days of Spanish cinema.

The Big Picture uncovers the untold story of a state-of-the-art cinema quietly forgotten in the center of Bristol, a vibrant UK city known for its countercultural spirit. Once a cutting-edge IMAX theatre, the building was abandoned for over a decade—until a collective of cinephiles reclaimed it. Blending DIY ingenuity with punk ethos, they’ve transformed a forgotten relic into the beating heart of a grassroots cinema movement—reviving not just a building, but a shared vision of what cinema can be.

In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) to let himself be filmed simply hanging out with friends, telling anecdotes from his life and recording jazz standards.

As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir's "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a new underground of low-budget exploitation filmmakers were turning out considerably less highbrow fare. Documentary filmmaker Mark Hartley explores this unbridled era of sex and violence, complete with clips from some of the scene's most outrageous flicks and interviews with the renegade filmmakers themselves.

The order comes in the summer of 1941 from Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels himself: The best animators are summoned to Berlin. Their task: Producing feature-length cartoons in ‘Disney quality’ with the newly founded ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH’. To get trained, the Disney movie “Snow White” is retraced frame by frame. After the final victory, one new feature-length production of quality shall be released every year from 1947 onwards – that is the plan. Only in 1943, the first production is completed: “Armer Hansi”, a 17-minute-long colour movie, realized with the effortful multiplane technology. The second film by the ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm’ is only completed in 1946 – by DEFA. In the territories occupied by Germany, cartoons are produced as well, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes propagandistic ones. With excerpts from animated movies, live action film documents, and witness reports by contemporaries, this documentary draws a picture of the cartoon production in the Third Reich.

In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

La Liberté générale : chroniques de la 1ère abolition de l'esclavage 1794-1802