Hymn of the Nations, originally titled Arturo Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations, is a 1944 film directed by Alexander Hammid, which features the "Inno delle nazioni," a patriotic work for tenor soloist, chorus, and orchestra, composed by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi in the early 1860s. (For this musical work, Verdi utilized the national anthems of several European nations.) In December 1943, Arturo Toscanini filmed a performance of this music for inclusion in an Office of War Information documentary about the role of Italian-Americans in aiding the Allies during World War II. Toscanini added a bridge passage to include arrangements of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the United States and "The Internationale" for the Soviet Union and the Italian partisans. Joining Toscanini in the filmed performance in NBC Studio 8-H, were tenor Jan Peerce, the Westminster Choir, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.
A dog trains for the battlefield and becomes a crucial part of the United States military. This 1945 short documentary film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short, One-Reel.
This "Theater of Life" documentary was produced in cooperation with the International Committee, YMCA. It focuses on the work of Dr. Spencer Hatch, as he shows residents of small Mexican villages how to make their land better able to grow food and make them more independent.
Narrator John Nesbitt laments the disappearance of the rural one-room schoolhouse in America. He reminisces about his own days as a student in such a school and how his teacher, Miss Turlock, influenced so many students. Many of them reunite at the school on Miss Turlock's last day, when the school was closed in 1940.
A man with social anxiety gets followed by a naive and clumsy creature. Terrified the man tries to escape, unaware that the creature is actually a helper with slightly unconventional methods.
Snooze buttons, sunlight…the inescapable cacophony of alarm alerts: waking up in the morning is a battle between the present and the future state of mind. A dream-like war with yourself and other objects that seem to take a life of its own.
A series of mini-stories satirising our world in the 20th Century.
Based on the real life story of Sagawa, a Japanese student who killed, dismembered and ate a young Dutch girl in Paris.
A young teacher is the victim of a cruel joke. When she enters the classroom, all her pupils are naked, standing near their bench. Their clothes are heaped up on the podium
The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.
On the occasion of a dance competition a young ballet dancer is in a foreign place. Alone in his hotel room loneliness overpowers him, until he meets a stranger on the run.
Aningaaq, an Inuit fisherman camping on the ice over a frozen fjord, talks through a two way radio with a dying astronaut who is stranded in space, 500 kilometers above Earth. Even though he doesn't speak English and she doesn't speak Greenlandic, they manage to have a conversation about dogs, babies, life and death.
A man in drag sits on a couch holding a fan. The wallpaper behind him is floral patterned. Although the man does little more than looking around and waving his fan, Zwartjes created enormous tension.
Experimental gothic short, adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum'.
Wild is the story of an overzealous hunter and his explosive frolick through the peaceful woods. It quickly becomes apparent, though, that he has no idea what he is missing.
A rooster is unable to get worms; the other chickens either get there first or trick him out of the worms. But there's one worm nobody else competes for, because it's a trickster.
A hungry indian tries to cook bugs, yet Bugs outwits him yet again. Banned for offensive depiction of Native Americans.
It's breakfast time, and Pa finds the honeypot empty. Literally risking life and limb, he has Junyer help him raid a nearby beehive. In the end, he finds he should have listened to Ma in the first place, rather than telling her to "Shaddap!"
The audience takes a tour through a baby factory run by storks. Next, we're invited to follow the bouncing ball and sing along to "Pretty Baby".
Barney has a dive mask and swim fins to help with his pursuit of fish. First, though, he needs to get the anchor set, despite an overly helpful little seal. The seal acts like an inept hunting dog, leading Barney to a cave with an angry lobster, then an unfortunate encounter with a shark.