A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
Footage shot during Japanese Army Lieutenant Nobu Shirase’s second Antarctica expedition.
Finland’s first nature documentary. The filmmakers’ expedition leads them all the way to the Åland Islands and the Karelian Isthmus.
Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.
Roald Amundsen's South Pole Journey is a Norwegian documentary film that features Roald Amundsen's original footage from his South Pole expedition from 1910 to 1912.
Surfing at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Most surfers are human, one is a dog. The educational documentary is part of the Bruce Scenic Novelties series.
A method soldier boys have for amusing themselves in their leisure moments. New comrades are frequently initiated by the old-fashioned sport of tossing in a blanket. The newly arrived recruit, who is the victim of their sport, enjoys himself, perhaps, less than the other participants.
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
Captain Kleinschmidt leads an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie Museum to the arctic regions of Alaska and Siberia to study the natives and the animal life.
This film records the vast public response to the early death of Vera Kholodnaya, the first star of Russian cinema.
Documentary about the lost 1914 film "Sperduti nel buio". Film historian Denis Lotto journeys across Europe following the trail of the lost movie.
This documentary shows how the Berliner workers lived in 1930. The director Slatan Dudow shows through images: a) the workers leaving the factory; b) the raise of the rents; c) the "unpleasant" guest, meaning the justice officer that brings the eviction notice; d) the fight of classes of the houses of capitalists and working classes; e) the parks of the working class; f) the houses of the working class, origin of the tuberculosis and the victims; g) the playground of the working class; h) the swimming pool for the working class, ironically called the "Baltic Sea" of the working class; i) the effects of humidity of basement where a family lives, with one member deaf; j) one working class family having dinner while the capitalist baths his dog; k) the eviction notice received from an unemployed family and their eviction.
A fascinating pictorial document: On an old, cluttered work ship, a man is helped on with a bulky, old fashioned diving suit. It's a complicated process, many layers and sections are carefully applied. He goes over the side. Some men row out to what looks like a wrecked barge and set dynamite. Then the diver returns and now laughs and acknowledges the camera. The other men, now safely away, blow up the barge.
Short documentary released in 1907.
A short dance film in Pathécolor, also know as stencil colouring. The editing cuts correspond with the dancers' costume changes. More about stencil colouring at http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1218/.
A unique hybrid of documentary, silent film, drama and dance, 'Breaking Plates' puts revolutionary women of the past on the screen with present day filmmakers. Contemporary women talk to characters from 100 years ago, reanimate their antics and emulate their mayhem moves. As early 21st century performers step into the clothes of their early 20th century counterparts, battling their haywire machines, exploding gags, and eruptive bodies, they learn to wield humour as a weapon against the structures that contain them today.
“Convalescing, when you don't have to participate in the world. Time to read, to dream, to look - the blue, the light of the television, the blue, the book, the patterns the light, the blue. Time to appreciate how much that really is.”
Short film about Indian people
It's the oldest Brazilian movie that survived and the film that captured the first car race in Brazil.