This film records the vast public response to the early death of Vera Kholodnaya, the first star of Russian cinema.
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
Not everything has been told about World War One. This documentary tries to explain how tens of millions of men could have suffered the unbelievable toughness of life in trenches during the 4 year ordeal. How could they have accepted the idea of a sure death or injury while not being able to tell why they were fighting.
A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.
Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.
In 1926, Buster Keaton was at the peak of his glory and wealth. By 1933, he had reached rock bottom. How, in the space of a few years, did this uncontested genius of silent films, go from the status of being a widely-worshipped star to an alcoholic and solitary fallen idol? With a spotlight on the 7 years during which his life changed, using extracts of Keaton’s films as magnifying mirrors, the documentary recounts the dramatic life of this creative genius and the Hollywood studios.
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
The story of the Bugattis of Milan and Molsheim, the eccentric family behind the brand: Carlo, the patriarch and furniture designer; Rembrandt, the troubled sculptor; Ettore, the gifted engineer; Jean, the unfortunate heir. Art and design. Beauty and luxury. The fastest cars. Races. The need for speed.
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.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…
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.
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
Documentary film with play scenes about the rise and fall of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 from the perspective of various well-known poets and writers who experienced the events as contemporary witnesses.
Photo sequence of the rare transit of Venus over the face of the Sun, one of the first chronophotographic sequences. In 1873, P.J.C. Janssen, or Pierre Jules César Janssen, invented the Photographic Revolver, which captured a series of images in a row. The device, automatic, produced images in a row without human intervention, being used to serve as photographic evidence of the passage of Venus before the Sun, in 1874.
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.
A look back at Charlie Chaplin's early life and career, from his rough childhood and music hall success in England to his early Hollywood days and the development of his enormously popular character, the Little Tramp, also called Charlot.
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.
A detailed account of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I. Between February and December 1916, the French and German armies relentlessly fought in the devastated camps around the village of Verdun.
The movie depicts the events from July until September of 1914 which led to the defeat of the German troops at the Marne. While Sebastian Haffner explains and comments on operations and decisions on the basis of situation maps, key scenes are depicted by actors. A main focus is thereby placed by Haffner onto the controversial mission of lieutenant-colonel Richard Hentsch who is said to have, during a war patrol to the various army high commands, contributed to the abortion of the operations significantly.
What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Côte d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.
Finnish filmmaker and artist Sami van Ingen is a great-grandson of documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty, and seemingly the sole member of the family with a hands-on interest in continuing the directing legacy. Among the materials he found in the estate of Robert and Frances Flaherty’s daughter Monica were the film reels and video tapes detailing several years of work on realising her lifelong dream project: a sound version of her parents’ 1926 docu-fiction axiom, Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age.