Screen Snapshots (Series 1, No. 20) (1921)
Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.
Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.
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.
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
In a closed locker room, rugby players perform the last pre-match rituals. Warming up their souls and bodies, all tense in anticipation of the fight.
Go head-to-head with an icebreaker. Plunge down a twisting mountain gorge. Soar through the clouds in the nosecone of a jet, then speed along with a dog team as it races across a frozen Arctic lake. A sweeping, moving tribute to Canada's stunning geography and rich cultural heritage, Momentum leaps off your screen--and touches your heart. Momentum wowed audiences from around the world when it premiered at Seville, the greatest world's fair of the last quarter century.
João Pedro Rodrigues answers the question from the title with an autobiographical short-film.
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.
Elem Klimov's documentary ode to his wife, director Larisa Shepitko, who was killed in an auto wreck.
Delphine Seyrig reads passages from a Valerie Solanas’s SCUM manifesto.
A portrait of the American artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995), based on a personal interpretation of Johnson’s avant-garde strategies, using the telephone and the internet as primary sources for sound and image.
Bad Boy of Bonsai is an experimental art-house documentary that focuses on Guy Guidry, a Louisiana local, and his passion for bonsai.
A Tibetan woman collects water near her family's yak farm and brings it back home 80-pounds full, in a ritual that takes her an hour to complete. A selection from Peabody Award-winning documentarian Bari Pearlman’s Nangchen Shorts series.
The Voice of Hollywood hosted by Pat O'Brien. Features Joan Blondell, Robert Montgomery, Elissa Landi, Warner Baxter, and the coronation of Mary Pickford as "Queen of the Arts." It is not currently clear which number in the series this is because it isn't on IMDB or any listing).
In 1977, Prince Charles was inducted as honorary chief of the Blood Indians on their reserve in southwestern Alberta. The ceremony, conducted in the great Circle of the Sun Dance, commemorated the centennial anniversary of the original signing of Treaty 7 by Queen Victoria.
This underwater ballet is an ecological story depicting our paradoxical relationship with plastic. Bakelite launched the #SickOfPlastic campaign from On Est Prêt, along with the Surfrider Foundation, Break Free from Plastic and the Resilient Foundation. Photography was directed by Jacques Ballard, a specialist in underwater cinematography.
Jean-Michael Cousteau's documentary about the Great Barrier Reef keeps getting interrupted by characters from Disney's Finding Nemo.
John Shepherd spent 30 years trying to contact extraterrestrials by broadcasting music millions of miles into space. After giving up the search, he makes a different connection here on earth.
Patte and Randa Starr are fun specialists. After growing up in an abusive household set above their father's candy store, they spent their lives fighting to find joy and freedom. Now in their 70s, these sisters do exactly as they please: they live together near the beach, they always have a movie on, and the candy drawer is fully stocked.
This portrait of a guinea fowl is the first clear vision I've had of the hot-blooded dinosaurs still living among us. (SB)