
Mode Reville (1929)
Silent documentary short showcasing a fashion show in the late twenties set at the Côte d'Azur.
Silent documentary short showcasing a fashion show in the late twenties set at the Côte d'Azur.
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.
An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura, in 1922.
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.
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.
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
This film records the vast public response to the early death of Vera Kholodnaya, the first star of Russian cinema.
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
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.
Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.
The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.
A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.
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.
A documentary about some of the comedians of the silent era featuring clips from their films and biographical information.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From Japan to America, the LV sign dominates the fashion scene. And, one man alone designs the Louis Vuitton creations the exceptional Marc Jacobs. With unprecedented access to one of the world's hottest and busiest designers, Loïc Prigent offers an intimate and revealing portrait of the reclusive Marc Jacobs and the world of haute couture. Whether in the offices and workrooms of Paris and New York, the back of his car, or backstage at a fashion show, we see a genius at work. Jacobs endures unimaginable pressure to chart new paths in fashion as he straddles the demands of the Louis Vuitton conglomerate and his own Marc Jacobs label.
Wim Wenders talks with Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto about the creative process and ponders the relationship between cities, identity and the cinema in the digital age.