Every Wall is a Door

Drawing on VHS tapes of a programme hosted by her mother on Bulgaria’s national television, the filmmaker gives a pop-style and in-depth chronicle of the gentle – even “over-gentle” – 1989 revolution.

I will make up a song and sing it in a theatre with the night air above my head

Egypt's only modernist architect Hassan Fathy (1900-1989) was committed to ecology and sustainability in his architecture. This film takes us with slow steps, in still images, to two villages he created. Fathy's historically grounded, forward-looking designs prompt us to reflect on the past as well as contemplate new solutions for the future.

Decasia: The State of Decay

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.

Six Unkind Silences

A Landscape documentary about the silent voids the living inhabit after everyone they love has gone.

Between Revolutions

A semi-fictional correspondence between two women: one goes to Iran in 1979 to topple the Shah; the other experiences the onerous years of Ceaușescu’s Romania. Their biographies run in parallel via images of everyday life and videograms of revolution.

Šturm und drunk

The Subject and Tasks of Biophysics

Experimental educational film reveals the emergence of some ideas of Biophysics in historical, philosophical and methodological aspects. The first film from the Biophysics Cycle (1982-1989).

Tossing a Nigger in a Blanket

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.

The IX Olympiad in Amsterdam

A documentary on the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. Made by Istituto Luce, there is an understandable focus on Italian athletes, but it is the first Olympic documentary that describes the techniques of certain events.

A Visit to Los Angeles

To popularize the idea of automobile travel, Ford Motor Company produced Ford Educational Weekly, a film magazine distributed free to theaters. One 1916 series featured "Visits to American Cities." In this episode, Los Angeles is featured at the very beginning of the boom created by oil, movies and aircraft. On the occasion of its centennial in 1953, Ford donated its film to the National Archives and Records Service; this copy derives from a fine grain master printed from the Archive's preservation negative. Music by Frederick Hodges.

December Hide-and-Go-Seek

"Ryuta is 5 years old. Even though he is my son, I sometimes wonder what this small person is to me. Even though I see his joys and sadnesses and know the feel of his warmth on my skin when I hold him, there are moments when my feelings for him become vague and blank." - Takashi Ito

The Funeral of Vera Kholodnaya

This film records the vast public response to the early death of Vera Kholodnaya, the first star of Russian cinema.

Laplander Feeding His Reindeer

Short documentary released in 1907.

D'où viennent les faux cheveux

On a market day in Kernascleden, two Breton women exchange their hair for a few coins. The hair becomes hairpieces. Last scene, an elegant Parisian removes her hat and exposes her generous wig skillfully coiffed.

Pulmonary Hydatid Cyst Operation

Also known as The Operation of Dr. Alejandro Posadas. Filmed with early orthochromatic film in the Hospital de Clínicas de la Ciudad in Buenos Aires.

Série 7 (Éclatements de bulles de savon)

Lucien Bull was a pioneer in chronophotography. Chronophotography is defined as "a set of photographs of a moving object, taken for the purpose of recording and exhibiting successive phases of motion."

Felling of Hibson Road Brick Works Chimney in Nelson

It is a dramatic film, with its colossal explosion and smouldering remains. Within seconds of the chimney's collapse, crowds swarm in to inspect the site; issues of the crowd's health and safety are clearly not a concern, as people smile, wave and salute the camera.

The Five Obstructions

In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.

The Sound of Seeing

Made on a wind-up Bolex camera, The Sound of Seeing announced the arrival of 21-year-old filmmaker Tony Williams. Based around a painter and a composer wandering the city (and beyond), the film meshes music and imagery to show the duo taking inspiration from their surroundings.

Man with a Movie Camera: The Global Remake

Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake is a participatory video shot by people around the world who are invited to record images interpreting the original script of Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera and upload them to this site. Software developed specifically for this project archives, sequences and streams the submissions as a film. Anyone can upload footage. When the work streams your contribution becomes part of a worldwide montage, in Vertov’s terms the “decoding of life as it is”.