Documentary about the lost 1914 film "Sperduti nel buio". Film historian Denis Lotto journeys across Europe following the trail of the lost movie.
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This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.
A showcase of trapeze artist Alciede Capitaine, billed as “The Perfect Woman,” whose daring feats on the flying bar combined grace with breathtaking athleticism. Produced by Edison in 1898, this title should not be confused with Dickson’s earlier 1894 short Mlle. Capitaine, which also featured the performer.
The Hobbit Enigma examines one of the greatest controversies in science today: what did scientists find when they uncovered the tiny, human-like skeleton of a strange creature, known to many as the Hobbit, on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003?
As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir's "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a new underground of low-budget exploitation filmmakers were turning out considerably less highbrow fare. Documentary filmmaker Mark Hartley explores this unbridled era of sex and violence, complete with clips from some of the scene's most outrageous flicks and interviews with the renegade filmmakers themselves.
"All sounds travel in waves much the same as ripples in water." Educational film produced by Bray Studios New York, which was the dominant animation studio based in the United States in the years surrounding World War I.
Second attempt to create a feature film out of the 200,000-plus feet of film which Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein shot during 1931-32 in Mexico for American socialist author Upton Sinclair, his wife and a small company of investors. The projected film, to be called "Que Viva Mexico", was never completed due to exhaustion of funds and Stalin's demand that Eisenstein return to the USSR (he had been absent since 1929). The first attempt at editing the footage, in the USA, resulted in "Thunder Over Mexico", released in 1934. In 1940, Marie Seton, from the UK, acquired some of the footage from the Sinclairs in an attempt to make a better cutting according to Eisenstein's skeletal outline for the proposed film. This film has apparently been lost.
Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world of both German and French cinema. In 1936, together with Henri Langlois, she founded the Cinémathèque Française with the goal of saving from destruction films, costumes, sets, posters, and other treasures of the 7th Art. A Jew exiled in Paris, she became a pillar of the capital's cultural scene, where she promoted German cinema.
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 Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.
A behind-the-scenes documentary about director Michelangelo Antonioni as he's shooting his segment of The Three Faces, a vehicle for Soraya, the former empress of Persia. Featuring interviews with Monica Vitti, Tonino Guerra and more.
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.
Documentary that captures Tom Petty and the band in 1982-1983 as they finish, promote, and tour around the “Long After Dark” album (their final with legendary producer Jimmy Iovine). It aired only once on MTV in 1983. After the long lost 16mm reels were finally found, a restored version with 19 minutes of extra footage was released in 2024.
100 Years of Wrigley Field celebrates a century of the greatest moments and best personalities of the ballpark on Chicago's North Side.
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.
As notions of civil rights transformed across the world, so was the screen landscape reformed by the ascension of grassroots film movements seeking to challenge the mainstream. Some aspired to push form to its limit; others worked to destabilise what they saw as a homogenous industry, or to provoke questions around gender, sexuality, migration and race.
Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy was a television special featuring the First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy on a tour of the recently renovated White House. It was broadcast on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1962, on both CBS and NBC, and broadcast four days later on ABC. The program was the first ever First Lady televised tour of the White House, and has since been considered the first prime-time documentary specifically designed to appeal to a female audience.
Lost Heroes is the story of Canada's forgotten comic book superheroes and their legendary creators. A ninety-minute journey to recover a forgotten part of Canada's pop culture and a national treasure few have ever heard about. This is the tale of a small country striving to create its own heroes, but finding itself constantly out muscled by better-funded and better-marketed superheroes from the media empire next door.
In 2007, the Writers Guild of America, the Screenwriters Union, hit an impasse in their contract negotiations with the Studios. At the center of the dispute was jurisdiction over the internet. Unable to make progress, the WGA called a strike which brought Hollywood to a halt for 100 days.
It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.
In the 1968 movement in Paris, Jean-Luc Godard made a 16mm, 3-minute long film, Film-tract No.1968, Le Rouge, in collaboration with French artist Gérard Fromanger. Starting with the shot identifying its title written in red paint on the Le Monde for 31 July 1968, the film shows the process of making Fromanger’s poster image, which is thick red paint flows over a tri-color French flag. —Hye Young Min
Tells the history and importance of The National Film Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself.
World-renowned director Martin Scorsese narrates this journey through his favorites in Italian cinema.
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
This documentary explores the mystery surrounding the death of movie icon Marilyn Monroe through previously unheard interviews with her inner circle.
A tribute to Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci (1926-90), presented by American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
The definitive documentary on the history of nudity in feature films from the early silent days to the present, studying the changes in morality that led to the use of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that shaped that history. Skin will also study the gender inequality in presenting nude images in motion pictures and will follow the revolution that has created nude gender equality in feature films today.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
To mark the recent thirtieth anniversary of Sergio Leone’s death, this documentary sets out to pay tribute to one of the great legends of world cinema. The singular artistic vision of Sergio Leone has transcended national borders, creating the Spaghetti Western genre and transforming the international cinematic panorama forever with his innovative stylistic and narrative solutions, which have now become part of the language of the movies. The film, which is enriched with precious archive footage from the Cineteca di Bologna, including rare audio recordings and film clips shot behind the scenes, sees for the first time the direct participation of the Leone family and has interviews both with Leone’s longtime collaborators and with icons of Hollywood who have been profoundly influenced by his work.
This essential new documentary pays tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty and shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking.
Vivian Maier's photos were seemingly destined for obscurity, lost among the clutter of the countless objects she'd collected throughout her life. Instead these images have shaken the world of street photography and irrevocably changed the life of the man who brought them to the public eye. This film brings to life the interesting turns and travails of the improbable saga of John Maloof's discovery of Vivian Maier, unravelling this mysterious tale through her documentary films, photographs, odd collections and personal accounts from the people that knew her. What started as a blog to show her work quickly became a viral sensation in the photography world. Photos destined for the trash heap now line gallery exhibitions, a forthcoming book and this documentary film.
A documentary about the making of David Fincher's 2008 film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Virtually every element in the evolution of the Fincher's film is documented here, from the project's attachment to numerous other directors during the 1990s, to its shoot in 2006 and 2007 in New Orleans, to its complex, CGI-intensive postproduction process.
From teen comedian to Hollywood legend, Eddie Murphy revisits his extraordinary showbiz ride with raw honesty and humor.
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
A documentary on the life and career of one of the most influential film directors of all time, Steven Spielberg.
An intimate documentary delving into Rian Johnson's process as he comes in as a director new to the Star Wars universe.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
This documentary by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky details the murder trial of Delbert Ward. Delbert was a member of a family of four elderly brothers, working as semi-literate farmers and living together in isolation from the rest of society until William's death.
