Nanook of the North

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.

The Nobles of Prehistory: Ladies and Princes of the Paleolithic

In 1872, in the cave of Cavillon in Monaco, archaeologist Émile Rivière (1835-1922) unearthed an apparently very old human skeleton, at least 24,000 years old, a discovery that changed the modern image of prehistoric men and women.

Le mystère Cléopâtre, la dernière reine d'Egypte

Sons of the Surf

Surfing at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Most surfers are human, one is a dog. The educational documentary is part of the Bruce Scenic Novelties series.

Among Wild Birds

Finland’s first nature documentary. The filmmakers’ expedition leads them all the way to the Åland Islands and the Karelian Isthmus.

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.

Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead

Forensic experts scan Pompeii’s victims to investigate why they didn’t escape the eruption.

Secrets of the Neanderthals

This documentary delves into the mysteries surrounding the Neanderthals and what their fossil record tells us about their lives and disappearance.

Les héritiers

Gilles Groulx's first film shot in 1955 with a camera borrowed from his brother and edited during his spare time when he worked as an editor at the Radio-Canada news service a few years before he joined the NFB. Silent film, presented as its author left it, where the soil and the dialectic of Groulx's work are already there: documentary realism, the social space to be explored, daily life, the relationship between individual and society, social disparities, the consumer society, seduction and happiness.

Japanese Expedition to Antarctica

Footage shot during Japanese Army Lieutenant Nobu Shirase’s second Antarctica expedition.

Angkor et Les Mystères de L'Empire Khmer

Monica in the South Seas

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.

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.

Days of Thrills and Laughter

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

Boxing Match; or, Glove Contest

Staged boxing match between Sergeant-Instructor Barrett and Sergeant Pope, with a round, interval, and knockout.

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.

Venus: Death of a Planet

Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored life-giving habitats similar to those on the early Earth. Today, Earth's twin is a planet knocked upside down and turned inside out. Its burned-out surface is a global fossil of volcanic destruction, shrouded in a dense, toxic atmosphere. Scientists are now unveiling daring new strategies to search for clues from a time when the planet was alive.

Laplander Feeding His Reindeer

Short documentary released in 1907.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

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.

Die Sonne

The sun is the miracle that makes everything possible - but also the greatest danger. For the first time, a feature-length documentary is dedicated to the search for the significance of our home star for mankind, science and nature. Thanks to the researchers from the American space agency NASA, who work at the Canary Islands observatories in the hottest and coldest places on the planet.