VistaVision Visits Sun Trails(1955)

Picturesque India or, In and About Calcutta(en)

Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.

L'expérience biosphère : 120 jours dans le désert(fr)

Spare My Bones, Coyote!(en)

For the last twelve years, Marisela and Ely, along with the volunteer group The Águilas del Desierto have roamed the US-Mexico desert. Their goal: to seek, find and return to their families the bodies of migrants who died while crossing on foot. This all-consuming calling takes a crushing toll on them, but how could they stop? Spare My Bones, Coyote! follows their work, dedication, and difficult lives they have chosen to live.

The Hunters(en)

An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.

Dinolandia(es)

A mechanic discovers the fossil of a huge carnivorous dinosaur, unleashing a war between scientists, mayors and neighboring towns to keep “the biggest dinosaur in the world.” Among bone thefts, replicas and a mayor obsessed with creating Dinolandia, anything goes when it comes to surviving.

Hacking at Leaves(en)

Hacking at Leaves documents artist and hazmat-suit aficionado Johannes Grenzfurthner as he attempts to come to terms with the United States' colonial past, Navajo tribal history, and the hacker movement. The story hones in on a small tinker space in Durango, Colorado, that made significant contributions to worldwide COVID relief efforts. But things go awry when Uncle Sam interferes with the film's production.

Andrei Bely: Armenia(ru)

The film is a cinematic interpretation of the travel book “Armenia” by Russian poet Andrei Bely.

An Uncountable Number of Threads(en)

Travel films have an established format with their own conventions, history and baggage. It is a medium that has all too often sought to control, define and dictate perceptions of ”other” places. Comprised of footage shot while travelling on group excursions across Russia in 2019, An Uncountable Number of Threads is an attempt to draw out the ethical restrictions of a travelogue, while questioning how (and why) to make one. At times there is an awkward tourist-gaze, aware of its outsider position. But as a self-reflexive work that considers its own creation, it ultimately unravels, as the artist rationalises themselves out of a particular way of working, inviting the viewer into their uncertainty.

A Visit to Los Angeles(en)

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.

Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo(en)

When Tomoko finds some messages for a 'Mr Smith' on a lost mobile phone, she finds herself on an 'Alice in Wonderland' journey through Tokyo's boulevards and back alleys. From the tyranny of symmetry in soaring office blocks - to buildings that look like space-ships, this creative documentary shows us the city's soul.

A Native Street in India(en)

Early film of a crowded street scene in an unidentified Indian city.

Gifting It: A Burning Embrace of Gift Economy(en)

If you think Burning Man is all about naked dancers tripping on substances, think again. This debut documentary by Renea Roberts takes an intelligent and thoughtful look at how the promotion of a gift economy ethic influences a host of social elements. The focus is on community and the power of gifting.

Desert View(ar)

The film Desert View is dedicated to the study of building and living in the semi - built satellite city Madinaty, located in the desert east of Cairo. The movie was made during a four-week residency experiment, to which the filmmakers had invited the three-generation Barakat family from ashweyat (informal residential district) Bashtil as a sort of cinematic diary. The temporary residents of Madinaty, filmmaker and Barakat family, captured their observations and experiences of architecture and their use from their respective perspectives and cameras. Two external perspectives on the desert dreams of the Egyptian middle and upper classes.

Sans Soleil(fr)

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Out of State(en)

Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.

The Endless Summer(en)

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Christmas on the Danube(en)

This documentary visits cities and towns and captures stunning landscapes along Europe's majestic Danube at Christmastime. Locations covered include Passau, Germany; Salzburg, Oberndorf, the Wachau Valley, and Vienna in Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; and Budapest, Hungary. Along the way the viewer learns relevant history.

Ruins of Delhi(en)

Attractive travelogue filmed in and around Delhi's Qutb complex.

Villenour (French India: Territory of Pondicherry)(xx)

Gorgeously dreamlike colour images of (then) French India – present-day Puducherry.

The Man Who Stopped the Desert(en)

As a child in Burkina Faso, Yacouba was sent away from home to study the Qur'an, where he and his classmates were almost starving. The young boys would trek across miles of wilderness, only to fall and beg at a straw hut for meagre rations. It is from this harsh background that the young farmer became determined to develop techniques that would bring exhausted soil back into production. His efforts have outdone the work of the world's leading scientists and technological advances costing millions of pounds. They may also yet prove crucial to the future of the world's rapidly growing population and global food demands.