2019-04-30
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A new film compiled from the BFI National Archive's unparalleled holdings of early films of China, features films from 1900-48 filmed across China. The cinematic journey of Around China with a Movie Camera contains many films which may never have been seen in China, or at the very least not for over 70 years. These travelogues, newsreels and home movies were made by a diverse group of British and French filmmakers, some professionals, but mainly enthusiastic amateurs, including intrepid tourists, colonial-era expatriates and Christian missionaries.
Tomáš Etzler worked for seven years as a foreign correspondent in China. He came to know a country that was developing at an admirably fast pace, was swayed by its energy, and for a moment believed that modernity could bring about political change as well. Before long, it dawned on him that many people would continue to be severely punished, and the regime would still keep most of the nation in a state of indecision and ignorance. Without neglecting that face of China today, Etzler chose to tell a story of hope in his personal documentary. Using the example of an orphanage for disabled children, he shows that the answer to collectivist brutality and ruthlessness can be mutual assistance, tolerance and empathy.
Much-loved actress, comedian and writer Mel Giedroyc heads to Dorset on a travel adventure with a twist. Inspired by her passion for books, Mel hooks up with her friend and Dorset local, Martin Clunes, to explore the spectacular scenery and iconic locations made famous by some of Britain's favourite books and films.
Here's a Special Edition DVD that captures the most dramatic and exciting moments from the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, the competition was held in Beijing, People's Republic of China from August 8 to August 24, 2008. Ten thousand five hundred athletes competed in 302 events in 28 sports. The 2008 Summer Olympics did bring athletes from around the world together as they competed for the bronze, silver and gold medals. More importantly, television coverage united citizens from all nations, who rooted for their own countrymen as well as the world's best athletes. These games were the first to be produced and broadcast entirely in high definition, and did garner upwards of four billion viewers. This exclusive highlights DVD features the greatest athletes in the world, united in the most important competition of their lifetimes.
During the quarantine in 2020, the two friends Mariano Llinás and Matías Piñeiro sent each other video letters – 8 in total, 4 each of them – to create a compilation of ideas, thoughts and exchanges commissioned by Sergi Álvarez Riosalido for La Casa Encendida (Madrid). Llinás is in Argentina and Piñeiro is in New York, and they begin to order each other portraits of places, reflections on artists, ideas on cinema.
Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.
A one-month-journey of twin sisters from London back to their home, Bangkok, by train. They traveled via the famous trans-Siberian route through many countries such as Germany, Russia, Mongolia and China, with many stories to tell.
Born in Austria in 1903, Jacob Rosenfeld was imprisoned in Dachau. He manages to flee and takes refuge in Shanghai, like 30,000 other people. He exercised his profession there and sought to get involved in 1941 alongside the revolutionaries of the Chinese Communist Party. Rosenfeld becomes a surgeon on the war front between China and Japan. Thanks to his talents as a doctor and an organizer, he soon became close to Mao Tsé-Toung. In 1945, he was appointed general, responsible for the health of the armies and the entire liberated area. He is now called General Luo. Later, he became the Minister of Health of the first communist government. Thanks to his journal found in 2001, this documentary traces its extraordinary destiny.
French documentary from 2013. Mao Zedong and his fourth wife Jiang Qing were married for 37 years, from 1939 until Mao's death in 1976. After his death, she was tried and imprisoned where, at the age of 77, she committed suicide. All the official portraits of her were removed after her death and she became a scapegoat of the things for which Mao was ultimately responsible.
Hotel Coolgardie is a portrait of outback Australia, as experienced by two backpackers who find themselves the latest batch of “fresh meat” to work as barmaids in a remote mining town.
An abridged history of motion pictures: In 1888 George Eastman registered the made up word “Kodak” as a trademark. In 1894 Jean Aimé “Acme” Le Roy presented the first film screening in New York City. In 1895 Auguste and Louis Lumière filmed workers leaving their factory in Lyon. In 1903 Thomas Alva Edison orchestrated and captured on film the electrocution of an elephant in Coney Island. In 2011 Anja Dornieden and Juan David González Monroy filmed dwarfs dancing on a stage at an amusement park in China. In 2012 Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy.