In 1908, amateur naturalist and pioneering filmmaker Percy Smith stunned early cinema goers with his footage of the juggling fly. Hailed as the father of Natural History film, Smith was a hugely influential visual pioneer, inventing many techniques that are still used today. Being both a genius and an eccentric, we follow his life from his earliest films, to the collapse of his house from his mould experiment to his ultimate suicide. We also meet Natural History icon Sir David Attenborough, who was so amazed by Smith’s films in the 1930s that they inspired him to get into natural history.
Self - Science Museum, London
Self - Film Archivist
Self - Entomologist
Self - Curator, Silent Film, BFI
Self - Film Archivist
Self - National Media Museum
Self - archive footage
Self - Scientist & Collector
Sir David Attenborough unveils the two stunning underwater realms of Saudi Arabia - the flamboyant Red Sea and the contrasting hot muddy Gulf, capturing for the first time the rare event of Palolo worms spawning at night.
Several little boys run along a pier, then jump into the ocean.
In 1980, Queens, New York, a young Jewish boy befriends a rebellious African-American classmate to the disapproval of his privileged family and begins to reckon with growing up in a world of inequality and prejudice.
Young man has his dreams come true when the sexy new maid seduces him. But she also has a secret that leads to trouble.
When Blanche meets Grégoire, she thinks she has found the one. The ties that bind them grow quickly, and a passionate affair ensues. Together, they relocate. For Blanche, far from her family, from her twin sister, Rose, a new life begins. But little by little, she finds herself caught in the grip of a deeply possessive and dangerous man.
Decades ago, the USSR developed unkillable sharks and launched them to the moon. Today, a team of American astronauts will endure the fight of their lives.
F/X man Rollie Tyler is now a toymaker. Mike, the ex-husband of his girlfriend Kim, is a cop. He asks Rollie to help catch a killer. The operation goes well until some unknown man kills both the killer and Mike. Mike's boss, Silak says it was the killer who killed Mike but Rollie knows it wasn't. Obviously, Silak is involved with Mike's death, so he calls on Leo McCarthy, the cop from the last movie, who is now a P.I., for help and they discover it's not just Silak they have to worry about.
Dating within different cultures and being open to all religions, Ethan must deal with constant roadblocks. From First Nations to South American, his journey to find love in Toronto is nothing but complex. He faces discrimination and depression but always remains optimistic.
The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during the war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.
In 1998, an auction of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor causes great excitement. For one woman, Wally Winthrop, it has much more meaning. Wally becomes obsessed by their historic love story. As she learns more about the sacrifices involved, Wally gains her own courage to find happiness.
Anya and Daniel just moved to their new house in Bandung. Daniel brings home a doll from his workplace. Anya, who is a dollmaker, welcomes the doll happily to their house. They later learned that the doll belonged to a little girl named Uci, who died when she and her family were brutally murdered in a robbery. Strange things begin to happen.....
After a pawn shop robbery goes askew, two criminals take refuge at a remote farmhouse to try to let the heat die down, but find something much more menacing.
London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.
When Maja brings her fiancé home, her traditional parents must overcome their cultural biases amidst a crisis at their dairy farm. Can love find a way?
Part live-action, part animated story about a boy who, after an awful amusement park accident, gets a brain transplant, which allows him to see cartoon characters in real life.
Human traffickers wipe out a young girl's family and village. She then seeks revenge on those responsible, eventually becoming first the hunted then turning into the hunters with the mercenary hired to eliminate her.
A family reunion at a remote mansion takes a lethal turn when they are trapped inside and forced to play a deadly survival game where only one will make it out alive.
Like any other teenage girl, Tara is just surviving high school — yet her father and mother seem strangely distant. Amidst a nearby spree of gruesome ax murders, Tara has sightings of terrifying entities, forcing her to question her own sanity and shocking ancestry.
Documentary about master director Roberto Rossellini, who tells details of his life and childhood and visits the places where he has lived and shot some of his most famous movies.
In the late sixties, Spanish cinema began to produce a huge amount of horror genre films: international markets were opened, the production was continuous, a small star-system was created, as well as a solid group of specialized directors. Although foreign trends were imitated, Spanish horror offered a particular approach to sex, blood and violence. It was an extremely unusual artistic movement in Franco's Spain.
The filmmakers and lead actors of The Remains of the Day (1993) discuss how they came to make the film, and the subtle power of its execution.
As Hong Kong's foremost filmmaker, Johnnie To himself becomes the protagonist of this painstaking documentary exploring him and his Boundless world of film. A film student from Beijing and avid Johnnie To fan, Ferris Lin boldly approached To with a proposal to document the master director for his graduation thesis. To agreed immediately and Lin's camera closely followed him for over two years, capturing the man behind the movies and the myths. The result is Boundless, a candid profile of one of Hong Kong's greatest directors and a heartfelt love letter to Hong Kong cinema.
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
A tribute to the late, great French director Francois Truffaut, this documentary was undoubtedly named after his last movie, Vivement Dimanche!, released in 1983. Included in this overview of Truffaut's contribution to filmmaking are clips from 14 of his movies arranged according to the themes he favored. These include childhood, literature, the cinema itself, romance, marriage, and death.
When Francois Truffaut approached Alfred Hitchcock in 1962 with the idea of having a long conversation with him about his work and publishing this in book form, he didn't imagine that more than four years would pass before Le Cinéma selon Hitchcock finally appeared in 1966. Not only in France but all over the world, Truffaut's Hitchcock interview developed over the years into a standard bible of film literature. In 1983, three years after Hitchcock's death, Truffaut decided to expand his by now legendary book to include a concluding chapter and have it published as the "Edition définitive". This film describes the genesis of the "Hitchbook" and throws light on the strange friendship between two completely different men. The centrepieces are the extracts from the original sound recordings of the interview with the voices of Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, and Helen Scott – recordings which have never been heard in public before.
A tour of the exotic locations of 'Goldfinger'.
Documentary that follows events after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, while looking back on the previous fifteen years, tracing his rise to power. Personal testimony alternates with analysis of a disintegrating society.
When the silent cinema learned to speak, the audience was surprised not only by the voices of the actors and the sound effects, but also by a new element, the music, which, combined with the dance and an unprejudiced imagination, gave rise to a new genre, as important to Hollywood cinema as the western was: the musical. A journey through the history of this genre, from its beginnings to the present day.
This promotional short film for "Soylent Green" (1973) begins by showing clips of films that depicted what the future might be like beyond Earth. The narrator then discusses the origin of the idea depicted in "Soylent Green." Director Richard Fleischer and star Charlton Heston discuss how an upcoming crowd scene will be filmed. Then we see what happens when the crowd riots because there is not enough food available to be distributed to everyone. "Soylent Green" was Edward G. Robinson's 101st (and, as it turned out, his last) feature film. During a break in filming, the cast and crew hold a ceremony celebrating the first film of his "second hundred," and Robinson makes appreciative remarks to the crowd. Studio head Jack L. Warner and friend George Burns are among those in attendance.
An hour-long discussion between Fritz Lang and Jean-Luc Godard in which they discuss a variety of art forms, the role of the cinema, their collaboration together, and much more. (Filmed in 1964 but released for TV in 1967.)
An intimate portrait of the superb actress Gena Rowlands, icon of independent cinema. Together with her husband, legendary director John Cassavetes (1929-89), she lived an unusual life beyond the dream factory, a life in which reality and fiction were so perfectly intertwined that it made possible films that still today seem incredibly real.
A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
Nagisa Oshima interviews Akira Kurosawa, leading him to share his thoughts about filmmaking, his life and works, and numerous anecdotes relating to his films and his various film activities.
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.
The adventurous life of Natacha Rambova (1897-1966), an American artist, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, who reincarnated herself countless times: false Russian dancer, silent film actress, scenographer and costume designer, writer, spiritist, Egyptologist, indefatigable traveler, mysterious and curious; an amazing 20th century woman who created the myth of Rudolph Valentino.
An examination of why the James Bond films have proved so popular including a discussion between the four actors who have played Bond, an interview with Cubby Broccoli and contributions from the directors, production designers, special effects and stuntmen.
Jonathan Ross delves into the world of James Bond and meets with new and former cast members who reveal humorous stories and anecdotes in a series of interviews. All the 5 Bonds at the time are featured, though only Lazenby (reflecting in the usual frank, self criticizing manner), Moore and Brosnan granted an interview. Connery and Dalton are featured through some unused footage from LWT's 30 years of James Bond program. The ever faithful Desmond Llewelyn turns up in character as well as some other less related peeps like Christopher Lee, Paul McCartney and the ultimate playboy: Hugh Hefner -- who all give an interesting perspective on the worlds most famous spy.
An insider's account of Jack Warner, a founding father of the American film industry. This feature length documentary provides the rags to riches story of the man whose studio - Warner Bros - created many of Hollywood's most classic films. Includes extensive interviews with family members and friends, film clips, rare home movies and unique location footage.