Varieties of Sweet Peas(1911)

The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk(en)

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.

Podium(en)

Dibuixant Max(ca)

Nanook of the North(en)

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.

Le Fogile Cadono(en)

a glimpse of fall.

Monica in the South Seas(fi)

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.

Around China with a Movie Camera(en)

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.

Levende Rivier(en)

A man canoes through the the Rhine

Laurel & Hardy: Their Lives and Magic(de)

The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.

How Animated Cartoons Are Made(en)

Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)(en)

Documentary footage of the author and his two daughters at home.

Weaving Women(mk)

A group of Macedonian women are shown hard at work.

Crabs and Shrimp(fr)

Jean Painlevé is interested here, with the help of Eli Lotar, in crabs and shrimps. He is particularly interested in detailing their anatomy and observing their mating and fighting behavior.

Carmencita(xx)

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.

Opening of the Kiel Canal(en)

The opening of the Kiel Canal in Germany by Kaiser Wilhelm II on 20 June 1895.

Fight for the Dardanelles(en)

The film uses stop-frame animation to create maps on the screen, and showed the then-current military situation in the Dardanelles, using various maps to assist understanding. Small cardboard cut-outs show the deployment of men and ships. Intertitles explain tactics, and shelling explosions are illustrated by clouds of cotton wool.

Greenland, 1932(en)

Danish documentary filmed in Greenland. Shows a lot of Greenlanders, skiing, hunting for birds, seals and whales, and ice fishing. Filmed by Dr. Leif Folke.

Greta Garbo: The Temptress and the Clown(en)

Two part biography of Greta Garbo - 1. The Temptress 2. The Clown. Reminiscences of her early life in Stockholm, with excerpts from her films. Narrated by Bibi Andersson.

One Second in Montreal(en)

A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge(xx)

A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.