Workteams & the Wizard of Oz

Land Without Bread(es)

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)

Contra a Maré(pt)

Nostradamus(en)

A look at various predictions Nostradamus made, such as the American and French Revolutions.

Tickets s.v.p(en)

An incident from the early days of Québec's quiet revolution, tailor-made for the cartoonist. It is the story of a Montréal commuter train, a unilingual ticket collector and a bilingual passenger. The passenger appears on screen himself to describe his bid to have tickets requested in French as well as in English. What ensued, and how even the railway president became involved, is illustrated with wit and humor.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Parade(en)

The film shows a parade down Fifth Avenue, New York. In the foreground many children, both black and white, can be seen following alongside the parade. The participants in the parade include cowboys, Indians, and soldiers in the uniform of the United States Cavalry on horseback and riding horse-drawn coaches. Buffalo Bill can be seen on horseback, lifting his hat to the crowd. Filmed on 1 April 1901.

Boys Diving, Honolulu(en)

In the background is a row of three-masted sailing ships, at anchor, their sales furled. In the foreground, a simple pier that's more like a yardarm juts out above the water; about 15 boys of six or seven years of age are on the jutting wood, and they jump off into the water below. The water looks to be about three feet deep. They swim back toward the pier. A small motorized boat passes. It's a stationary camera; one take.

Cyprus Is an Island(en)

A short history of the island is followed by views of the countryside and people in town and village.

Kylvan, The Deaf Pup(fr)

Kelvan describes his daily life as a deaf person in Montreal, with one small detail: he's part of the puppy community. Puppy-Play is a kind of role-playing game in which you adopt the personality and mentality of an animal, and is present in the LGBTQueer+ community.

The Creepypasta Episodes: Remastered(en)

A documentary covering the remastering process of first season of the horror anthology series that adapts internet horror stories into short, interconnected films.

L'île de Pâques(fr)

The first Easter Island documentary, filmed in 1935 when the Belgian naval ship Mercator came to collect Drs. Henri Lavacherry and Alfred Métraux, who had arrived six months before to carry out archaeological and ethnological work. The film, directed with melodramatic gusto and featuring a full orchestral score by Maurice Jaubert (who also did the narration), shows islanders, the monuments, and a public dance. A theme of decay and decadence characterizes the film, the motif portrayed gruesomely by extensive close-ups of the inhabitants of the leper colony there at the time. The film suited a romantic image of a mysterious lost civilization, the survivors eking out a pitiful existence on a barren rock. (Grant McCall)

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat(fr)

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Hidden Beauty - The Orchids of the Saale Valley(de)

Orchids are counted among the rarest and most endangered, but also the most beautiful species of plant in Germany. In this movie David Cebulla is in search of these unique plants around his hometown Jena, a university town situated in central Germany. He wants to capture impressive footage in order to make a statement for the protection and preservation of nature.

Cumulonimbus(en)

A 1970 projection of what may come when pollution over powers nature.

Player Two(en)

Player Two is a short animation that explore the relationship that develops between two brothers of differing age growing up, and how video games foster that bond.

Sprængning af Træer i Dyrehaven(da)

A group of military men uses explosives to de-root trees.

Københavnerbilleder(da)

Various street scenes from Copenhagen in 1907.

The Wall(en)

Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.

1(id)

John Grierson(en)

A BFI-produced documentary about documentary filmmaker John Grierson speaking about documentary.

The New Cinema(en)

Between the French La Nouvelle Vague and the Italian Neorealismo, Europe had been undergoing a continuous cinema transformation since the 1950s, while the ailing American studio system groaned under its own weight and inertia. New Hollywood had arrived with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, and already by 1968 it was changing how Hollywood thought and acted. The student film scene was getting ready to explode, and it knew it.