Short dramatised documentary showing the ups and downs of daily life on a circus farm. “The only light comes from the flames of the funeral pyre that consumes a dead circus elephant shortly after its corpse has been unceremoniously dragged across a field by 50 carthorses.” (BFI)
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.
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
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.
Women getting onto a rickshaw.
A very graceful dance with voluminous draperies, by Annabelle Moore, well-known on the metropolitan stage.
Panorama of Nice from the deck of a ship.
An impression of the funeral parade for Victoria, Queen of England, filmed in London (via https://catalogue-lumiere.com/le-char-funebre/)
Elaborate floats and costumes parading the streets of Nice.
The parade occupies only a small portion of the screen, the crowds are a seething mass that do really move and the Independence Bell is nowhere to be seen.
Lumière Brothers film automobiles driving at the Champs-Elysées.
A view of the entrance to the Stockholmsutställlningen, the World Exhibition in Stockholm.
A variation on the popular Butterfly Dance, released in hand-colored and stenciled versions. The film has the catalogue number 2011 and was likely shot in 1897 but not screened in France until the 10th of December 1899.
One minute film of Buffalo Bill's famous show.
Panorama film shot floating down the Seine.
A view of the Ferris wheel from the Chicago Exposition of 1893, turning slowly.