Carmencita

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.

Caucasian romance

Relatives of the beautiful Mardjan consider Elberd unworthy of her hand. Father, uncle and grandmother keep the girl locked up. And for protection they use a whole pack of dogs. But the cunning Elberd manages to lure the dogs into large baskets, hang them high on the branches of trees, and take his beloved out of the house.

The Phantom of the Opera

A comedy musical stage version of the Phantom of the Opera, filmed live on-stage during a performance in Florida.

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge

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

let me come in

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Pawns of Passion (1928).

Voyeur

An evocative portrait of people having orgasms, lingering on the silent classical face of ecstasy.

Marta

The life story of Marta Kubišová as a musical, broadcast live from the Summer Stage of the Kampa Museum in Prague, based on real events in the life of Marta Kubišová. On stage, we meet not only the two remaining Golden Kids, but also Jan Němec, Jan Moravec, Alexander Dubček, and Václav Havel.

Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace

Celebrating the splendor and grandeur of the great cinemas of the United States, built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts. A tribute to America’s great art form and the great monuments created for audiences to enjoy them in.

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil

In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the oil boom. Their production before a live audience is intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags.

Sexo en el plató

How are the sex scenes filmed? What tricks are used to fake the desire? How do the interpreters prepare and feel? Spanish actors and directors talk about the most intimate side of acting, about the tricks and work methods when narrating exposed sex. In Spain the general rule is that there are no rules. Each film, each interpreter, faces it in very different ways.

Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau

La remise des décorations

Tin Tan

Germán Cipriano Gómez Valdés Castillo, a young radio announcer from Cuidad Juárez, succeeds in drawing attention to the pachuco movement through his character Tin Tan, laying the groundwork for a new form of binational and mass linguistic expression: Spanglish. He soon became a leading figure in theater and film on the American Continent. Singled out by critics as a destroyer of the language, he quickly won the approval of the public. His ability to improvise revolutionized the film industry. His talent as an actor, singer, dancer and comedian contributed to the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. From El Hijo Desobediente to Capitán Mantarraya, from Cuidad Juárez to Havana, from mambo to rock, the legacy of Tin Tan makes him one of the great icons of Mexico today. This film tells his story as it has never been told before.

Days of Thrills and Laughter

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

O Alence a káčeti

Les Franglaises - Le Viens-Retour

Islands of Forgotten Cinemas

A poetic documentary about the lost film culture in the small villages on the Croatian islands during the SFR of Yugoslavia.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

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.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

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.

How the Berlin Worker Lives

This documentary shows how the Berliner workers lived in 1930. The director Slatan Dudow shows through images: a) the workers leaving the factory; b) the raise of the rents; c) the "unpleasant" guest, meaning the justice officer that brings the eviction notice; d) the fight of classes of the houses of capitalists and working classes; e) the parks of the working class; f) the houses of the working class, origin of the tuberculosis and the victims; g) the playground of the working class; h) the swimming pool for the working class, ironically called the "Baltic Sea" of the working class; i) the effects of humidity of basement where a family lives, with one member deaf; j) one working class family having dinner while the capitalist baths his dog; k) the eviction notice received from an unemployed family and their eviction.