The Soul of Youth

Bear

1993

Bear (10 minutes, 35 seconds) was Steve McQueen's first major film. Although not an overtly political work, for many viewers it raises sensitive issues about race, homoeroticism and violence. It depicts two naked men – one of whom is the artist – tussling and teasing one another in an encounter which shifts between tenderness and aggression. The film is silent but a series of stares, glances and winks between the protagonists creates an optical language of flirtation and threat.

How They Lie

1917

One-Eyed Likho

1916

The plot is the embodiment of everyday belief about the impact of a certain evil force on a person. The action develops in a peasant environment.

The Tender Hour

1927

Marcia Kane, daughter of an American capitalist, is persuaded by her father to marry the expatriated Russian Grand Duke Sergei, and believing Wally, her real love, to be dead, she consents. Discovering after the ceremony that her father has tricked her, Marcia vows to be the duke's wife in name only, though she refuses Wally's proposal that she go away with him.

Broadway Nights

1927

Fannie joins Johnny to perform a music-hall act which becomes a success, until two Broadway producers catch the act and offer Fannie a job on their latest show; however, they have no place for Johnny, so Fannie turns down the offer. (Film considered lost.)

A Petal on the Current

1919

A shop girl finds herself disgraced after being pressured into drinking too much at a party and getting arrested for public drunkenness.

The Four Devils

1920

One out of three silent adaptations of the novella "Les quatre diables" written by Danish author Herman Bang. The most famous one, although unfortunately lost, is without any doubt F.W. Murnau's "4 Devils". This German version, by Danish director A.W. Sandberg, was done eight years prior to Murnau's American one, and was a big success at the time.

The Migration Act

1926

This partially-extant silent film focuses on the lives of people in rural China during the early twentieth century. Wang Guisheng (played by Wang Yuanlong) is an orphan who grew up at his uncle's, working as a farmhand. Since childhood, he has been close with his female cousin, Li Ah Zhen (played by Li Minghui), and they expect to marry. But when her mother dies of illness and overwork, Ah Zhen's father re-marries, and the evil stepmother connives to marry Ah Zhen off to the stepmother's nephew. Then a government representative comes to the village recruiting peasants to establish a new settlement on the borderlands, she persuades the despondent Guisheng to sign up. Guisheng leaves his love behind, only to find hardship on the frontier. Ah Zhen, who has fallen ill, is set upon by her groom on her wedding night...BUT the next morning his stabbed corpse is found in the bridal chamber and a body in a bridal gown is found down a well. WHAT HAS HAPPENED?!?!?!?!!

Limite

1931

Adrift in the vast expanse of the ocean, a solitary boat carries three castaways—a man and two women. Stranded and devoid of any glimmer of rescue, they find solace in recounting the tales of their lives to one another. As they delve into their personal narratives, reminiscing about the circumstances that led them to this desolate predicament, they navigate through the depths of three distinct destinies. Bound by the confines of their shared space, every aspect of their existence becomes a boundary, underscoring their plight.

The Alchemistic Suitcase

2009

A nervous and unsettling young boy takes a mysterious old suitcase across London... to a twisted and surreal conclusion.

Faust

1926

God and Satan war over earth; to settle things, they wager on the soul of Faust, a learned and prayerful alchemist.

The Joyless Street

1925

In 1921, we follow two women - Marie and Grete - from the same poor Viennese neighborhood, as they try to better the lives of themselves and their families during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation.

The Moth and the Flame

1915

A bride who discovers during her wedding ceremony that her husband-to-be has fathered a child out of wedlock with another woman.

The Kid

1921

A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.

The Stolen Bride

1927

The daughter of a count and the son of a shoemaker, both Hungarian, fall in love in America. As they're about to marry, the young woman is called back to Europe. When her betrothed goes after her, difficulties ensue.