The Turkish Sultan Mehmed V Resad Visiting Bitola

Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau

2002

Nanook of the North

1922

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.

Thimble Theater

1938

One of Joseph Cornell’s funniest films, Thimble Theater is structured like a vaudeville variety show about nature.

How the Berlin Worker Lives

1930

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.

The Diver

1911

A fascinating pictorial document: On an old, cluttered work ship, a man is helped on with a bulky, old fashioned diving suit. It's a complicated process, many layers and sections are carefully applied. He goes over the side. Some men row out to what looks like a wrecked barge and set dynamite. Then the diver returns and now laughs and acknowledges the camera. The other men, now safely away, blow up the barge.

The IX Olympiad in Amsterdam

1928

A documentary on the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. Made by Istituto Luce, there is an understandable focus on Italian athletes, but it is the first Olympic documentary that describes the techniques of certain events.

Men Boxing

1891

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Man with a Movie Camera

1929

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

Carmencita

1894

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.

Days of Thrills and Laughter

1961

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

Photographic Studies in Hypnosis: Abnormal Psychology

1938

Silent film showcasing hypnosis and its effects.

About the Art of Love or a Film with 14441 Frames

1972

Godina was ordered to make a short film glorifying the army, but instead made a film about making love, not war. The censors hacked it up, but he managed to save one complete copy.

Häxan

1922

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

Mineral El Teniente

1919

A retrospective about the world of the mineral, following different narrative lines, centered on housing, labor, transport, recreation among others. Original copy is lost, only 14 minutes are available.

Monica in the South Seas

2023

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.