Dworzec

Warsaw's Central Railway Station. 'Someone has fallen asleep, someone's waiting for somebody else. Maybe they'll come, maybe they won't. The film is about people looking for something.

L'arrivée d'un train à 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.

The Making of Back to the Future

The Making of 'Back to the Future'

The Heart of 'The Natural'

Brush of Baphomet

A look at the artwork of Aleister Crowley.

Spiders on a Web

Consisting of a single shot, Spiders on a Web is one of the earliest British examples of close-up natural history photography. Made by one of the pioneers of the British film industry, G.A. Smith, this short film details spiders trapped in an enclosure, and despite the title, does not actually feature a web.

Woman Draped in Patterned Handkerchiefs

Woman Draped in Patterned Handkerchiefs is a 1908 British short silent documentary film, directed by George Albert Smith as a showcase his new Kinemacolor system, which features a woman displaying assorted tartan cloths, both draped on her body and waved semaphore-style. The patterned handkerchiefs are, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, “presumably the same cloths featured in Tartans of Scottish Clans (1906), this time shown from various angles.”

Gotta Get Off This Merry-Go-Round: 'Valley of the Dolls'

We look at why Valley of the Dolls is so beloved and appreciated, both for its "badness" and hidden merits. Valley Of The Dolls is considered either a national disaster or a national treasure.

3D Kleine Monster - Täuschen & Tarnen

Little Monsters presents some of the animal kingdom’s strangest survival strategies: poison dart frogs, chameleons, praying mantises and scorpions, to name but a few. Thanks to 3D visualization, large audiences can experience a chameleon thrusting out its tongue at close range, rattlesnakes striking at their targets to within fractions of an inch, praying mantises hunting and hummingbirds feeding, filmed from inside the flower! And with its ingenious combination of slow-motion 3D and timelapse 3D, “Little Monsters” even improves upon state of the art 3D for greater impact, yielding unbelievable scenes the world has never seen and “felt” before.

The Way to the Sea

A 1936 documentary film about the London to Portsmouth railway. A lesser known contemporary of Night Mail, also featuring the music of Benjamin Britten and poetry of W.H. Auden.

Europa Radio

Commissioned by Philips, Europa Radio celebrates the company’s experimental PCJJ shortwave radio station in Eindhoven that went on air in 1927 and broadcasted to Europe as well as the rest of the world in various languages. Hans Richter’s film covers one day from morning to night, showing the range and scope of the daily radio programs – from stock market news and sports events to live concerts and a speech by Albert Einstein. (via: impakt.nl)

Sacred Site

High-speed film and time-lapse photography combined to create breathtaking images of the night sky and Halley's Comet in this astronomical short subject.

The People's Land

A short documentary about the work of the National Trust in Great Britain

Powers of Ten

A scientific film essay, narrated by Phil Morrison. A set of pictures of two picnickers in a park, with the area of each frame one-tenth the size of the one before. Starting from a view of the entire known universe, the camera gradually zooms in until we are viewing the subatomic particles on a man's hand.

Iron and Beyond

This short documentary explores just how the film Pumping Iron revolutionized the fitness industry and created an international icon in Arnold Schwarzenegger. It also touches on what Hollywood's idea of an action star was and is.

Moon Rockets

This short is one of Paramount's "Popular Science" series (number L6-5, or the fifth one of the 1946-47 production season) and begins by showing moon rockets, weighing 30 tons, a flight in the ionosphere, with mounted color cameras recording pictures hundreds of miles above the earth. Coming back to earth, it discourses on modern bathroom fixtures, and then demonstrates a one-man hay-bailer.

The Making of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Behind the scenes documentary for Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Features interviews and on-set footage.

Bringing Godzilla Down to Size: The Art of Japanese Special Effects

A look at the unrecognized work of the talented artists and craftsmen who've maintained the tradition of Japanese special-effects. Highlighted is Yasuyuki Inoue along with various crew members who crafted meticulously detailed miniatures and risked life and limb as suit actors. All done to bring to life some of film's most iconic monsters through a distinct Japanese artform.

Wild Australia: The Edge

From beautiful but dangerous waterfalls to canyons and underground rivers carved into stone millions of years ago, Wild Australia is a stunning look at our fragile world and how it relates to Earth of ninety million years ago

1/57: Versuch mit synthetischem Ton

Mostly dark, rejecting images which are repeated. A stone wall, the chamber of a revolver which is, at first not recognizable, a close-up of a cactus. The duration of the takes emphasises the photographic character of the pictures, simultaneously with a crackling, brutal sound. (Hans Scheugl)