Overcoming Fear

Le Défilé(fr)

"Le Défilé" is a short film of Regine Chopinot & Jean-Paul Gaultier's collaborations, from a retrospective exhibit by the same name.

Sacred Site(en)

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 Mallet(sh)

In a futuristic, antiseptic food factory, workers select healthy chicks, while the rejects are carried along a conveyor belt until they are crushed by a mallet and drop into a garbage bin. A single black chick appears among the yellow and is shoved toward the garbage bin. Before the mallet strikes, the gasping chick rebels.

Bref(es)

Several African immigrants living in Spain speak openly about female genital mutilation.

Neuropathology(it)

Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray(en)

The self-help industry is worth $11 billion a year. It’s an industry that captivates those seeking happiness, release from suffering and those longing for a path and a leader to follow. James Arthur Ray for many who followed him was that leader to guide his flock. But as the story unfolds, as told by Ray himself and also by his followers, we learn that that path was fraught with danger and perhaps even greater suffering.

Spanish Bullfight(en)

With a crowded arena in the background, a stationary camera records a bull charging a picador astride his horse. An attendant on foot throws stones at the rump of the horse to get it to move. Various toreadors run past the bull to try to get him to charge or at least run about.

The Derby(en)

Vaulting(fr)

Considered a remake of Lumière's La Voltige from 1895.

Berlin: Panoptikum(fr)

A Berlin street scene.

Move On(en)

In certain sections of New York City large numbers of Jewish and Italian push-cart vendors congregate so closely along the sidewalks that they interfere with traffic. Policemen keep them moving. The picture shows how the frightened peddlers hurry away when a bluecoat appears. Some of the carts are piled high with fruits of all kinds, and it is interesting and amusing to see the expressions of combined fear and anxiety on the faces of the men as they hurry away; the fear of being arrested if they stand, and of losing some of their wares if the carts strike an obstruction in the street. Very fine photographically. (Edison film company catalog)

Spiritual Revolution(en)

Spiritual Revolution examines Eastern Spirituality in the West: its origins, forms, and the many ways it has evolved and been embraced in the United States as a philosophy and an ethical approach to life. The film explores various forms of Hinduism and Buddhism through interviews with a Whos Who of spiritual leaders, swamis, gurus, Zen Masters and Tibetan Lamas as well as scientists, psychotherapists and scholars.

Luis Martinetti, Contortionist(xx)

Luis Martinetti, a contortionist suspended from acrobatic flying rings, contorts himself for about thirty seconds. This is one of the first films made for Edison's kinetoscopes.

Amy Muller(xx)

Vaudeville dancer Amy Muller performs a portion of her stage routine, which features dancing on her toes. She dances on one toe for part of the performance. Later, she also twirls and does cartwheels.

Watermelon Contest(xx)

Two men have a contest to see which one can be the first to eat a large slice of watermelon.

Die Serpentintänzerin(de)

A young woman dancer with large, flowing robes, swirls round herself quickly, making her light robe flow around her like a butterfly's wings.

Ringkämpfer(de)

Two men in white leotards and tights, and black slips over it, wrestle on a theatre stage.

Bocal aux poissons rouges(fr)

[…] by shooting the fish in a globular bowl, the Lumières effectively use a fisheye lens, which offers distortions. The history of cinema has witnessed a struggle between the objective and subjective camera and the optically distorting lenses like the fisheye lens has been a powerful tool for the subjective camera. Here it is at the start.

New York Subway(en)

The camera platform was on the front of a New York subway train following another train on the same track. Lighting is provided by a specially constructed work car on a parallel track. At the time of filming, the subway was only seven months old, having opened on October 27, 1904. The ride begins at 14th Street (Union Square) following the route of today's east side IRT, and ends at the old Grand Central Station, built by Cornelius Vanderbuilt in 1869. The Grand Central Station in use today was not completed until 1913.

Hindenburg Disaster Newsreel Footage(en)

The airship Hindenburg, arriving from Europe, was being led to its mooring at Lakehurst, New Jersey when suddenly disaster struck. The hydrogen-filled zeppelin ignited, and was almost instantly transformed into an enormous fireball. In less than a minute, the entire ship had been consumed by flames. The Hindenburg explosion marked the end of the budding airship travel industry.