A young and dynamic engineer, Mack Prite, whose talents have helped him rise above humble origins, struggles against an old entrenched capitalist whose oil company’s profits are threatened when Prite develops a plan to turn peat into usable energy.Read More »
Silent
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Lev Kuleshov – Proekt inzhenera Prayta AKA The Project of Engineer Prite (1918)
1911-1920ExperimentalLev KuleshovRussiaSilent -
Anh Hung Tran – La femme mariée de Nam Xuong (1989)
1981-1990Anh Hung TranAsianShort FilmVietnamQuote:
this one was the mandatory project every cinema student has to make at the end of his studies. Also based on a vietnamese tale , image seems to be transfered from a videotape, not fantastic quality, but I presume you’ll never see it in better form…
Anyway, it’s also the first apparition of the incredibly beautiful Yen-Khe Luguern …a few years before she married Tran Anh Hung… that’s enough for meRead More » -
D.W. Griffith – Isn’t Life Wonderful (1924)
Drama1921-1930D.W. GriffithSilentUSAProducer/director D.W. Griffith’s feature is a fairly realistic study of the deprivations visited on the German people after their defeat in World War I. In her best-ever performance, Griffith protégée Carol Dempster plays Inga, who does her best to hold her family together and keep food on the table despite grinding poverty, debilitating illness and out-of-control inflation. The most memorable scene finds Inga desperately trying to maneuver a basketful of near-worthless Deutschmarks to a market before the prices rise again and she is unable to buy meat. Aware that anti-German sentiment still prevailed in the US, Griffith cannily inserted an opening title which noted that the main characters were Polish.Read More »
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Cecil M. Hepworth – Baby’s Toilet (1905)
1901-1910Cecil M. HepworthDocumentaryShort FilmUnited KingdomQuote
Baby’s Toilet is a 1905 British short film directed by Cecil Hepworth. The film features Hepworth’s baby daughter Elizabeth being bathed and dressed by her nurse, and was categorised by Hepworth as a “Domestic Scene”. In the film Hepworth combines a series of shots to produce a narrative depicting the bathing process from beginning to end. He would later acknowledge the influence of the pioneering work of the Lumière brothers on this and other similar films he produced in the 1900s. The print of Baby’s Toilet survives, and Patrick Russell of the British Film Institute observes: “Long after Elizabeth Hepworth’s own death, the affecting innocence of infancy remains a basic human theme. Baby’s Toilet has lost none of its charm.Read More » -
Satoshi Uemine – Sizuka no Umi AKA Sea of Tranquility (2004)
2001-2010DocumentaryExperimentalJapanSatoshi UemineThe film was made by the Japanese visual artist Satoshi Uemine, and DVD released in 2005. This silent, personal movie bears and reflects the traces of the re-encounter between the director and his girlfriend, who had been hospitalized because of her deteriorating mental condition. Almost all scenes were shot in Hokkaido, the north island of Japan. Although nothing dramatic happens here, Sizuka no Umi builds a series of beautiful images that are raw, honest, and passionate.Read More »
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Maya Deren – Witch’s Cradle (1944) (HD)
1941-1950ExperimentalMaya DerenShort FilmUSA

Quote:
“In 1944 Maya made a film at the Peggy Guggenheim Art of this Century Gallery with Marcel Duchamp called Witches Cradle. Deren used the camera, as she envisioned medieval witches and magicians did, to ‘defy’ time and space through the disappearance and reappearance of objects. Based on an article written by the Frenchman Charles Duits, colleague of Andre Breton and an extra in Ritual in Transfigured Time, Deren compared these medieval witches and magicians to the surrealists, and had a brief association with the movement. She resisted the label attached to her work and defended her position in scholarship and on tour for lecture/demonstrations.” (algonet.se)Read More » -
Abraham Ravett – The Boardwalk (1998)
1991-2000Abraham RavettDocumentaryExperimentalUSAThe Brighton Beach—Coney Island boardwalk is a long, winding, ocean front walkway adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. Photographed over a three year period, the landscape rendered reflects the seasonal changes, daily activities, and the filmmaker’s projected future.Read More »
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D.W. Griffith – The Massacre (1912)
1911-1920D.W. GriffithSilentThe Birth of CinemaUSAWesternAs the woman he loved lay dying, the former suitor swore to protect the child of the other man, just killed in battle. The baby grown to womanhood, the man’s love for the mother was felt again, but a stranger claimed the girl’s love. So the man with his trust left for the far Northwestern country and joined in the government wars against the Indians. There again he met the life which he had sworn to protect. How well he succeeded, the returning young husband could most appreciate, after one of the most deadly massacres and Indian battles of the period.Read More »
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D.W. Griffith – The Lesser Evil (1912)
1911-1920D.W. GriffithDramaSilentThe Birth of CinemaUSA

A young woman’s peaceful existence is shattered when she is abducted by the crew of a boat of smugglers, who then also turn against their captain.Read More »





