VistaVision Visits Sun Trails

Hollywood in Deliblatska Pescara

February 1965 •German

Short documentary on the making of Henry Levin's Genghis Khan, which filmed on location in Yugoslavia. The final film's epic battle scenes are contrasted with the mundane reality of life on a film set.

Land of the Maharajahs

August 1931 •English

This travel film takes the viewer to the northern part of Rajasthan. After a quick day tour in New Delhi and its surroundings we visit the magnificently painted havelis of Shekhawati, in Jhunjhunu, Mandawa and Fatehpur, an area that used to be one of the most prosperous parts of India. From there we visit Bikaner with its impressive fort, maybe the most beautiful in Rajasthan, and the city's Jain temples ending the tour with remarkable traditional music and dance in Kuri village right outside of Jaisalmer.

The Desert Wagon

March 2024 •Spanish

A couple of artists travels through the Mexico desert to present their puppet show.

Serene Siam

May 1937 •English

This travelogue begins at Bangkok's rail depot, a center of Indo-Chinese commerce. Next the narrator talks about Buddhism as the camera shows us some of Bangkok's many temples. Then, the narrator introduces us to the importance of traditional dance, with emphasis on the way that delicate wrist movements tell stories. It's on to the system of waterways in Bangkok, where more than 1,000,000 people live or conduct commerce. We take a ride down the Menam River, the country's most important commercial and social road. From our boat, we pass Wat Arun and other colorful signs of life typical in serene Siam.

Glimpses of Peru

September 1937 •English

This Traveltalk series short brings us to Lima, Peru where we see a modern city.

Copenhagen

November 1937 •English

This Traveltalk series short visits Copenhagen.

Season in Tyrol

June 1969 •English

A short look at various seasonal activities offered in the Tyrol region of Austria.

L'expérience biosphère : 120 jours dans le désert

March 2024 •French

Cavalcade of San Francisco

September 1940 •English

This Traveltalk series short celebrates San Francisco, past and present.

Atomic Pilgrimage: Ghost Towns, Nuclear Relics, and Lost Civilizations on the Road to the Trinity Site

June 2019 •English

A 40-day, 40-night road trip to the Trinity Site—where the first atomic bomb was detonated in the summer of 1945—covering many other atomic destinations and driving deep into the natural and social history of the American southwest.

The Sahara: The Forgotten History of the World's Harshest Desert

December 2006 •English

At once a vast expanse of mesmerizing desolation and the crucible of human history, the Sahara Desert has been both the battlefield of empires and the haunted wilderness at the margins of the known world for thousands of years. Shot on location, this exhilarating documentary brings to life the Sahara’s cruel history and the conflicts that still plague its people. THE SAHARA recounts the story of kings who once led caravans of 30,000 people across the desert, bearing riches beyond imagination. It tells of Roman death squads that exterminated the citizens of the Empire’s most bitter rival and how the Foreign Legion crafted a legend out of last stands and lost causes. From the fabled metropolis of Timbuktu to the shores of Tripoli, THE SAHARA is an illuminating exploration of this unforgiving and remote land of myth and mirage.

The Endless Summer

June 1966 •English

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Ruins of Delhi

April 1910 •English

Attractive travelogue filmed in and around Delhi's Qutb complex.

Villenour (French India: Territory of Pondicherry)

February 1914 •

Gorgeously dreamlike colour images of (then) French India – present-day Puducherry.

Andrei Bely: Armenia

January 2019 •Russian

The film is a cinematic interpretation of the travel book “Armenia” by Russian poet Andrei Bely.

An Uncountable Number of Threads

February 2023 •English

Travel films have an established format with their own conventions, history and baggage. It is a medium that has all too often sought to control, define and dictate perceptions of ”other” places. Comprised of footage shot while travelling on group excursions across Russia in 2019, An Uncountable Number of Threads is an attempt to draw out the ethical restrictions of a travelogue, while questioning how (and why) to make one. At times there is an awkward tourist-gaze, aware of its outsider position. But as a self-reflexive work that considers its own creation, it ultimately unravels, as the artist rationalises themselves out of a particular way of working, inviting the viewer into their uncertainty.

Greening the Desert

February 2007 •English

Permaculture expert Geoff Lawton describes how he and a team of volunteers grew an oasis in arid, salty lowland, despite extremely high temperatures and minimal irrigation. The site is the lowest dryland expanse on Earth: a plain in Jordan, two kilometres northeast of the Dead Sea, and 400 metres below sea level.

Cierzo

November 2022 •Spanish

At the border between Navarre and Aragon we find the moors known as the Bardenas Reales, characterized by the dust and the omnipresence of the northern wind. This is a portrait of a land, but also a journey through Pilar’s memories. It is a glance at the past but also the present, and about how everything has changed, for better or worse.

The Same Snowy Ground

March 2020 •English

A journey through a place of an eternal past; where the grandson of a Jewish partisan sets out to experience the dramatic events and places that shaped his grandfather's war years

Amalfi Way

January 1955 •English

This short film takes a look at the sights, sounds, and customs along Italy's Amalfi Coast.