Buster Keaton: The Genius Destroyed by Hollywood

Watch the Tempo

March 2018 •Italian

On 18th of December 2017, the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino, directed by Timothy Brock, presented "The Gold Rush" by Charles Chaplin, with live performance of the soundtrack. But let's go back a few days: this short film takes us in the backstage of the concert!

Amazon: Longest River in the World

January 1918 •Portuguese

Documentary by Portuguese Silvino Santos, about the Amazon, its flora, fauna, its inhabitants and among other wonderful images from the beginning of the 20th century with alternating close-up shots of caimans, jaguars and tropical flora with footage of Indigenous rituals--including some of the earliest known moving images of the Indigenous Witoto people--and longer sequences showcasing the region’s extractive industries: rubber, the Brazil nut, timber, fishing, even the egret feathers that were a staple of women’s fashion at the time.

Convalescing

August 2000 •English

“Convalescing, when you don't have to participate in the world. Time to read, to dream, to look - the blue, the light of the television, the blue, the book, the patterns the light, the blue. Time to appreciate how much that really is.”

La remise des décorations

April 1903 •French

Man with a Movie Camera

May 1929 •Russian

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

El circo

December 1950 •Spanish

Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.

Visions of Lourdes

January 1932 •

Charles Dekeukeleire, then a questioning Catholic, was spurred into making this documentary on a pilgrimage with the Catholic Young Workers’ Movement. The director’s approach is one of critical reflection; A film emotional and fervent, even acerbic.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

September 1927 •German

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

New York Portrait, Chapter III

March 1990 •English

"[Hutton’s] latest urban film, New York Portrait, Chapter III, takes on a unique tone in relation to Hutton’s ongoing exploration of rural landscape. The very fact that Hutton is dealing with older footage, with archives of memory more than immediacy, gives it a different texture than his earlier New York films. Hutton always found the presence of nature in the city, not only in his many shots of sky and vegetation, but also in the geometry and texture of the city itself, which seemed to project an independence from the human." (Tom Gunning)

The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

September 2007 •English

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.

New York Portrait, Chapter II

January 1981 •English

Chapter Two represents a continuation of daily observations from the environment of Manhattan compiled over a period from 1980-1981. This is the second part of an extended life's portrait of New York.

Nanook of the North

June 1922 •English

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.

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge

October 1888 •

A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.

Carmencita

March 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.

The Dangers of the Fly

November 1920 •Spanish

The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.

How the Telephone Talks

April 1919 •English

"All sounds travel in waves much the same as ripples in water." Educational film produced by Bray Studios New York, which was the dominant animation studio based in the United States in the years surrounding World War I.

Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau

November 2002 •Spanish

Finlandia

October 1922 •Finnish

A documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.

Frue Kirkes Taarn Set Fra Petri Kirkes Taarn

December 1913 •English

From inside a tower, a man admires an artistic rendition of another tower.

The Strength and Agility of Insects

August 1911 •English

A short, early documentary work showing insects exhibiting extreme strength and agility.