Discover Movies

In the series of documentaries directed by Richard Schickel following classic film directors, this episode interviews the creative mind behind "My Fair Lady", "The Philadelphia Story", "Born Yesterday" among other classics. The great George Cukor reveals details about the production of several of his movies, the actors he directed and also shares his personal views about films.

Explores the culture and history of the country of Thailand as reflected in the nation's golden pagoda temples.

Captures the work of the British Rail Parcel Service, illustrating the story of five different consignments over a twenty-four hour period. These are: a schoolboy in Cheshire being sent a new bicycle; a housewife in Rhondda Valley awaiting the arrival of a new vacuum cleaner; a man in Lincoln expecting an insurance cheque; a tourist in Cornwall waiting for his daily newspaper to arrive at his hotel; and a research scientist who urgently needs some equipment in Manchester.

A collage film about weekly magazines.

A BAFTA award nominated documentary demonstrating how petrol burns in the engine under differing conditions.

This documentary by Michael Rubbo (Waiting for Fidel) offers candid glimpses of Indonesia and its people. Filming in and around the capital of Jakarta, the cameras follow where chance leads, capturing the flavour of life in this fertile crescent of tropical islands. Throughout the film, the focus is on a society caught between the past and the conflicting options for the future - to change or not to change from long-established patterns of life to ones more influenced by western technology.

Using sequences taken from old newsreels, the glorious sporting afternoons of footballer Teodoro Lolo Fernández (1913-1996) are remembered.

A classic Movietone cinema short from 1978. The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway is a one-third scale mainline in miniature operating regular services over 13.5 miles of track across the Romney Marsh in Kent.

Konkombe is an extraordinary journey into the musical kaleidoscope of juju, Afrobeat, highlife, Afro-pop, and Lagos street music that makes up the Nigerian pop music scene. From traditional minstrels wandering the streets of Lagos to the talking drums of the Saharan north, from recording session with stars of juju and highlife to an intimate visit with Fela surrounded by his exotic wives, Konkombe looks at the entire spectrum of Nigerian music from its primitive roots to the most exciting stars of Afro-pop. Features performances, intimate interviews and recording sessions with some of the biggest stars of African music including King Sunny Ade, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Sonny Okosun, I.K. Dairo and more.

The potential dangers of nuclear weapons and the planned new breed of plutonium-fuelled reactors are the subject of An Unjustifiable Risk, made in 1977. John Pilger begins by explaining that just a speck of plutonium, the main component of an atomic bomb, can cause cancer, but there is no absolutely safe way of storing, protecting or transporting it. Although the government is planning to build the first commercial nuclear power station fuelled by plutonium – a so-called fast-breeder reactor intended to solve the country’s energy problems – an independent royal commission has declared the process dangerous.

The Marshes area is a cultural extension of the Sumerian civilization by more than seven thousand years. It is the largest ecosystem of its kind in the Middle East and West Asia and constitute two-thirds of southern Iraq. In the year 1975, director Kassem Hawal decided to make a film about the Iraqi Marshes. He then wrote the script, shot the film and completed a 45 minutes documentary. But in 1985 the Iraqi regime had begun to dry it, resulting in humanitarian, cultural, environmental and natural disasters in the area with the disappearance of tens of thousands of residents, air, water and soil pollution and the extinction of countless species of birds, plants and animals. The Government have also burned the original film material, luckily, Kassem kept a copy to share it with the world.

An experimental short film by Derek Jarman the depicts the crush of flesh at an art-world event.

A documentary on the preservation of the arts and culture of Bolivia.

This movie marks Eunice Gutman's directorial debut, a deeply human documentary about adult literacy in rural Rio de Janeiro. Produced within the scope of MOBRAL, the film closely follows the journey of individuals, especially special women, who, upon learning to read and write, find new meaning in their lives.

Feature-length documentary filmed in three locations as far apart as possible: Louisiana, Acadia and Quebec, but where Le reel du pendu is played – a musical piece performed on the violin, harmonica and guitar or the accordion for over two hundred years. Through this improvised music of a death row inmate, the spectator is invited to discover for himself “the sound of the French in America”.

A legal clinic is formed in inner city Montreal.

In 1976, Ian Dunlop was invited by Dundiwuy Wanambi, a leader of the Marrakulu clan, to Gurka’wuy on Trial Bay in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He wanted Film Australia to record the first major Marrakulu ceremony to be held at Gurka’wuy since its recent establishment as a clan settlement. While they were there, a baby boy died. The Madarrpa men, including the child’s father and Dundiwuy, asked for the funeral to be filmed.Mortuary rites of the Yolngu are extremely complex. Despite some practical modifications to traditional ceremonies as a result of life on mission stations, ritual remains extremely strong.

A 1964-1973 Retrospective for homecoming POWs.

The documentary covers the first phase of the brazilian metalworkers' strike in 1979. It was made to be shown to the workers during the truce between the two phases of the strike, with the aim of mobilizing them for the second phase. The film shows the large assemblies, with more than 100 thousand metalworkers, in the Vila Euclides field, in São Bernardo do Campo; the mobilization for a vigil at the Union; the resulting street conflicts and the triumphant return of the board, headed by Lula, in the great assembly in which the truce was proposed.

Documentary on the "Harlem Hellfighters," black American soldiers of the 369th combat regiment in World War I.

Documentary about Humberto Mauro, his work and its importance.

Uruguayan filmmakers in exile document aspects of social reality in Peru. The town of Mariscal Cáceres, which its inhabitants call La Mejorada, is left without a road due to a landslide. Now, they can only sell their products when the train passes by. Thus, time begins to be dictated by the arrival and departure of the train cars.

Based on the book “The Ambidextrous Universe” by Martin Gardner. An eccentric professor explains whether our idea of ​​the symmetrical structure of the universe is still valid and invites the viewers into the world of elementary particles

Experimental Super-8 film documenting the making of André Luiz Oliveira's "The legend of Ubirajara" (1975). Shot in the Araguaia River Basin in central Brazil.

Rosiine Kartau tells about her life, work and activities as the head of the Vasula state farm.

The Divided Trail: A Native American Odyssey is a 1978 American short documentary film directed by Jerry Aronson. Filmed over eight years, this chronicles the personal and political hardships faced by three Chippewa Indians. It was nominated in 1978 for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Close-up photographs of baskets, tools and utensils used in the past and still used today by the L'ilawat of Canada. Printed notes describe the use of each item

A visit to the island of Drangey in Skagafjörður. The film shows the traditional egg collecting in the cliffs of Drangey and shows some historical sites on the Island.

Filmed in Palestine by Newsreel, WE ARE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE shows the refugee camps of the Middle East, the rise of the Palestinian Liberation Movement and Israel's relation ship to the Western imperialism. There is footage of the guerrillas in training, and interviews with Palestinian leaders and militants who work in many programs of the liberation struggle of the time.

Program of biographical character on Eça de Queiroz, writer, with emphasis on his literary work and respective themes, illustrated with interpretations of actors.

1976. A candid look at the highs and lows of Australian society.

National Archives - Katyn - National Security Council. Central Intelligence Agency. (09/18/1947 - 12/04/1981). - This film explores the Katyn Forest massacre of World War II. - DVD Copied by IASL Scanner Justin Grimes. - ARC 1936842 / LI 263.1589

NASA documentary of the flight of Apollo 15. Details the launch, lunar landing, and return to earth of the spacecraft and crew. NASA Film HQ-217

Program of biographical character, about Camilo Castelo Branco. Poetically, it recreates the passage of the melancholy presence of the writer, lonely by the land, while an old storyteller shares the biography of the renowned author for simple people of a humble settlement.

A story of the resilience and determination of a group of children in London, Ont., battling leukemia at a time when no child had survived the disease.

The film presents a description of Puerto Rico of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It shows some of what the island had to offer at that time and explains that Puerto Rico is "American in every respect", except for its "360 days of sunshine", due to the results of Operation Bootstrap.

Anonymous short documentary released immediately after the Chilean military coup of 1973. It recapitulates the presidency of Salvador Allende which was terminated by the military coup that assassinated him and installed a dictatorship. The documentary captures the aftermath of the event and the efforts of international protesters and diplomats in their claim for justice.

Tells the story of several Vietnamese children who were injured in the Vietnam War and were brought by the Children's aid organization Terre des Hommes to Germany for better care. In 1974, some of them had to return to Vietnam and were faced with the challenge of getting used to the life in their home country again.

A magically abstract triportrait of Estonian kannel master Eduard Uibo, dancer Elonna Spriit and folk dance pedagogue Kai Leete.

Expert fishers for their entire lives, Líl̓wat Elders Cora and Daniel Wells share their deep knowledge of salmon fishing, cleaning and smoking.

Documentary produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1975 giving an overview of the Apollo manned space program, including the landings on the moon.

The Izaihō was a spiritual event that occurred once every 12 years on Kudaka Island of Okinawa. This documentary captures the final Izaihō of 1978.

Story of four women flying to Australia to meet their future husbands.

Newsreel on President Senghor’s trip to Guadeloupe and Martinique. Report from the set of Ousmane Sembène’s Ceddo. Opening of Ramsès le Grand exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Documentary about the fall of the old city of Orșova due to the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric power station.

Wong's first colour videotape bears the influence of several artistic genres popular in the 1970s, including performance and body art. We see Kenneth Fletcher draw several millilitres of blood from his arm and inject the contents of the syringe into Paul Wong's back, just under the skin. The camera closes in on this, observing the slow response of the immune system as the skin turns red and purple. What was originally intended as a sort of ritual uniting the young men as blood brothers, with implicit reference to drug use, has become a disturbing and dangerous act, when AIDS evokes our deepest fears and anxieties.