Discover Movies

"This book is a descent into the soul of a child." On November 26th, 1865, Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was published. In this 1973 broadcast, we discover the genesis of this "masterpiece of the absurd" and delve into the depths of a child's soul, thanks to Jean Gattegno's fascinating analysis. As a bonus, Claude Rich reads us an excerpt from Alice's adventures.

Young East German men starting their compulsary 18-month military service at a Rostock garrison.

A half-hour Cartrivision program featuring two studio performances by Orson Welles on the figures of Socrates and Noah, produced for Sears’ home-video distribution.

Portrait of violin prodigy Yehudi Menuhin: an account of his career, his professional and private life and his profession of faith, inspired by Eastern philosophy.

"Race d’Ep!" (which literally translates to "Breed of Faggots") was made by the “father of queer theory,” Guy Hocquenghem, in collaboration with radical queer filmmaker and provocateur Lionel Soukaz. The film traces the history of modern homosexuality through the twentieth century, from early sexology and the nudes of Baron von Gloeden to gay liberation and cruising on the streets of Paris. Influenced by the groundbreaking work of Michel Foucault on the history of sexuality and reflecting the revolutionary queer activism of its day, "Race d’Ep!" is a shockingly frank, sex-filled experimental documentary about gay culture emerging from the shadows.

Documentary film and home movie about Dwight Core, Jr., a boy with Down syndrome. The footage was originally shot throughout the 1960s and 1970s by Core's father, Dwight Core, Sr. The footage was later discovered and completed by the filmmaker's grandson, George Ingmire.

Another film about a sports discipline that removes the barrier between the spectator and the participants of the competition. The scenes of ski jumps have gone down in the history of cinema. All of them were made by Adam Krzysztofi-ak, an Olympic Winner.

Challenges; mental, physical, both? How far can you go? How fast? What’s it like to go three days without food and companionship? To run 15 miles, to climb a 14,000 foot mountain, to navigate in dense forest or open ocean, to rappel down a vertical cliff, or sleep in the snow? Teenagers find out in Outward Bound Schools throughout the country. The result is a positive sense of self and the natural environment. The film is fast paced with intentional disregard for time and space continuity. The students tell the story.

A curious fictional documentary filmed in London about two actors from the film "Death on the Nile," Peter Ustinov and Jane Birkin, who are interviewed by the author.

"Juvenile Court" shows the complex variety of cases before the Memphis Juvenile Court: foster home placement, drug abuse, armed robbery, child abuse, and sexual offenses. The sequences illustrate such issues as community protection vs. the desire for rehabilitation, the range and the limits of the choices available to the court, the psychology of the offender, and the constitutional and procedural questions involved in administering a juvenile court.

Pollet provides an insight into life on the leper colony of Spinalonga, an island off Crete, through the eyes of Raimondakis, who tells the story of his life to the camera after having been excluded from his community to spend years of his life on the island with his fellow sufferers. Themes addressed include love, community, companionship and death and the importance of these values to all people whatever their state of health.

The 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin was an armed rebellion by Irish republicans against British rule in their country. Sixty years later, Kenneth Griffith interviews nine of those who took part in that historic event. This documentary was filmed in 1976 and completed in 1978. However, it was suppressed from being shown on television.

The documentary narrates the events that took place during the first year of the Unidad Popular government, in chronological order.

The Silent Revolution is a 1972 German documentary film about molecular biology. The film posits that biologically, man will still be programmed as a hunter and food collector even when there will be nothing to hunt and collect. Evolution is too slow to cope with the rapid changes in our environment, and the countdown of man's survival has already begun. Yet. there may be a chance to influence the steering mechanism of life. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Featurette documenting the making of the film "Death On The Nile".

Five ex-political prisoners meet secretly in a country house one afternoon in 1974 on the same day that Salvador Puig Antich is executed, to talk about their experiences in prison.

Early 1970s documentary that shows all the sexual positions and modes of having sex 1970s style.

A short documentary on the film works directed by Brazilian pioneer Humberto Mauro. With an extensive career that began in the silent era and then moved to the talkies, Mauro was recognized as one of the most important Brazilian filmmakers of all time.

A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.

Letter from Beirut documents the filmmaker's return to Beirut during one of the lulls, three years after the outbreak of the civil war, animated by the urge to return. She is confronted by the physical, emotional and psychological ravages of the war, terrified and sorrowful, she cannot find her place in the city. In that quest, she communicates with everyday people, friends, neighbors, people riding the bus across the city's eastern and western flanks. To pace her journeying and dramatic unraveling of the film, Saab borrows the guise of a letter read in a voice-over, written by world-renowned poet Etel Adnan. A rare document from the civil war, Letter from Beirut lays bare and spontaneously how people make sense of their everyday in the midst of chaos, violence, terror and sorrow.

One of several 1970s documentaries on the subject of unidentified flying objects (UFO), supporting the view that Earth is visited regularly by extra-terrestrial engines and aliens.

Arthur and Ernest are two bachelor fishermen who occupy the proverbial end-of-the-road on Morris Island, an Acadian community in southern Nova Scotia. Sober or not, they carry on with and for the filmmaker who is attempting to find out about their lives. The resulting encounters owe a smuch to Harold Pinter or Samuel beckett is they do to the documentary genre of film-making.

"Legenda" is a document about a famous polish writer Stefan Żeromski. It serves as an interview with people who knew the artist.

A look at the sights of East Lothian, Scotland.

Overview of the life and work of Pedro Ruiz Gallo (1838-1880) and Pedro Paulet (1874-1945) related to aviation and aerospace navigation.

A documentary behind the scenes of John Cassavetes' 'Husbands' (1970).

Charles Bukowski is filmed going to a poetry reading in San Francisco.

Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.

Joseph Malesa is a former party activist, labor leader, and mason. The documentary describes his career and life through ups and downs.

An overview of Turkey in the Seventies, with some stunning images

SUNSHINE CITY is Albie Thom’s sprawling, protoplasmic experimental portrait of his hometown of Sydney. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia call it “a structured diary film which investigates the process of living in Sydney, which uses a repeating light modulation to intensify experiences of light, heat, colour”.

The documentary depicts Bowie on tour in Los Angeles, using a mixture of vérité sequences filmed in limousines and hotels, and concert footage. Most of the concert footage was taken from a show at the Los Angeles Universal Amphitheatre on 2 September 1974 (Also featured are excerpts from D.A. Pennebaker's concert film shot at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973). Cracked Actor is notable for being a source for footage of Bowie's ambitious Diamond Dogs tour, and also for showing Bowie's fragile mental state during this period.

In 1971, maverick filmmaker William Greaves trained his cameras on both Muhammad Ali and his opponent, Joe Frazier, ahead of the “Fight of the Century” at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The epic battle was supposed to be Ali's big comeback following the suspension of his boxing license in 1967. In addition to the media circus surrounding both combatants, Greaves shot the match in its entirety from a dizzying array of camera angles, making the director's cut of The Fight both an invaluable historical document as well as a virtuosic piece of filmmaking

From the deserted halls and corridors of the Gaumont-Palace cinema in Paris, memories of the great films that inhabited it before its demolition emerge like ghosts. The voice of Marguerite Duras, who reads texts from “Nathalie Granger” and “Woman of the Ganges”, adds a touch of nostalgia to this complex essay.

Short location-centric documentary.

Evoking a cinema verite feel not found in most sports documentaries, Fast Break examines the 1977 Portland Trailblazers basketball team in a surprisingly personal and compelling fashion. Inter-cutting excerpts from the 1977 playoff / championship season, the film steps outside of the basketball court, and into the everyday lives of the Trailblazers, as well as their coach Jack Ramsey. Whether it’s biking the Oregon coast with star center Bill Walton, hosting a kids basketball camp with Dave Twardzik, or joking with Maurice Lucas at the pool – Fast Break lets the players speak for themselves: about basketball, life and playing in Portland. Fast Break, a film documentary about Bill Walton and the Portland Trail Blazers winning the 1976-77 NBA title and the aftermath of their accomplishment, is the greatest movie I have ever seen on the subject of professional team sports, basketball as a metaphor for life, and the perfect practice of Zen Buddhism in American society.

An overview of the 75-year history of the Moscow Art Theatre containing unique historical footage, including rare excerpts from various stage productions.

A portrait of a Slovak farmer living in Kovacica in Vojvodina, who is known for his naive art work.

John Pitman reports on the increasing popularity of naturist holidays and the changing attitudes towards them. He traces the growth of the naturist movement, from its small-time beginnings in a park in north Germany, to the multi-million-pound business it is today - especially for France and Yugoslavia.

The industries of the Scottish Highlands.

A BAFTA award nominated, light-hearted, documentary looking at the part the service engineer can play in making or destroying his company's reputation.

After an extensive immersion work on abandoned childhood, Ciro Durán presents, from his point of view, the life of street children, who have broken all family ties and have regrouped to survive in the concrete jungle.

Lefebvre's Le Droit à la Ville as visualised by Jean-Louis Bertucelli

Eight years in the making, Boetticher’s portrait of his longtime friend, the famous bullfighter Carlos Arruza, was a labor of love that the renowned director of westerns pursued despite contending with illnesses, bankruptcy, jail time, and lucrative offers from Hollywood. The result is an astonishing work of poetry, immediacy, and violence that fearlessly wrestles with the filmmaker’s own ambivalence about the titular matador’s triumphs prior to his death by automobile accident at the age of 46.

"Why Do They Do It ?" preached that it was decent to be a sexual creature. A panel discussion in the Student Association as a kind of frame, you watch various so-called live shows and you met actors like Effie Schou, Søren Strømberg, Dale Robinson and Keld Rex Holm. A lot of attention was given to Bodil Joensen, a very pet-friendly young lady, who would like to enjoy a bull named Sofus.

Mondo Rocco is a collection of short films weaved together as it was seen in the Park Theater in Los Angeles in 1969/1970. Charming in their innocence, Rocco's films captured important moments in gay history and are an invaluable resource.

Starting as a documentary on the sexually liberated culture of late-Sixties Denmark, Sexual Freedom in Denmark winds up incorporating major elements of the marriage manual form and even manages to squeeze in a montage of beaver loops and erotic art. All narrated with earnest pronouncements concerning the social and psychological benefits of sexual liberation, the movie, is a kind of mondo film dotted with occasional glimpses of actual sex.

Angela Davis visiting the German Democratic Republic. A film about the people she met and her impressions.

This documentary examines the lives of the Kazakh ethnic minority in western China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Directed by Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens, the film observes everyday life, work, and cultural traditions within a region shaped by political and social transition.

Made shortly after his death, this documentary explores the brief life and remarkable legacy of guitarist Jimi Hendrix. After finding fame in the U.K., Hendrix brought his act back to the U.S., where his influential playing style left a blazing imprint on a whole generation of musicians. Employing interviews with family and contemporaries, such as Eric Clapton, as well as scorching live performances from Woodstock and Isle of Wight, the film paints an indelible portrait of a rock 'n' roll legend.

Ski Peru is the story of two skiers’ dream of descending the untamed slopes of Huascaran, although maybe 'Ski Peru and die' would be a more appropriate title given the tragic climax to Peter Chrzanowski’s Peruvian odyssey. Filmed long before today’s adrenaline charged ski videos on heavy 16mm movie cameras there is no heavy rock soundtrack, no helicopters, no roboskiers mainlining powder at Mach 5.0. It is a slow moving film that explores man’s relationship with the mountain and what it is to ski into the unknown.

The rise and fall of a revolutionary cooperative movement established in a large private farm in Ribatejo, Portugal, from March to December 1975 (most part of the land occupations occurred in Alentejo, promoted by the communist party). In direct speech, sometimes to the camera, sometimes among themselves, the uneducated rural workers expose their misery, their suffering, their hopes, and ultimately their despair - when a socialist government orders the restitution of the land to their primitive owners, and these transform the land into a hunting reserve.

The history of Portugal since the Republican revolution of 1910 to the revolutionary period following the military coup of April 24, 1974, recounted with a marxist perspective, using historic sound and film documents. The title refers to a trilogy of values proclaimed by Salazar, prime minister of Portugal in 1936.