Cinematic Era: 1898 Vintage

generally credited as the first known film by a Canadian filmmaker

Miners at the Solvay Quarries leave their drilling machine to flee from a planned blast in the rock face. Split Rock, NY.

Many gondolas in Venice harbour with a fishing boat in the background

Carriages carrying Queen Wilhelmina arrive in Amsterdam

The children come sliding down the hill on their sleds, and run the gauntlet of volleys of snowballs thrown by boys on both sides of the street.

Filmmaker WKL Dickson, one-time right hand man to Thomas Edison, the 'Wizard of Menlo Park', here captures an even greater eminence, Pope Leo XIII. This was one of a series of films that exploited Dickson's unique, hard-won access to the Pontiff. Here the Pope arrives in a carriage and bestows a blessing. Whether this blessing was intended for the camera or for the audience beyond it, capturing it on film was a great prize for Dickson.

When Battery B of the 4th U.S. Artillery came to Tampa, Fla., it meant business, and the picture shows it. One by one the big artillery-men pass by in front and reappear in the background, dismounting, unloosing saddle girths and bridles and leading away their mounts. Limbers, gun carriages and caissons in the distance. The sweating horses and the vigorous switching of their tails tell a mute story of hot weather and fly-time. A picture full of reality.

A fine picture of the launching of this splendid battleship; taken from the water. The vessel is shown sliding down the ways, plunging into the sea; and finally floating steadily on an even keel. A great crowd of people witness the launching and are seen cheering heartily as the boat takes the water.

An actuality

Backward tracking shot of a train going from Bushey, England, near the end of its journey to Euston.

A sweet little girl is seated in the bow of a life-boat feeding crackers to a magnificent St. Bernard dog, while a tabby cat dozes and blinks at her side.

Georges Hatot and Gaston Bretaeau with Henri Vallouy, a Gaumont employee, acting as cinematographer. Breteau himself seems to have taken the main role in most of the films and here plays the woman in drag who is terrorized by the X-ray camera at a customs checkpoint while trying to smuggle contraband through.

A British Mutoscope & Biograph Company production

The Last Supper, part 6 of Alexandre Promio's Passion Play.

Filmed in 1898 by Edison cameramen, this actuality records Pueblo dancers performing the traditional Eagle Dance. The performers, clad in feathered regalia and accompanied by drumming and chanting, move in rhythm to mimic the movements of the eagle. Intended to showcase Native American ceremonial life for early motion picture audiences, it is among the earliest surviving films of Indigenous rituals, though staged for the camera in keeping with late-19th-century ethnographic spectacle.

"A double-decked trolley car, crowded with passengers, approaches and passes the camera. Carriages, pedestrians and bicyclists add to the action of the scene."

French street scene.

As a woman waits outside of a window, a man rides up on horseback, and she jumps on behind him. As the two of them ride off to elope, one of the man's friends stays behind, in case anyone comes after the couple. He soon finds out that this is, in fact, a necessary precaution.

The end of the Longchamp parade and departure of the President, filmed by the Lumière brothers.

Children entering and exiting a schoolhouse.

Acrobatics involving a couple of clowns and a dog trainer.

Panorama during the ascent of the Eiffel Tower.

A canine serpentine dance.

A charge full of cowboy enthusiasm by troop 'I,' the famous regiment, at Tampa, before its departure for the front.

A most excellent picture of the grim old fortress which stands at the entrance of Havana Harbor...

We see a dozen or so Cubans walking a plank onto a ship.

The film opens showing the native daughters mounted on horses.

A group of children in a pillow fight.

Two old female mattress makers get into a fight until a passing man attempts to break them up.

Boxing scene between two cats held by their master.

"The first U.S. Troops to land, June 22, 1898. Transports in the distance. Soldiers clamber up from boats onto the long railroad pier." - from the Edison Catalog

Old pig and ten little ones.

Worthing waves at us in this mesmerising early film.

In this brief film, Cairo becomes the stage for Lord Kitchener's celebrations after the fall of Khartoum. Possibly filmed by John 'Mad Jack' Benett-Stanford on behalf of the Warwick Trading Company, it is a forerunner of the military films that would shortly flood the screens of Great Britain with the outbreak of the Boer War. Benett-Stanford, an Etonian turned career serviceman, was on active service in the Sudan and doubled as a war correspondent. According to legend, he was shot while attempting to get a picture of the enemy. It seems, though, that even beside the showmen and chancers of the early film industry, 'Mad Jack' had a gift for exaggeration.

Street scene shot from a balloon.

Taken on the line of the Mt. Tamalpais scenic railroad, Marin county, California, from a flat car following the engine.

The skaters dart to and fro, swinging their hockeys and trying to hit the disc toward the goal.

1898 indian short

​"Sceny ludowe w Polsce" (1898), directed by Bolesław Matuszewski, is a Polish documentary film that captures traditional folk scenes from various regions of Poland. The film was part of Matuszewski's efforts to document and preserve Polish cultural traditions at the turn of the 20th century.

"Wyścigi konne na Polu Mokotowskim" (1898) is a Polish documentary film directed by Bolesław Matuszewski. The film depicts a horse race that took place at Pole Mokotowskie, a large park located in Warsaw, Poland. This film is an early example of motion picture filmmaking in Poland and highlights Matuszewski's contributions to both documentary filmmaking and ethnographic cinema.

It's a traveling shot from behind the railings. As the camera moves slowly along the harbor, we have a fine view of the rail. In the distance we spot harbor crafts until we come to the piece de la resistance, a bunch of folks standing around.

The interior of a country school is shown. The teacher has stepped out for a moment, and all the youngsters are carrying on. Two wicked little urchins tie a string across the aisle where the teacher is expected to pass, and when she comes in she falls over it. The children are in great glee over her misfortune, and make a bad matter worse by pelting her with their school books

Queen Vilhelmina greeting the crowds after the coronation.

Shows canal running through the suburban village of Santa Anita. Men and women pole their flat-bottom boats along, loaded down with garden produce.

A deserter hidden by his mother is found by army police.

First part of a series documenting the Basel carnival.

In this picture the pretty bathing girls are riding their wheels along the hard sand of the beach. One girl who is a novice is learning to ride, and her efforts to maintain an upright position are very amusing.

A short film on the Fiesta de Quiapo

A man changes clothes immediately.