The Man Who Could Not See Far Enough

The Bridge

October 2006 •English

The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.

Fall 2

March 1970 •English

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

Abegweit

January 1998 •English

A day-to-day record of the construction of the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island to the mainland, Abegweit reveals some of the innovations that made this mammoth project one of the most impressive engineering feats in Canadian history.

Paris on the Seine

June 1941 •French

A history of the bridges of Paris, through modern views and historical engravings.

Opening of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge

October 1911 •

Extraordinary pictures of an accident with a royal audience at Middlesbroughs magnificent Transporter Bridge.

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.

Cavalcade of San Francisco

September 1940 •English

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

TGV Paris-Bordeaux, la ligne de tous les records

November 2021 •French

Les allumés du pont Jacques-Cartier

May 2017 •French

The story behind the technical prowess deployed to light up the Jacques-Cartier Bridge.

Pelican Dreams

November 2014 •English

Sundance-and-Emmy-Award-winning filmmaker Judy Irving (with her first film since the widely acclaimed and loved “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”) follows a wayward California brown pelican from her “arrest” on the Golden Gate Bridge into care at a wildlife rehabilitation facility, and from there explores pelicans’ nesting grounds, Pacific coast migration, and survival challenges of these ancient birds, sometimes referred to as the flying dinosaurs. The film is about wildness, and asks the following questions: how close can we get to a wild animal without taming or harming it? Why do we need wildness in our lives, and how can we protect it? PELICAN DREAMS, stars “Gigi” (for Golden Gate) and Morro (a backyard pelican with an injured wing).

Walk on water

May 2000 •Swedish

An often humorous documentary about the building of the Öresund bridge, connecting Copenhagen in Denmark to Malmö in Sweden. We meet the people who work on production of the bridge, as well as opponents to the idea of such a bridge.

Aces & Knaves

November 2019 •English

Aces & Knaves is a documentary about mental gymnastics, competition, and cheating in bridge - the most complex game ever invented by the human mind.

Maillart's Bridges

February 2001 •German

Famed Swiss architect and artist Robert Maillart was renowned for his concrete bridges; this documentary examines the elegant design of his engineering masterpieces, which, the film argues, embrace both functionality and aesthetics. Instead of following a traditional journalistic structure, director Heinz Emigholz's spellbinding film reads more like ethereal visual poetry, allowing the beauty of Maillart's work to speak for itself.

Sunderland

January 1896 •English

Poor pedestrian, horse drawn carts, wagons and bus travel across bridge at Sunderland, Tyne and Wear.

Angel of Nanjing

March 2015 •Chinese

The Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing is one of the most famous bridges in China. It is also the most popular place in the world to commit suicide. For the past 11 years Chen Si has been patrolling this bridge, looking to provide aid for those who've gone there to end their lives. Incredibly, he has saved over 300 people since he began - nearly one every two weeks.

Street Scene in unidentified European city

January 1896 •English

An actuality film of traffic and pedestrian movement at the end of a bridge. In the distance on the other side of the bridge, the tops of some large buildings are visible, including a domed building. The location is unconfirmed.

Dans les coulisses du métro de Paris

October 2016 •French

Storstrøm Bridge

March 1950 •Danish

A wordless ode to the Storstrom bridge.

Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges - Part 1

Invalid date •English

The Battle of Arnhem, fought in the early autumn of 1944, remains without a doubt the most hotly debated battle of the North West European Campaign, both then and now. From its inception in the sixteen cancelled airborne operations during August, we will chart the problems, many of which were ignored by men desperate to get into battle, the compromises and mistakes that pitched lightly armed and ill equipped paratroopers and glider infantry into an unequal struggle against an SS panzer troops. We follow the eight mile route that 2 Para took to reach the bridge at Arnhem, slipping through the German defences.In Part 2, a separate film we look at their epic battle.

El puente

January 1951 •Spanish

The efforts of a community to build a bridge which would allow their children to go school during the rainy season.