Around China with a Movie Camera
Take a trip back to China in the first half of the twentieth Century with this presentation of extraordinary, rare and beautiful travelogues, newsreels and home movies.
Genres
Overview
A new film compiled from the BFI National Archive's unparalleled holdings of early films of China, features films from 1900-48 filmed across China. The cinematic journey of Around China with a Movie Camera contains many films which may never have been seen in China, or at the very least not for over 70 years. These travelogues, newsreels and home movies were made by a diverse group of British and French filmmakers, some professionals, but mainly enthusiastic amateurs, including intrepid tourists, colonial-era expatriates and Christian missionaries.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
68 min
Release Date
2016-07-18
Status
Released
Original Language
English
Vote Count
2
Vote Average
4.2
6.2
Waiting for the Sun
In China more people are on death row than the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Grandma Zhang, as the kids call her, is a former prison guard who has founded an orphanage in Nanzhao.
2017-03-19 | en
4.9
Visions of Europe
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
2004-05-01 | en
7.0
10 Questions for the Dalai Lama
How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet.
2006-05-01 | en
6.0
The Stairway to Stardom Mixtape
Culled from over 15 hours of footage by the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), THE STAIRWAY TO STARDOM MIXTAPE is the definitive presentation of public access TV’s most otherworldly show.
2022-09-24 | en
0.0
Bird's Nest - Herzog & de Meuron in China
Schaub and Schindelm’s documentary follows two Swiss star architects, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, on two very different projects: the national stadium for the Olympic summer games in Peking 2008 and a city area in the provincial town of Jinhua, China.
2008-01-22 | en
7.8
Man with a Movie Camera
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
1929-05-12 | ru
5.2
Mrs. Fang
In a quiet village in southern China, Fang Xiuying is sixty-seven years old. Having suffered from Alzheimer's for several years, with advanced symptoms and ineffective treatment, she was sent back home. Now, bedridden, she is surrounded by her relatives and neighbors, as they witness and accompany her through her last days.
2018-06-13 | zh
5.5
Days of Thrills and Laughter
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
1961-03-21 | en
0.0
Elvis Through the Years
Documentary / Music/Musical - This gripping, highly entertaining documentary offers an unparalleled behind-the-scenes look at the life of Elvis Presley. Using rare footage from his films, press conferences, outtakes, movie trailers, news clips, and comedy sketches, Elvis Thru the Years is a fitting commemoration of the man who became a legend
2007-08-14 | en
0.0
Redefining China's Family: Women
10 May 2007 - China's staggering economic growth has overshadowed a more subtle shift in Chinese society. In domestic life, many women are now ignore the advice of their mothers and grandmothers, turning instead to counselling hotlines and, increasingly, divorce.
2008-07-19 | en
6.0
Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge
A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.
1888-10-15 | xx
5.2
Carmencita
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.
1894-03-14 | xx
6.0
El circo
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.
1950-12-31 | es
7.0
The Last Word in Chickens
This 10-minute short documentary exploring the shifting state of the American poultry industry was preserved in 2015 from an original nitrate print. More information is available on the film's page in the National Film Preservation Foundation's website, where this version can be found featuring original music by Michael D. Mortilla.
1924-01-01 | nl
8.0
A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China or: Surface Is Illusion But So Is Depth
Director Philip Haas and artist David Hockney invite you to join them on a magical journey through China via a marvelous 72-foot long 17th-century Chinese scroll entitled The Kangxi Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour (1691-1698), scroll seven . As Hockney unrolls the beautiful and minutely detailed work of art, he traces the Emperor Kangxi’s second tour of his southern empire in 1689.
1988-03-18 | en
0.0
A Classic Christmas From The Ed Sullivan Show
A Christmas collection of performances from various episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show.
1992-10-25 | en
7.1
Nanook of the North
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.
1922-06-11 | en
8.0
Inside Red China
October 1st, 1957. Dusk descends on Tiananmen Square, Peking. Fireworks crackle light across the night sky, above a city alive with National Day festivities and celebrations. Two intrepid New Zealand film-makers - Rudall and Ramai Te Miha Hayward - are there, documenting the life and times of communist China. The distinction of being the first English speaking foreigners to film unfettered in communist China was significant. The invitation to visit China was facilitated through the New Zealand China Friendship Society. They filmed in Canton, Shanghai, Peking (Beijing) and Wuhan. It was a small window of opportunity for Westerners to gaze on a country that was largely a mystery to the outside world since 1949. The unfortunate irony was that two of the documentaries; “Wonders of China”, and “Inside Red China”, were considered to be communist propaganda, and were not distributed outside of New Zealand.
1958-08-19 | en
7.0
The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk
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.
2007-09-02 | en
10.0
Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony
Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.
2008-02-28 | de