The Film That Was Lost

The Blade Runner Phenomenon

May 2021 •German

Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick and released in 1982, is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its depiction of Los Angeles in the year 2019 is oppressively prophetic: climate catastrophe, increasing public surveillance, powerful monopolistic corporations, highly evolved artificial intelligence; a fantastic vision of the future world that has become a frightening reality.

Dracula, l'éternel

December 2018 •French

Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field: The Documentary

November 2019 •Spanish

Tucumán, Argentina, 1965. Three years before George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released, director Ofelio Linares Montt shot Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field, which turned out to be both a horror film and a political statement. It was a success in the US, but could not be shown in Argentina due to Juan Carlos Onganía's dictatorship, and was eventually lost. Writer and researcher Luciano Saracino embarks on the search for the origins of this cursed work.

A Lady Fights Back

November 1944 •English

The saga of the Normandie is recounted from her life as a luxury liner, the horrific fire that nearly destroyed her, and her resuscitation to join in the war effort. A John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short.

Fellinopolis

June 2021 •Italian

Ferruccio Castronuovo was the only authorized eye, between 1976 and 1986, to film the brilliant Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993) in his personal and creative intimacy, to capture the gears of his great circus, his fantastic lies and his crazy inventions.

The Extraordinary Voyage

December 2011 •French

An account of the extraordinary life of film pioneer Georges Méliès (1861-1938) and the amazing story of the copy in color of his masterpiece “A Trip to the Moon” (1902), unexpectedly found in Spain and restored thanks to the heroic efforts of a group of true cinema lovers.

These Amazing Shadows

January 2011 •English

Tells the history and importance of The National Film Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself.

Histoire(s) du Cinéma 1b: A Single (Hi)story

November 1989 •French

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art.

The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga

April 2019 •Spanish

Japan, 1954. A legend emerges from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastated by atomic bombs in 1945. The creature's name is Godzilla. The film that tells its story is the first of kaiju eiga, the giant monster movies.

Un día por Málaga

June 2024 •Spanish

Emilio Pascual, a historical figure of Andalusian cinema from the early 1900s, appears in today's Malaga with the mission of bringing the first documentary filmed in Andalusia to its first screening.

Speaking of Buñuel

June 2000 •Spanish

Surrealist master Luis Buñuel is a towering figure in the world of cinema history, directing such groundbreaking works as Un Chien Andalou, Exterminating Angels, and That Obscure Object of Desire, yet his personal life was clouded in myth and paradox. Though sexually diffident, he frequently worked in the erotic drama genre; though personally quite conservative, his films are florid, flamboyant, and utterly bizarre.

Drama, Tanz und Beine

January 2007 •German

The Bannfoot Ferry

June 2024 •English

A forgotten history of Northern Ireland is unveiled through a journey into Ulster Television’s archives, and the rediscovery of the first locally-produced network drama, Boatman Do Not Tarry.

Cinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts

June 2017 •Italian

The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.

Visions Cinema: Film as a Way of Life: Hong Kong Cinema - A Report by Tony Rayns

June 1983 •English

Examines the early 1980s Hong Kong filmmaking community. Tony Rayns interviews some of the new generation of filmmakers and figures from the wider film culture.

První akční dokument

October 2019 •Czech

Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films

April 2011 •English

Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).

Cinemateca Potiguar: Dez Anos de Memórias

July 2024 •Portuguese

Bridges of Time

July 2018 •Lithuanian

At the beginning of the 1960s, when the French pioneers of cinéma vérité set out to achieve a new realism, and when direct cinema in Québec began to vie for notice, the Baltics wit-nessed the birth of a generation of documentarists who favored a more romantic view of the world around them. This meditative documentary essay – from a Latvian writer and Lithuanian director whose composed touch has long dovetailed with the stylistically diverse works of the Baltic New Wave – pushes adroitly past the limits of the common his-toriographic investigation to create a portrait of less-clearly remembered filmmakers. The result is a consummate poetic treatment of the ontology of documentary creation. Also a cinematic poem about cinema poets.

American Spoken Here

November 1940 •English

This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short takes a look at the origins of North American slang.