Island of Lemurs: Madagascar

The incredible true story of nature’s greatest explorers—lemurs. Through footage captured with IMAX 3D, audiences go on a spectacular journey to the remote and wondrous world of Madagascar. Join trailblazing scientist Patricia Wright on her lifelong mission to help these strange and adorable creatures survive in the modern world.

Hymn of the Nations

Hymn of the Nations, originally titled Arturo Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations, is a 1944 film directed by Alexander Hammid, which features the "Inno delle nazioni," a patriotic work for tenor soloist, chorus, and orchestra, composed by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi in the early 1860s. (For this musical work, Verdi utilized the national anthems of several European nations.) In December 1943, Arturo Toscanini filmed a performance of this music for inclusion in an Office of War Information documentary about the role of Italian-Americans in aiding the Allies during World War II. Toscanini added a bridge passage to include arrangements of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the United States and "The Internationale" for the Soviet Union and the Italian partisans. Joining Toscanini in the filmed performance in NBC Studio 8-H, were tenor Jan Peerce, the Westminster Choir, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

Give Us the Earth!

This "Theater of Life" documentary was produced in cooperation with the International Committee, YMCA. It focuses on the work of Dr. Spencer Hatch, as he shows residents of small Mexican villages how to make their land better able to grow food and make them more independent.

Empire

The Pax Americana takes care on our peace, ensures our comfort, guarantees our prosperity… An idyllic postcard of the new Empire.

The Making of 'The Thing'

All Still Orbit

A breathtaking quest for the dream the imposing city of Brasilia was based on, a marked contrast with the chaos of the adjacent construction workers' village. Everything about Brasilia was devised and designed, but not on the basis of some cold urban design concept: the plan proves to originate from 19th-century priest Don Bosco’s dream. The chaos and disorder of the adjacent construction workers' village Vila Amauri long stood in stark contrast to the grandeur and majestic regularity of Brasilia. Now the village has disappeared beneath the reservoir’s surface, the necessary order has been restored. All Still Orbit examines both these histories.

A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound

This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.

The Ax Fight

The Ax Fight (1975) is an ethnographic film by anthropologist and filmmaker Tim Asch and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon about a conflict in a Yanomami village called Mishimishimabowei-teri, in southern Venezuela. It is best known as an iconic and idiosyncratic ethnographic film about the Yanomamo and is frequently shown in classroom settings.

Our Cinema

Beneath the Concrete, The Forest

“Beneath the Concrete, The Forest” is a short experimental documentary that takes us inside an ongoing struggle inside the city of Atlanta, GA between two sides to determine the future of Weelaunee, the biggest contiguous urban forest in the country.

Untitled (Pink Dot)

In Untitled (Pink Dot), Murata transforms footage from the Sylvester Stallone film First Blood (1982) into a morass of seething electronic abstraction. Subjected to Murata's meticulous digital reprocessing, the action scenes decompose and are subsumed into an almost palpable, cascading digital sludge, presided over by a hypnotically pulsating pink dot.

Otherland

A vogue dancer performs at a Voodoo Carnival Ball, an important dance contest where he will have to prove himself to be accepted by the local ballroom community. Based upon the biographical story of Elvin Elejandro Martinez.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Another Young Couple

Another Young Couple — borne out of a camera test for If Beale Street Could Talk, James and I asked my friends Essence and Jihaari, newly transplanted to LA to allow us into their home for an afternoon tea about their lives and loves, apart and together. We were migrating to the Alexa 65 for Beale Street and wanted to see for ourselves how that large-format sensor would affect intimate portraiture within lived spaces… in particular the faces and spaces of Black folk.

Thoughts and Visions of a Severed Head

The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.

Mer Océane

Documentarian Richard Lavoie follows the artists of the Mer Océane symposium which took place on La Grave, in the Magdalen Islands, in 1998.