Short film collections

2-disc DVD about the origins of the cinema. Dogs playing the pianos, contortionists defying the pain limits, handcoloured serpentine dances: attractions and sensations characterize the travelling cinema of the fairgrounds in the beginning of the 20th century. Rarities from the trasure chests of the European film archives ranging from Danish anarchistic slapstick and Scottish X-ray films to French erotic piquancies and a wild chase through Brussels caused by a leopard. Local films from the region Luxembourg, Trier and Saarbrücken resent a forgotten genre which was, in its days, another crowd puller in travelling cinema: Filmed local events and scenes depicting the local people who would then pay to see themselves in "living photographs" on the big screen.

The Eiffel Tower, King Kong, and the White Woman: A typical magazine from the start-up period of the independent television window in private broadcast TV. All traditional possibilities for expression in film and many types of television are experimented with: Editing, collage, multiple exposure, narrative interlacing. Headless Man: Ballads and murder ballads are elemental narrative styles that are the precursor to the cinema. They relate destinies and emotion. But how do you tell about the construction work at dusk in the ruins of the Twin Towers or about Amok? Additional texts by Alexander Kluge about his work at television in the booklet and as ROM features.

Since 1920 artist, photographer, and filmmaker Ella Bergmann-Michel lived and worked at the "Schmelz", an old paint mill near Frankfurt on Main. With guests such as Kurt Schwitters and László Moholy-Nagy the house became an important locale for modern artists. Between 1931 and 1933 she made five documentary films that constitute a rare example of socially involved and equally artistic film. The DVD contains these five films, a documentary film about the artist and a comprehensive booklet with essays on Ella Bergmann-Michel's films.

High on Work: We have left a heroic and post-heroic industrial age behind us. Farewell to an era when work was still abundant. Yet the adage still holds: Only work makes life real (Marx). The turbulent zones of globalization, in the cafeteria of Brecht's Theater, Helge Schneider as an unemployed woman in Spain, "working to pieces" in the concentration camps. Farewell to the safe side of life: Experiences with core activities of our time, for example skyscrapers or Chernobyl. Experts from the fire department and paramedics, engineers, and scientists tell their stories. With Durs Grünbein, Peter Berling, Igor Kostin, Victor Popov, Nikolai Tarakanov, Igor Jassenjawski, Rosemarie Tietze, and Oxana Pentak.

Release date: September 2008

In his pictures, films, collages and installations, the painter and filmmakerLutz Dammbeck seeks a synthesis of expressive means from the genres of film and fine art. His work to date identifies him as one of the key representatives of independent film and media art in the former GDR and as a unique, outstanding phenomenon within modern contemporary art. The 2-disc DVD presents for the first time all his animation films and media works, including an extensive booklet with essays about Lutz Dammbeck's filmic work and a lot of documents about his fight with state authorities as ROM features.

2-disc DVD: The Power of Emotion explains that emotion isn't to be confused with sentimentality. Emotion is ancient and more powerful than any art form. The film looks at young couples who run into difficulties as they try to translate their experiences of love into clear decision-making. A woman who has shot her husband provides a judge with a puzzle. Those who love can bring the dead back to life by means of co-operation. That's the focus of the opera, "The Power Plant of Emotions" and the "Opera of the 20th Century" cinema. The Serpentine Gallery Program is a treasure trove of TV films. "He who hopes, dies singing" and other true stories.

15 unknown short non-fiction films from 1905-1926 preserved and digitalized by the Technical College for Technology and Economics in Berlin (Fachhochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft) in co-operation with the German Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv in Berlin/Koblenz, the Cinema Museum in London, and the Nederlands Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. The DVD offers different ways of access: a journey through time and travel destinations on a map of Europe provide a chronological and geographical orientation for the user. In addition three thematic essays Travel, Labour and Posing for the camera show the diversity of early nonfiction and suggest three of the many ways of looking at these films. A short videofilm How moving images survived gives an introduction to film preservation and restoration.

In celebration of the 60th Anniversary of The Danish Film Institute / Archive & Cinematheque the first films donated to the Danish State are published on this DVD. The first film archive contains a total of seventy films showing Danish events and people of the period 1899-1913.

Compilation of 16 short films made between 1896 and 1948, in black and white and in colored versions, restored from original elements. Among others there are the first screen appearance of Charles Chaplin, a documentary about the original Titanic, a Russian slapstick comedy about chess players in Moscow, a parade of Hollywood stars in a short film of 1931, one of the best comedies with Charley Chase and a film with the legendary dancer Josephine Baker.

Compilation of 17 short films made between 1906 and 1941, in black and white and in colored versions, restored from original elements. Among others there are an educational film by D.W. Griffith about women and cinema, a strange comedy with Douglas Faurbands as drug addicted detective, Stan Laurel in a parody on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Duke Ellington in a famous early soundie filmed by Dudley Murphy, hand colored silents from France and Porky Pig presenting his own newsreel.