Alberto Cavalcanti

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Produced for television by Claude-Jean Philippe, the « Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma », recounts the history of French cinema from its birth to the beginning of the 1960s. With commentary read by Jean Rochefort.

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Alberto Cavalcanti reviews his own prolific career as a filmmaker.

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A portrait of John Grierson, the first Canadian Government Film Commissioner and founder of the National Film Board in 1939. Interweaving archival footage, interviews with people who knew him and footage of Grierson himself, this film is a sensitive and informative portrait of a dynamic man of vision. Grierson believed that the filmmaker had a social responsibility, and that film could help a society realize democratic ideals. His absolute faith in the value of capturing the drama of everyday life was to influence generations of filmmakers all over the world. In fact, he coined the term 'documentary film'.

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This film is based on actual letters German soldiers sent home from the siege of Leningrad during World War II. The litany of trouble these poor grunts endured is lamentable. One complains of returning home an invalid. An SS man has bad dreams about the Russian tank-driver he killed. Another complains when he sits down to hear a piano recital and one of the musicians has frozen fingers. Another soldier swears he will never forgive his father for injuries he suffered in the invasion of Leningrad. Stock footage of wars from World War II to Vietnam are inserted and give an ironic tinge to the feature.

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The film, made to advertise domestic telephone sets, is based around two very different families. The Petts are conventional, happy and have children; the Potts are unconventional and unhappy, without children.

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The first behind-the-scenes documentary in the film industry, from the making of a camera (Debrie) to studio shooting and directing, including animation techniques. Pierre Chenal meets André Rigal who executes, in his workshop, a series of freehand drawings. These sketches are then ground in a coffee grinder, from which a cartoon on film emerges. In Champigny, Alain Saint-Ogan and his host are working on Zig et Puce and developing Alfred the penguin's first steps. In Fontenay-sous-Bois, Ladislas Starewitch presents his future stars. Pierre Chenal described his film as follows: “I had designed to shoot a documentary in which I would show how a film is made in order, at the same time, to learn it myself. "

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It starts in the Indian tabas, goes through colonial architecture and arrives in the Brazilian capital. The film follows a script left by Alberto Cavalcanti, after a trip to Brasilia in 1978.

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This first film adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play about class distinctions was made in 1955 in the Vienna Rosenhügel studios, but it was only premiered five years later. Curt Bois plays the rich capitalist Puntila who only becomes somewhat agreeable when he is drunk (which he is most of the time in this film). In his inebriated state, Puntila not only gets amorously involved with three different ladies but also suggests that his daughter Eva marries his chauffeur Matti. The chauffeur, however, doesn’t really agree…

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An international anthology about the struggles of female workers around the world.

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In the drought areas of Northeastern of Brazil, groups of migrants move trying to find better place to live, at least with water. Some of them go to Recife, to get a vessel to Santos expecting to have a better life in the Southern. In the poor area of Recife, an old washerwoman launders clothes to survive and support her family. Her husband Zé Luis, a former sailor, is crazy due to a hit of the boom of a mast on his head. Her older son Raimundo works in a grocery and selling mangoes on the street, trying to save money to move to the Southeastern with his girl-friend Aurora. Her daughter wants to be a prostitute to have a better quality of life. Her younger son is seriously sick.

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A one-eyed businessman wants to become rich and retrieve his lost eye at any cost. He tries many schemes, and eventually regains his eye with a vengeance: the power of invisibility. He becomes multi millionaire in the meat market and after entering politics he is elected president of Brazil.

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The administrator of an abandoned coffee farm and inveterate gambler saves money to buy the property, even knowing of the loving connections between his wife and the boss.

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A woman marries a gambler, thinking she could straighten him up, but he loses all their assets, even their own house, and tries to commit suicide. But one of the winners falls for his stepdaughter, and this could change the situation.

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Marina, a beautiful young woman with leprous parents, marries a shipyard owner to escape an institution. She moves to a coastal village, faces gossip, and is assaulted by her husband’s partner. After her husband dies in a boat accident, a handsome sailor arrives, and Marina is blackmailed about her family’s health issues.

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British war documentary

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Deals with the training of Fleet Air Arm pilots and crew during World War II.

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The first months of WWII as experienced by the new young recruits - the 'young Berts' - of the British Army.

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The operation of a floating sea fort during WWII, and the lives of those who work on board.

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Shot in mid-1939 as S.S. Ionian (also shown as Her Last Trip), Humphrey Jennings’s GPO short follows the Royal Mail steamer on a last peacetime run through the Mediterranean—Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Haifa—under the gaze of the Mediterranean Fleet (HMS Barham, Malaya, Warspite). After the Ionian was sunk by a German mine on 29 November 1939 en route from Crete to Hull, the film was recut and released as Cargoes.

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The picture shows the industrialization of England, and the measures taken to clean up afterwards: a lyrical counterpart of Men In Danger, and a contradiction.

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Spare Time is a 1939 British film directed by Humphrey Jennings for the GPO Film Unit, and made for the 1939 New York World's Fair. It is 15 minutes long and documents the leisure activities of workers in the coal, steel, and cotton industries in Sheffield, Bolton, Manchester and Pontypridd. Commentary is provided by Laurie Lee.

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Londoners prepare for war.

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Men in Danger is a documentary about health and safety in industry, covering occupational diseases and potential accidents. It also covers the effects on the health of workers where the various tasks are very monotonous.

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Drama-documentary, reconstructing a real incident in which a trawler got into difficulties in a North Sea storm. Released 7th March 1938.

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Correspondence between young lovers nearly ends in disaster through a mistake in postal district. Fortunately the GPO spots the error and all ends well, but with the moral that correspondents should get the address right.

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How long-distance telephone calls are made, from the UK to the USA. We see operators, miles of wires, and the amplification of voice transmitted across the waters. Engineers of the Post Office describe how they are improving the service.

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“Musical performers Henry Hall and his Orchestra hog the limelight in this promotional film, ostensibly for Ascot gas water heaters.” - BFI.

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“Catching up with gossip, inspecting new ducklings, clambering over gates, walking across meadows - the life of a postman appears idyllic, but this Devon postie has some startling ideas about improving efficiency... The inimitable Richard Massingham, a doctor turned actor and filmmaker, co-directed this film, and appears in it as the testy Mr Proctor. This film was produced by John Grierson, often hailed as the father of British documentary. It was made for the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit, one of the most remarkable creative institutions that Britain has produced. It provided a springboard for many of the best-known and critically acclaimed figures in the British Documentary Movement.” - BFI

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Documentary about the construction of telephone lines.

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Rainbow Dance is a 1936 British animated film released by the GPO Film Unit. This is Lye's second film. It uses the Gasparcolor process.

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A behind-the-scenes GPO Film Unit documentary (directed by Stuart Legg) that races from studio rehearsals and newsrooms to control rooms and transmitters, weaving speeches, music, and outside broadcasts—featuring voices like H. G. Wells and Ramsay MacDonald—into a kinetic portrait of how the BBC’s national “voice” is made.

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The production of King George V's Silver Jubilee (1910-1935) special postage stamp, and a brief dramatised history of the development of the penny post.

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1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.

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The film, made to advertise domestic telephone sets, is based around two very different families. The Petts are conventional, happy and have children; the Potts are unconventional and unhappy, without children.

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Paris 1883. Yvette is the daughter of a courtesan who serves men of wealth and status. She is unaware of how her mother makes money and why they are always in the presence of princes, dukes and barons. Only when Yvette goes away on a holiday she realizes that the Banker Saval is engaging her mother in such activities, she suddenly feels dirty.

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The ill-fated romance of a brow-beaten seaport slum café waitress and a young man with a possessive mother, who dreams of going out to sea.

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