All Films

Thailand

1958 • 30 min

Showcasing a variety of Thai culture.

The Rise and Fall of a Jungle Giant

1958 • 6 min • United States of America

A behind-the-scenes look at the building of the bridge in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and the preparations for its destruction.

Springtime for Clobber

1958 • 6 min • United States of America

Clint falls in love with a woman who has arrived to the apartment. The combination of love and spring, makes Clint forget about his duties, leading one of the flats to become flooded.

A Groom from the Right Society

1958 • 48 min • Soviet Union

Semyon Danilovich Petukhov was very surprised to found upon returning from vacation that he was declared dead and... buried.

Trans Canada Summer

1958 • 56 min • Canada

The camera traces the Trans-Canada Highway, unveiling Canada's people, resources, and diverse geography from east to west. It showcases remarkable engineering accomplishments integral to constructing the highway.

Romeo and Juliet

1958 • 11 min • Yugoslavia

The Romeo and Juliet story from caveman times to the present.

The Little Island

1958 • 33 min • United Kingdom

Depicts the dreams, ideas, and struggles of three men (representing "truth," "beauty," and "good") who settle on a tiny island.

The Pigeon That Worked a Miracle

1958 • 48 min • United States of America

A boy, Chad, confined to a wheelchair, raises pigeons, and they are the therapy that he needs to walk again, when he forgets his own troubles to try to save his favorite pigeon.

Man with a Gun

1958 • 58 min • United Kingdom

A £20,000 insurance claim is lodged when a nightclub is destroyed by fire, and claims investigator Mike Davies is assigned to get to the bottom of things. One suspect is Harry Drayson, the club owner but if he torched his own property for the insurance, how safe are his other, heavily insured properties?

City

1958 • 25 min • Sweden

For nine years in the 1950s, Jan Troell worked as a teacher at the Sorgenfri primary school in Malmö (an experience he drew on for his study of a teacher's relationship with his class, Ole dole doff (Who Saw Him Die?) in 1968); he lived in a house once occupied by Ingmar Bergman. In Malmö, Troell made his first film, Stad (The City), about a day in the life of Malmö, showing the life of the people from dawn until dusk.

Women of Today

1958 • 7 min • Romania

Made on the occasion of March 8, it presents a series of brief portraits of women, from various professional fields, of different ages and even of different ethnicities, pointing out the benefits that the communist organization had brought to their daily lives. A special emphasis is placed on their status as mothers and on the role of nurseries and socialist kindergartens not only in making their lives easier, but also in giving them the time they need to build a career. Another concern of the filmmaker, starting from the concrete case of one of the protagonists, is to highlight the differences between the happy present and the not-too-distant past in which someone with her social status should have dedicated herself exclusively to raising children, in hygienic and extremely difficult lives.

Gateways to the Mind

1958 • 58 min • United States of America

The film presents how the human body recognizes and becomes aware of its surroundings. The various information pathways to the brain such as sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are explored in a accurate but simple manner via human impression and cartoon characters!

As Long as You Get Drunk...

1958 • 19 min • France

A study of loneliness set in a dance hall of suburban Paris.

Seven Cities of Antarctica

1958 • 28 min • United States of America

In 1955 Operation "Deep Freeze" began. This film tells the story of its purpose - the establishment by the United States Navy of seven bases in Antarctica for scientific study and observations in connection with the International Geophysical Year. Rare motion pictures record sequences from the expeditions of the early pioneers, Mundsen and Scott, and the film becomes the story of man's instinct to understand and conquer the unknown.

Tokyo 1958

1958 • 24 min • Japan

Eight filmmakers collaborate with Teshigahara to create a "frantic, non-stop pop newsreel". Mixing cutout animation with color and black & white photography, this snapshot documents Tokyo in 1957-58, when it had eight and ½ million people and was the largest city in the world. Pollution, bridal fashion, rites, rituals, partying-- Nearly every angle of Tokyo life is compacted into a mere 24 minutes.

The Expanding Airport

1958 • 9 min • United States of America

To avoid making travelers walk excessive distances through a large airport, Washington, D.C.'s new airport is to use mobile departure lounges to transport passengers from the terminal directly to the plane.

Paris mange son pain

1958 • 17 min • France

This short documents the important role played by bread in the daily life of the city of Paris.

Algerian Refugees

1958 • 15 min • Algeria

Directed by Pierre Clément and Djamel-Eddine Chanderli, produced by the FLN Information Service in 1958, this film is a rare document. Pierre Clément is considered one of the founders of Algerian cinema. In this film he shows images of Algerian refugee camps in Tunisia and their living conditions. A restored DVD version released in 2016, from the 35 mm original donated by Pierre Clément to the Contemporary International Documentation Library (BDIC).

Portrait of a Matador

1958 • 23 min • United Kingdom

A matador curses the painter of his portrait.

Goodbye Teenage Love

1958 • 55 min • Japan

The Three Bears

1958 • 10 min • Soviet Union

Little Varvarushka disobeys her grandmother and gets lost in the woods, then enters a house in which three bears live. Based on Lev Tolstoy's 1875 version of the English folk tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".

Three-Ring Fling

1958 • 6 min • United States of America

Breezy gets into the circus for free on kids' day, but penniless Windy has to resort to guile and intrigue in order to obtain a painful entrance.

The Fountain of Youth

1958 • 27 min • United States of America

A couple is conflicted when they are offered a chance at youth. Based on John Collier's short story “Youth from Vienna”.

Stockholm by Night

1958 • 33 min

An exposé on the nightlife of Sweden's capital, Stockholm, in company with Danish actor/singer Max Hansen and Swedish actress Lena Granhagen.