All Films

Footage of aviation tests from 1905.

'From Siberia to Moscow' (1876) was August Bournonville’s last long ballet. It was inspired by an 1874 trip to Russia, where Bournonville met Marius Petipa and saw several of his ballets. The music was composed by Carl Christian Møller. The smart prances of the Jockey Dance are here performed by Gustav Uhlendorff (1875-1962), dancer and later master of the Danish Royal Ballet in the 1920s, and dancer Richard Jensen (1883-1935), who acted in a number of Danish silent films in the early 1910s. (Stumfilm. DK)

Shot in Yunnan, China, simply shows 2 men smoking.

A boss has a dream in which he is tortured and tries to escape. Some women gently wake him up. France, 1905 Prod.: Pathé Frères (scène à trucs, n. 1297) 35mm. L.: 79 m. D.: 4’ a 16 f/s. Bn From: BFI National Archive

Panorama taken on the railway from Colombo to Kandy - Native barber - Natives washing themselves and bathing their animals in a pond - Native women killing vermin - Fight between a cobra and a mongoose - Natives diving to catch pennies - A street in Colombo - Panorama by railway taken from Colombo to Galle - Elephants bathing.

Erotic dance performed by an unknown female dancer.

Police try to catch acrobatic thieves who vanish at will.

The film shows hundreds of tightly packed people crowding into the front door of the Rothschild Co. 5 and 10 cent store. They are so closely packed it is difficult to tell one from another. The view is from across the street, looking down from the 2nd floor.

'Zandvoort in an uproar! On Saturday morning at roughly 10 o’clock, with beautiful weather and calm seas, a Frenchman sat in a beach chair to gaze upon the magnificent view that the sea always affords, until he slowly began to fall asleep’ So begins a report in the ‘Zandvoortsche Courant’ of July 25, 1905. The article explains how the man was faced with the oncoming tide, and – to the amazement of the audience – took off his trousers to prevent them from being ruined by the saltwater. While trying to escape from the policeman who had rushed to the scene, he jumps into a passing car, and hides out in a small changing cabin. Eventually he's nabbed by the police. Accompanied by a band and a large crowd, he is escorted to the police station. The article ends by saying that ‘Messrs. Alberts Frères’ had staged the whole incident for a film in which two of the most popular genres of that period - the locally-shot film and the chase film – would be combined.

Short film about a Polar expedition

A drunk furniture-repairer tries to wrangle sixteen chairs.

A team of surgeons open a patient's stomach and discover a surprising variety of objects.

Cavalcade in Luxembourg, 1905.

It's Christmas time, so it's obligatory to give a gift to everyone, even the guy who's paid to do a job, and often paid very well. It's a yearly routine, and it used to annoy my father no end,, particularly when it came to unionized workers, like post men. So here we see the post man make his way through the building, making a fuss over each piece of mail, and expecting a tip. Don't his employers pay him?

An actuality which chronicles how a load of ore becomes a finished steel product at a Bessemer plant. Deep red tints and red-hot pops of hand-coloring give the film an ominous glow.

A mischievous errand boy, sent out on a delivery, causes havoc in the streets of Hove. When he arrives back at the shop, he finds all his furious victims are already there complaining to the grocer -- and the chase is on!

A ballerina dreams of dancing under the sea.

A short film from Slovenia made by Karol Grossmann.

One at a time, we meet eight members of the Dam family.

In Yunnan, at the end of the Qing dynasty, Auguste François, consul, photographer and amateur ethnographer documents, thanks to a camera provided by Léon Gaumont, scenes of daily life in the streets of Yunnanfu (now Kunming) , but also more exceptional events: a procession, a pagoda feast, a funeral, a performance of the Chinese theater. "Images de Chine" is not a film, but a compilation of all those films made by "La Cinémathèque française" for private showings, with an overall duration of 52 minutes.

Being a complete pictorial account of the remarkable "Fête des Vignerons", at Vevey, Switzerland.

We see busy bees flying around the hive. Suddenly a dancer appears on the scene, and we enjoy a dance, executed by six dancers. The Queen gets tired, and while resting, a large spider tries to catch her, but her friends rescue her.

Four people, two women and two men, can be seen reclining in the bunks of an artist's conception of a Chinese opium den.

A short early sound film of soldiers following the orders of their commander.