The first Easter Island documentary, filmed in 1935 when the Belgian naval ship Mercator came to collect Drs. Henri Lavacherry and Alfred Métraux, who had arrived six months before to carry out archaeological and ethnological work. The film, directed with melodramatic gusto and featuring a full orchestral score by Maurice Jaubert (who also did the narration), shows islanders, the monuments, and a public dance. A theme of decay and decadence characterizes the film, the motif portrayed gruesomely by extensive close-ups of the inhabitants of the leper colony there at the time. The film suited a romantic image of a mysterious lost civilization, the survivors eking out a pitiful existence on a barren rock. (Grant McCall)
The earliest surviving motion-picture film, and believed to be one of the very first moving images ever created, was shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince using the LPCCP Type-1 MkII single-lens camera.
This short documentary shows Canada's top swimmers in training for the 1964 Olympic Games. Under the critical eye of coach Ed Healy, they practice long hours in the gym and in the pool to build strength and stamina.
From the banks of the Bahamas to the seas of Argentina, we go underwater to meet dolphins. Two scientists who study dolphin communication and behaviour lead us on encounters in the wild.
Filmed in IMAX, a team of explorers led by Pasquale Scaturro and Gordon Brown face seemingly insurmountable challenges as they make their way along all 3,260 miles of the world's longest and deadliest river to become the first in history to complete a full descent of the Blue Nile from source to sea.
12,000 feet down, life is erupting. Alvin, a deep-sea mechanized probe, makes a voyage some 12,000 feet underwater to explore the Azores, a constantly-erupting volcanic rift between Europe and North America.
The fourth generation in his family to be born intersex, Jewish Rabbi Levi was assigned the female gender at birth and grew up thinking he was sick and defective.
Experiments on the crystallization of various inorganic substances: crystallization from solution, crystallization from melt and vapour phase, mixed crystal formation, oriented growth, change from a metastable into a stable phase.
A family of out-of-work vaudeville performers are finding hard times in the east, so after hearing about the success of a fellow player in Hollywood, they decide to relocate to the movie capitol.
Men on horseback and their dogs are hot on the trail of a sly fox. In this takeoff on the old Pied Piper fable, the hungry fox gets in the way of the flute playing.
