Alberto Cavalcanti Trailers
Cavalcanti TrailerUm Homem e o Cinema TrailerGrierson Trailer
Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a professor he was expelled. His father sent him to Geneva, Switzerland on condition that he did not study law or politics. Cavalcanti chose to study architecture instead. At 18 he moved to Paris to work for an architect, later switching to working on interior design. After a visit back to Brazil he took up a position at the Brazilian consulate in Liverpool, England.
Cavalcanti corresponded with Marcel L'Herbier, a leading light in France's avant-garde film movement. This led to a job offer from L'Herbier for Cavalcanti to work as a set designer. So, in 1920 he left his job at the Consulate and moved back to France to work for L'Herbier; he was to be involved in the making of numerous films, the most notable being L'Inhumaine.
He was soon making his own films, in 1926 directing his first, Rien Que les Heures (Nothing But Time) — a day in the life of Paris and its citizens. In 1927 he collaborated with Walter Ruttmann on a similar project set in Berlin, called Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: Symphony of a Big City).
Cavalcanti took a job with Paramount's French studios after the talkies came in, but he found himself making more commercial films which could not hold his interest and left Paramount in 1933. In the same year he returned to England to work for John Grierson's GPO Film Unit. He was involved in many capacities, from production to sound engineer. He was to spend seven years at the GPO Film Unit, working on many projects. Much of his work at the GPO was uncredited, he acted as a mentor to many new film makers, but in 1937 he was appointed acting head of the GPO Film Unit when Grierson left for Canada. When told that the only way the position could become permanent was to become a naturalized British citizen, he decided to leave the unit.
In 1940 Cavalcanti joined Ealing Studios, under the leadership of producer Michael Balcon. He worked as an art editor, producer and director. His most notable works of this period (many of them propaganda films) were Yellow Caesar (1941), Went the Day Well? (1942), Three Songs of Resistance (1943), Champagne Charlie (1944), Dead of Night (as co-director) (1945) and Nicholas Nickleby (1947). In 1946 Cavalcanti left Ealing over a dispute about money. He went on to direct three more films in the UK, before returning to Brazil in 1950.
In Brazil he worked as a producer for Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz; the company eventually became insolvent. After being blacklisted as a communist in Brazil, he decided to move back to Europe in 1954. He eventually settled in France, where he continued his work in television. He died in Paris in 1982 at the age of 85.
Most Popular Alberto Cavalcanti Trailers
Total trailers found: 94
18 November 1927
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.
24 May 1941
Using edited archive footage, mockery is made of Italy's dictator Benito Mussolini.
01 January 1976
Alberto Cavalcanti reviews his own prolific career as a filmmaker.
03 June 1935
1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.
01 January 1943
British war documentary
28 June 1935
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.
01 January 1937
“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.
01 December 1940
The first months of WWII as experienced by the new young recruits - the 'young Berts' - of the British Army.
25 August 1944
A man from the countryside becomes London’s newest music hall sensation, and competes with a rival music hall performer for the audience’s attention.
01 January 1942
Deals with the training of Fleet Air Arm pilots and crew during World War II.
18 October 1934
Documentary following an Edinburgh fishing trawler, the "Isabella Grieg".
08 June 1950
Marina, a beautiful young woman with leprous parents, marries a shipyard owner to escape an institution.
01 October 1936
Rainbow Dance is a 1936 British animated film released by the GPO Film Unit. This is Lye's second film.
30 December 1927
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.
02 July 1925
Mathias Pascal, only son of a once-rich family, marries beautiful Romalinda, who has a terrible mother-in-law.
11 January 1951
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.
01 October 1927
La P’tite Lili is a silent short drama depicting the fate of a young orphaned girl in the working-class districts of Paris.
22 June 1942
Based on the true story of Melbourne Johns, an aircraft factory foreman sent to France to prevent the Nazis getting hold of some vital equipment.
07 June 1934
A young couple goes through a plot unscathed in the welcoming salons of a large fashion house.
05 January 1971
Adaptation for TV of the play by Friedrich Durrenmatt. A very rich old lady arrives in her nearly bankrupt native village.
07 December 1942
The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion.
09 September 1945
An architect, visiting an English country house, realizes the other guests are familiar from his recurring nightmare.
26 May 1952
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.
24 June 1947
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
15 March 1948
The story of a romance between the daughter of the Prince Regent and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.
20 October 1960
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.
12 March 1947
A fatherless boy tries to make his fortune despite interference from his rich uncle.
04 August 1934
How news of a general reduction in GPO charges was finally brought to parliament and the people, despite attempts by the country's enemies to prevent the announcement.
15 February 1929
A nobleman decides to join a traveling group of actors to be with a girl he admires, but ultimately s
21 October 1929
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.
01 January 1940
Wartime propaganda short in which a professor enlists the help of a dustman to explain the importance of saving paper, bones and metal to help the war effort.
12 December 1924
A famous singer Claire Lescot, who lives on the outskirts of Paris, is courted by many men, including a maharajah, Djorah de Nopur, and a young Swedish scientist, Einar Norsen.
06 July 1955
A nurse falls in love with her patient and secretly marries him. When treating another patient, he falls in love with her and, pretending to be in agony, asks for one last wish: to marry him, and she accepts.
13 December 1982
It starts in the Indian tabas, goes through colonial architecture and arrives in the Brazilian capital.
16 April 1934
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.
01 January 1939
Londoners prepare for war.
30 November 1934
Ambitious documentary chronicling the cultural life and religious customs of the Sinhalese and the effects of advanced industrialism on such customs.
21 April 1949
In this drama, a frustrated upper-class writer decides that he will find real inspiration by examining his subjects first-hand.
23 January 1931
Literary adaptation: A female musician in Asia's tropics escapes from harassers' advances to an island where a timid man has retreated.
01 January 1943
A re-creation of a bombing raid on Hanover, with the objective of promoting war savings bonds.
02 January 1939
The laying of underground telephone cables.
29 October 1978
Where he goes, he doesn't need luggage... A very talkative traveler settles in the only wagon occupied by a man with a strange diction.
01 January 1938
“Musical performers Henry Hall and his Orchestra hog the limelight in this promotional film, ostensibly for Ascot gas water heaters.
02 January 1940
Part of BFI collection "If War Should Come."
02 January 1940
Part of BFI collection "If War Should Come."
01 December 1940
Captures the role played by the Royal Navy in the defence of Britain, and their role in convoy escort.
28 July 1935
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.
01 January 1938
A brisk GPO Film Unit promo for the Post Office Savings Bank: pub talk and daydream vignettes tout penny-by-penny thrift, peaking in a playful Norman McLaren passage where household furniture springs to life—selling the idea that “many a little makes a lot.
27 February 1959
There is a lot of excitement in the high society of Venice: An Arab prince, who always travels incognito, is said to be in the city.
23 September 1924
The whimsical Riquet's has kidnapped and married a well-born young girl, Ralda. They travel around Spain performing their act in a circus but Ralda's beauty arouses the director's lust.
