Produced in 1927 at the height of the silent era, these fascinating short subjects were presented in serial format in theaters with a new installment weekly. We are taken behind the scenes in the town where 85% of all American motion pictures were created. We are taken backstage where some of the many highlights include what movie sets look like in real life, Cecil B. DeMille pondering a new story, directors on the set directing, Lon Chaney hamming it up on the set of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Hollywood Boulevard, Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre and much more.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
The line between genuine love and violent obsession is blurred when a man falls for a girl and proceeds to tie her up with rope to him, making her follow him around and bend to his whims until tragedy ultimately befalls them both.
A re-interpretation of the myth of Ulysses, the symbol of a man eternally torn between nostalgia for his past and a desire for discovery, between fear and enchantment, which, for Piavoli’s hero, is above all an enchantment with nature. The language of the film, invented using a mixture of Greek and ancient Mediterranean dialects, becomes a symbol of this ancestral wandering.
A mysterious agent arrives on planet Earth. According to his information, this area should have no trace of life, but to his astonishment he detects the presence of humans. He closely observes them from his hiding place, but after a while, the encounter is unavoidable. However, it suddenly hits him that they do not percieve each other the same way… Ildikó Enyedi’s film, with its peculiar atmosphere, was inspired by one of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ science fiction stories, and she used the exciting storyline to explore philosophical questions about moving images, appearances and reality.
Since the turn of the century, popular media in the U.S. have promoted a stereotyped image of Latin America in order to justify the concept of U.S. dominance in the hemisphere. The Gringo in Mañanaland uses travelogues, dramatic films, industrial films, newsreels, military footage, geographical textbook illustrations, and political cartoons to take a detailed look at United States media representations of Latin America.
Surveying representative moments from the history of Mesoamerican antiquarianism, this experimental documentary suggests how diplomacy and Pan-Americanism framed the recontexualization of archeological objects as art. Part faked newsreel, part diffusionist rant, Ruins uses appropriated sounds and images to contemplate a history of appropriated objects. The film visits with Brigido Lara, master forger, and suggests parallels between the documentary film and the fake.
A remarkably colourful and absorbing documentary, Power Trip takes us to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia where AES, a multinational conglomerate based in Virginia, has bought into the recently privatised business of electricity supply. First task: persuade consumers accustomed to getting their power for free to part with half their incomes to pay for it. Second task: deal with riots. Next, dismantle countless homemade wiring systems, detect elaborate power diversion mechanisms and install meters… The obstacles to commercial success pile up on each other like an escalating absurdist nightmare that takes us into the highest echelons of political power and corruption.