Metropolis Refound

Hard Luck: The Last Short to Be Found

2011

Documentary about the Buster Keaton short Hard Luck (1921).

The Paleface... And Other Titles

2011

A discussion on restoring title cards to English from foreign source prints.

On Scoring Cops and Helping Silent Films Live Again

2011

Ben Model discusses scoring music for silent movies.

Day Dreams and the Problems of Missing Film

2011

Documentary on Day Dreams (1922), a Buster Keaton silent comedy.

Chaplin Today: City Lights

2003 · ★ 6.7

In 1928, as the talkies threw the film industry and film language into turmoil, Chaplin decided that his Tramp character would not be heard. City Lights would not be a talking picture, but it would have a soundtrack. Chaplin personally composed a musical score and sound effects for the picture. With Peter Lord, the famous co-creator of Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit, we see how Chaplin became the king of slapstick comedy and the superstar of the movies.

Rescuing a Fantasy Classic

2021 · ★ 7

A comprehensive and fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the restoration process of restoring 3-strip Cinerama for the 1962 film "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm".

The Cemetery of Cinema

2023 · ★ 7.7

Thierno Souleymane Diallo sets out with his camera in search of the birth of filmmaking in Guinea. Charming and determined, he traces his country’s film heritage and history and reveals the importance of film archives.

Archiving Ireland

A documentary exploring the importance of film preservation through the work of the IFI Irish Film Archive

Forgotten Treasure

1943 · ★ 7.3

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short highlights the film preservation efforts of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Several scenes from early newsreels are shown.

Archive of Life

2024

This documentary short-film follows the story of The White Bus Cinema based in Southend-on-Sea. They keep the process of projecting real celluloid film alive by showing films from their archive of over 3,000 films, ranging from Super 8, 16mm, and 35mm prints. The film argues why it's important to continue the shooting and projection process of film in our current age of digital shooting and projection in modern Hollywood, amidst the chaos of studios removing films from their streaming services.

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

2022 · ★ 7.8

Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the digital age, audiovisual heritage seems to be a sure and obvious fact. However, much of cinema and our filmed history has been lost forever. Archivists, technicians and filmmakers from different parts of the world explain what audiovisual preservation is and why it is necessary. The documentary is a tribute to all these professionals and their important work.

Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films

2011 · ★ 9

Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).