UNCHOSEN DIRECTORS (20TH CENTURY)

Magda, a piano teacher, meets Knud, a parson’s son, who invites her to spend the summer at his parents’ parsonage. When a travelling circus stops in the village, Magda leaves the meek Knud for the dashing circus rider Rudolf. But circus life with Rudolf quickly turns out to be anything but happy, and Magda comes to a tragic end. (Stumfilm.dk)

'Fatty' is looking forward to attending a formal occasion. But in order to go, he has to be properly dressed, and he encounters unexpected difficulties in getting himself ready.

1914 film directed by Winsor McCay

Abandoned by her fiancé, an educated negro woman with a shocking past dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished negro youths. Within Our Gates was created in response to The Birth of a Nation which depicted southern whites in need of the Ku Klux Klan to protect them from blood thirsty blacks. Micheaux shows the reality of Dixie racism in 1920, where a black man could be lynched for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

1922 film by Benjamin Christensen

An unhappily married woman devises a scheme to get rid of her husband.

Taken from The Arabian Nights, the film tells the story of a wicked sorcerer who tricks Prince Achmed into mounting a magical flying horse and sends the rider off on a flight to his death. But the prince foils the magician’s plan, and soars headlong into a series of wondrous adventures.

Set in the Edo period, the film deals with two brothers falling in love with the same girl. Sadly, only 12 minutes of footage survive.

Life changes for a Moscow couple after they allow an old friend of the husband’s to move in.

A compilation of newsreels shot between 1913 and 1917 - the years leading up to the Russian Revolution.

1928 French film by Jean Epstein

1930 film directed by Lewis Milestone

名著《静静的顿河》首次被搬上银幕，由苏联第一位女导演Olga Preobrazhenskaya执导。
While it was not unusual to find a woman director at the helm of a Russian film in the early 1930s, neither was it an everyday occurrence. Olga Preobrajenskaya's Cossacks of the Don focuses on plump heroine Akainya, who is married to Stephen but is in love with Grisha. For his part, Grisha loves Akainya but is compelled to marry Natalie. Meeting clandestinely in the moonlight by the banks of the Don, Akainya and Grisha plan to run off together, but WWI destroys their plans. Grisha returns from the battlefield to discover that Akainya has betrayed him. Knocking her down in full view of the entire village, the "hero" stalks off to parts unknown. No, Cossacks of the Don is not a feminist manifesto, despite the presence of a woman in the director's chair.
Actress, director, and scenarist Olga Preobrazhenskaya is considered to be one of the most important women in Soviet cinema. She was not only one of the most popular actresses of early Russian film, she was also that country's first female director. Preobrazhenskaya began her career as an actress at the Moscow Art Theater where she recieved her training. After that she acted in many provincial Russian theaters before starring in her first film Kliuchakh schastia (1913), a tremendously popular work based on bestselling novel by Anastasia Verbitskaia. She went on to star in several more big-budget pre-revolutionary movies until 1916 when she co-directed Baryshnia-krestianka with Vladimir Gardin. She did not direct again until 1926 after she had been teaching in the first Soviet film school for several years after the 1917 Revolution. Her next two films were targeted for children. After 1927 she collaborated with director Ivan Pravov until 1941. Their best known film, considered one of the greatest films of early Soviet cinema, was Baby riazanskie (1927) the story of a traditional young woman who is raped by her father-in-law. Preobrazhenskaya continued directing until the end of the '30s.

The Laurel & Hardy Moving Co. have a challenging job on their hands (and backs): hauling a player piano up a monumental flight of stairs to Prof. von Schwarzenhoffen's house. Their task is complicated by a sassy nursemaid and, unbeknownst to them, the impatient Prof. von Schwarzenhoffen himself. But the biggest problem is the force of gravity, which repeatedly pulls the piano back down to the bottom of the stairs.

A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.

Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Raskolnikov struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.

Living in exile after the death of their father, the grown children of a murdered and usurped king converge to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge.

1965 film by Hideo Gosha

1968 film directed by Humberto Solás

The chronicle of the political tension in Chile in 1973 and of the violent counter revolution against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.