New Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 309

Jazz on a Summer's Day

1960

Jazz on a Summer's Day

1960
7.2
Set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, this documentary mixes images of water and the town with performers and audience. The film progresses from day to night and from improvisational music to Gospel. It's a concert film that suggests peace and leisure, jazz at a particular time and place.
Frames of Reference

1960

Frames of Reference

1960
9.5
An educational physics film utilizing a fascinating set consisting of a rotating table and furniture occupying surprisingly unpredictable spots within the viewing area, Leacock’s Frames of Reference (1960), features fine cinematography by Abraham Morochnik, and funny narration by University of Toronto professors Donald Ivey and Patterson Hume, in a wonderful example of the fun a creative team of filmmakers can have with a subject other, less imaginative types might find pedestrian.
Booked for Safekeeping

1960

Booked for Safekeeping

1960
6
A training film showing police officers how to deal with persons who are mentally ill.
Araya

1959

Araya

1959
7
"Araya" is an old natural salt mine located in a peninsula in northeastern Venezuela which was still, by 1959, being exploited manually five hundred years after its discovery by the Spanish. In images, the life of the "salineros" and their archaic methods of work before their definite disappearance with the arrival of the industrial exploitation.
South Seas Adventure

1958

South Seas Adventure

1958
5.7
Cinerama takes you on a South Seas Adventure to tropical islands set like sparkling jewels in dreamy cerulean waters. Thrill to the lure of sunbrowned, luscious maidens and a paradise of coconut palms, coral strand and blue lagoons. Enchanted South Pacific archipelagos beckon with all the beauty and color of a painter’s palette. Stepping stones in the vast expanse of far-away seas, they promise romance, adventure, excitement—an irresistible blend of fascinating people and exotic places.
Windjammer: The Voyage of the Christian Radich

1958

Windjammer: The Voyage of the Christian Radich

1958
6.2
Windjammer, the first presentation in CINEMIRACLE, is the record of a training cruise of the full-rigged S/S Christian Radich from Oslo across the Atlantic, through the Caribbean, to New York and back home again.
Search for Paradise

1957

Search for Paradise

1957
6
Lowell Thomas travels across Europe and the Middle East on his way to attend the coronation of King Mahendra in Nepal.
On the Bowery

1957

On the Bowery

1957
6.6
A mix of documentary and scripted footage on the Bowery, New York City's skid row. Against a backdrop of men (and a few women) drinking in bars, talking and arguing, and sleeping on sidewalks, we have the story of Ray.
The Hunters

1957

The Hunters

1957
6.1
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
The Mystery of Picasso

1956

The Mystery of Picasso

1956
7.3
Using a specially designed transparent 'canvas' to provide an unobstructed view, Picasso creates as the camera rolls. He begins with simple works that take shape after only a single brush stroke. He then progresses to more complex paintings, in which he repeatedly adds and removes elements, transforming the entire scene at will, until at last the work is complete.
Seven Wonders of the World

1956

Seven Wonders of the World

1956
5.2
Seven Wonders of the World is a 1956 film in Cinerama. Lowell Thomas searches the world for natural and man made wonders and invites the audience to try to update the ancient Greek list of "Seven Wonders of the World."
Animals in Action

1955

Animals in Action

1955
The profession of capturing animals in action on celluloid is both an art and science. Some of the most exciting footage can be obtained in different ways. Examples are: a large herd, such as of reindeer, moving as one; slow motion footage of fast moving animals, such as racing greyhounds, especially when they do something unexpected; mothers and their newborn offspring doing what comes naturally; animals placed among special props; animals placed in human situations; combining the exciting and dangerous, such as the running of the bulls in Pamplona and the bullfights to follow; placing animals that are not natural companions together; and placing animals in the situation of a challenge, such as a bunch of bananas just out of reach of a hungry monkey. Many of these elements are combined into the final sequence of a steeplechase race.
Cinerama Holiday

1955

Cinerama Holiday

1955
7.7
Two couples, one from St. Louis and one from Switzerland, each go to the other's country and travel around.
Mike and Stefani

1955

Mike and Stefani

1955
A Ukrainian couple become refugees during and after World War Two, and they end up as Displaced Persons (DPs) in a camp in Germany, before they are eventually accepted for resettlement in Australia.
Ludwig van Beethoven

1954

Ludwig van Beethoven

1954
Documentary on the master composer, from a GDR point of view.
The Unconquered

1954

The Unconquered

1954
7.3
Narrated by actress Katharine Cornell and filmed in black and white, it spends the first 24 minutes introducing viewers, through newsreels, interviews, and old photographs, to the story of the deaf and blind disabled-rights pioneer. News footage shows her international appearances and visits with heads of state, including President Eisenhower allowing her to feel his face. The second half takes a day-in-the-(exceptional)-life approach to Keller's existence circa 1955. Made just 13 years before her death, Keller's famed tutor-translator-friend Anne Sullivan had already died, leaving her live-in replacement, Polly Thomson, to share the film's focus. From the time Keller takes her morning walk along the 1,000-foot handrail around her yard through her workday to her nightly reading of her Braille Bible, her serene acceptance of her life will amaze and inspire. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.
Getting Along With Parents

1954

Getting Along With Parents

1954
Shows the conflict between six teenagers and their respective parents in a situation designed to provoke discussion. Emphasizes that each generation must recognize the other's differences in upbringing, thinking and feeling and be willing to compromise.
Mammy Water

1953

Mammy Water

1953
5
"Mammy Water" is mother sea, source of food. Jean Rouch filmed this short documentary in the Gulf of Guinea, in Ghana, where is held a colorful festival, the Chama, in which the participants offer cassava, gin and tobacco to the spirits of water and sacrifice a white ox to thank them and express their gratitude and respect.
This Is Cinerama

1952

This Is Cinerama

1952
5.7
Designed to introduce the then-new widescreen process Cinerama, audiences experience the roller coaster at Rockaways' Playland, the temple dance from Aida, Niagara Falls, a Viennese choir, the canals of Venice, a military tattoo in Edinburgh, a bullfight, and more. The film concludes with a view from the nose of a low-flying B-25 while America the Beautiful plays.
Dubrovnik

1952

Dubrovnik

1952
A film describing the political history of Dubrovnik and the history of its architecture, painting, literature and science until the end of Republic of Ragusa.