Night Mail

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

“This film was a gift to me. I make no claims for it, nor do I offer any apologies. It comes from work on The Thoughts That Once We Had. There was one shot we had to cut whose loss I particularly regretted. It was a shot of a train pulling into Tokyo Station from Ozu’s The Only Son (1936). So I decided to make a film around this shot, an anthology of train arrivals. It comprises 26 scenes or shots from movies, 1904-2015. It has a simple serial structure: each black & white sequence in the first half rhymes with a color sequence in the second half. Thus the first shot and the final shot show trains arriving at stations in Japan from a low camera height. In the first shot (The Only Son), the train moves toward the right; in the last shot, it moves toward the left. A bullet train has replaced a steam locomotive. So after all these years, I’ve made another structural film, although that was not my original intention.”

Scotland in winter is an arena where mountaineers pit their skills against exacting climbs often in ferocious conditions. It is respected by climbers around the world. Distilled examines what makes the climbing here so potent. Andy Cave first climbed in Scotland as a teenager. This was the start of a lifelong journey for Andy, which took him from the depths of a Yorkshire coal mine to the peaks of the Himalayas. As the story unfolds we see dramatic footage of Andy climbing some of Scotland’s classic and most challenging winter routes in the full spectrum of conditions that Scotland’s mountains can conjure. Distilled is a celebration of Scottish winter climbing and a poignant profile of a life spent in the mountains.

This short is one of Paramount's "Popular Science" series (number L6-5, or the fifth one of the 1946-47 production season) and begins by showing moon rockets, weighing 30 tons, a flight in the ionosphere, with mounted color cameras recording pictures hundreds of miles above the earth. Coming back to earth, it discourses on modern bathroom fixtures, and then demonstrates a one-man hay-bailer.

A one-month-journey of twin sisters from London back to their home, Bangkok, by train. They traveled via the famous trans-Siberian route through many countries such as Germany, Russia, Mongolia and China, with many stories to tell.

A profile of the Hippest band of the 60's and 70's as they prepare for a reunion gig.

This bicycle-safety film shows children what can happen when bicycles are driven carelessly and recklessly.

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

Ballroom dancers Veloz and Yolanda perform the various dance fads of the first half of the twentieth century.