1920s Documentary
Bowie Maur
Eldorado - Everything the Nazis Hate shows queer lives in 1920s Berlin and the shift from the Weimar Republic to National Socialism Klaus Mueller (pictured on the left) and Benjamin Cantu (pictured on the right)
The director, Benjamin Cantu, explains his thinking behind the plot: We wanted to show queer lives that took place in Berlin and who experienced the shift from the Weimar Republic to National Socialism. What was important to us was to show how homosexuality was defined at that time from different directions - socially, scientifically, and politically.
92 min. Germany 2023
Directed by Benjamin Cantu
Recreation Director: Matt Lambert
Executive Producers: Felix Kriegsheim, Nils Bkamp, Benjamin Cantu, Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave
Dramaturgic and Historical consultant: Klaus Mueller
* LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. We are using this term as it is currently widely used in human rights conversations on sexual orientation and gender identity in many parts of the world, and we would wish it to be read as inclusive of other cultural concepts, contemporary or historical, to express sexuality and gender, intersex and gender non-conforming identities.
Documentary Genealogies. Photography 1848-1917 closes a series that began in 2011 in the Museo Reina Sofa with the exhibitions A Hard, Merciless Light. The Worker Photography Movement, 1926-1939 and continued in 2015 with Not Yet. On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism, both of which offered an alternative narrative of the rise and evolution of documentary discourse in the history of photography, based on case studies at key moments in the twentieth century. This final exhibition contributes to this narrative from a different, proto-historical perspective: an observation of the early promises and potential of photography contained in the fact that the documentary idea and function are as old as photography itself.
In reaction to the government's ban, the three people behind the movie, director Alexander Arkhangelsky, journalist Maxim Kournikov and Tatiana Sorokina, have made their documentary available on YouTube.
The filming of the documentary became possible thanks to donations from ordinary people collected over the internet in 2021. At the moment, it is possible to conduct public viewings only in schools and museums in Russia.
Herbert Hoover, at that time the US secretary of commerce, had initiated a relief mission (with the condition of freeing American prisoners in Soviet Russia and providing free travel for the relief missions). Ships with food and medicine were delivered via rivers to the main Russian cities: Saint-Petersburg, Kazan, and others. In total, the US relief administration spent 137 million rubles (approximately 2.2 billion USD in today's value) to provide food though these missions; the Soviet government spent 9 million rubles (or 144 million USD).
What was different about the US mission was that it did not just distribute the food; it organized canteens where children had to come to and eat their food. The goal was to try to save the youngest. Peasants, with their own understanding of traditional family structure, were used to children dying in large numbers, and did not understand why the weaker ones would be fed, when those who could work needed food more. Sometimes, children brought food home, mixed with weeds or clay, for it to last longer.
Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian polar explorer, philanthropist, and 1922 Nobel Peace Prize winner, went to Samara and made photos of the disaster, of the people dying, and gathered around half a million golden roubles (approximately 8 million USD as of today's value) from various charitable organizations in Europe. He helped people without any preconditions, and his mission helped adults, too.
As can be seen in the film, Soviet reports said that the situation was the worst in and around Busuluk village in the Orenburg region. People ate all the domestic animals, including cats and dogs, and there were numerous cases of cannibalism, when people ate the bodies of the dead.
US assistance did not end at providing food to children. It also helped teachers, educational institutions, and hospitals with equipment, medicine, and vaccines. Apart from the US relief organization, other associations and organizations also came to help, among which were the Quakers.
Global Voices stands out as one of the earliest and strongest examples of how media committed to building community and defending human rights can positively influence how people experience events happening beyond their own communities and national borders.
This British documentary concentrates on the 1920s and the 1930s. It talks about the British cars like the Blower Bentley, Sunbeam, and others. It also spends a good deal of time on the Bugattis and other makes that were messing with superchargers but the real crux of the show are the Mercedes and Auto Union cars of he era and those things are so freaking wild and advanced it is amazing.
At their most avant-garde, city symphonies are invigorating examples of pure cinema: movement and abstraction animated by the camera. At their most documentary in technique, city symphonies can be seen as the forerunner of slow cinema: minimalist in style, meticulous in observation.
Not the first city symphony, but arguably the best known, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) enjoys the talents of some of the greatest names in German silent cinema. Its avant-garde director Walter Ruttmann, known for his experimentation with animation and abstraction, screenwriter Carl Mayer and cinematographer Karl Freund all share credits for the screenplay.
Ruttmann also cut the film though, and city symphonies are shaped as much by the edit as the treatment. The score was written by Edmund Meisel, who also provided music for Battleship Potemkin (1925). Berlin: Symphony of a Great City typifies the genre in many ways, from its strict day-in-the-life structure to its emphasis on the fast pace and anonymity of urban living.
City symphonies aspire to a higher artistic status than the travelogue. They use camera tricks and edits to emphasise the shapes of city buildings and roads, or the movement of crowds and trains, balancing abstraction with actuality filmmaking. Ruttman uses montages to connect aspects of city life, as when he edits together images of wheels and pistons in different factories.
At the other end of the spectrum, tudes sur Paris (1928) by Andr Sauvage is a lyrical, contemplative feature, tracing a canal journey from the city outskirts to the centre. This film contains many gorgeous moments, notably the sequence in the underground canal, with bursts of sunlight flooding the frame, but it may be a touch too slow to convert you to the joys of the city symphony overnight.
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