2007 Archive

Footage Farm

Anne Connan (l'Aventurière)

Production Company:

La Compagnie des Taxi-Brousse

Country of Production:

France

Synopsis

During the Popular Front in Paris, Cheung Li, a young Chinese woman, asks Iris, 'l'Aventurière', for help. Terrified by opium dealers, she needs to recover her little girl who still lives in China. In this country torn by the civil war between nationalists and communists, partly occupied by Japanese, Iris will little-by-little discover the past of the young woman. A singular friendship between Iris and the one who legend will baptize 'The Red Empress', will take them from Manchuria to the remote places of China, following the Last Emperor's and the Great Helmsman's footsteps.

Archival highlights

This series is an international programme. It relates the extraordinary destiny of a young imaginary Adventurer who travels through the world: from Russia to America, in Africa, in Asia, in India, in South America and in the Far North. 'L'Aventurière' will be subtitle in English in January.

The Master's Edition Norman Mclaren

Production Company:

National Film Board of Canada

Country of Production:

Canada

Synopsis

The methods that McLaren used in making his films involved multiple manipulations of original elements in order to create simple colour separations. With repeated passes through the optical printer, the elements became damaged over successive generations, resulting in a 35 mm internegative that was far from pristine. McLaren was well aware of these shortcomings and most likely never achieved the image quality he was striving for. With today's computer-based technologies, we could certainly have produced near-perfect copies of most of his films, but for the sake of historical authenticity, we have resisted this temptation.

Archival highlights

It was thus the NFB's responsibility to ensure that Mclaren's work would be preserved and restored for the benefit of countless animation enthusiasts as well as for the general public here in Canada but throughout the world as well. All the preservation and restoration work allowed the NFB to ensure Mclaren's numerous films would continue to mesmerize audiences and simulate creators the world over. From a technical perspective, the many challenges encountered during this undertaking presented our image specialists with opportunities to hone their expertise and create a truly impressive and coherent rendition of Mclaren's work.

National Archives Website

Director:

Gavin Houtheusen

Producer(s):

Bob Daoust

Footage Archive Researcher:

Daniel Sherman

Archival Sources:

Film Images

Production Company:

National Archives

Country of Production:

UK

Synopsis

For the first time on The National Archives' website anyone can now view complete public information films from 1945-2006 free of charge. Joining with the Central Office of Information (COI) to celebrate their 60th Anniversary, The National Archives in co-operation with Film Images have featured a selection some of the most memorable and influential COI public information films that cover some fascinating events from Britain's post-war history.

Archival highlights

A wonderful resource for film researchers, educational users and members of the public.

The U.S. Vs. John Lennon

Director:

David Leaf, John Scheinfeld

Producer(s):

David Leaf, John Scheinfeld

Footage Archive Researcher:

Kristina Wood, Jim McDonnell

Archival Sources:

U.S. National Archives, NBC News Archives, BBC Motion Gallery/CBS News, ABC NEWS Video Source, Reelin In The Years Productions

Production Company:

Authorized Pictures

Country of Production:

USA

Synopsis

The U.S. Vs. John Lennon speaks powerfully to our own unsettled times. The film traces Lennon's metamorphosis from lovable "Moptop" to anti-war activist, and reveals how and why the U.S. government tried to silence him. Focusing on the years 1966-1976, it uses rarely-seen archival footage and authoritative witnesses to place Lennon's activism in the context of the times. Scrupulously researched and vividly illustrated, the film illuminates a little-known chapter of modern history, when a president and his administration waged a covert war against the world's most popular musician.

Archival highlights

'The U.S. vs. John Lennon' uses archival footage in two notable ways. First, to the delight of historians and Lennon fans alike, the film's archive researchers tracked down relevant footage that hadn't been seen in since it was originally shot decades ago. Considering that John Lennon was one of the most photographed and filmed people in the world, finding *any* unseen footage is significant. Second, the extensive use of archival footage allowed the filmmakers to let Lennon 'tell' his own story without the use of voiceover narration, a creative decision that makes the film even more compelling and powerful.

Deep Water

Director:

Louise Osmond, Jerry Rothwell

Producer(s):

Al Morrow, Jonny Persey, John Smithson

Footage Archive Researcher:

Cassie Bennitt

Archival Sources:

BBC Motion Gallery, ITV, SWFTVA, Moitessier Library, Colin Forbes

Production Company:

APT Films in association with Darlow Smithson Productions

Country of Production:

UK

Synopsis

Deep Water is the stunning true story of the fateful voyage of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur yachtsman who enters the most daring nautical challenge ever - the very first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race.

Archival highlights

Deep Water contains over 50 minutes of archive sourced from all over the world, originating on several formats - everything from 35mm to 8mm - and edited into a tense compelling narrative. The production team was indefatigable in successfully tracking down Donald Crowhurst's original rushes and tape recordings taken during his voyage and lost for over 30 years. The archive in Deep Water is vital for a film that eschews dramatic reconstruction in favour of authenticity. It took two years to find and clear all the footage - ultimately it was a hugely challenging but rewarding process.

Let Us Die Like Brothers

Director:

Toby Groom

Producer(s):

Toby Groom

Footage Archive Researcher:

Caroline Coxon

Archival Sources:

Film Images

Production Company:

Commonwealth War Graves Commission / The History Channel

Country of Production:

UK

Synopsis

There is a significant lack of information available to young people, both in the United Kingdom and South Africa, which deals with the involvement and sacrifices made by black servicemen during the two world wars. By telling the story of the sinking of the Mendi, and the tragic loss of those on board, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in collaboration with The History Channel aims to redress some of this imbalance.

Archival highlights

This educational CD-Rom tells of the hopes and dreams of black South Africans who enlisted, examines the way they were treated and the legacy of their sacrifice. CD-Rom includes detailed lesson plans cross referenced to the National Curriculum.

Radio 2 Elvis

Director:

Steve Cope

Producer(s):

Edel Erickson

Footage Archive Researcher:

Samina Ahmed, Quentin Clarke

Archival Sources:

BBC Motion Gallery, Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc, Sesame Street Workshop, Montracal Festival

Production Company:

Red Bee Media

Country of Production:

UK

Synopsis

The Brief from Radio 2 Marketing was to create an advert showcasing an amazing line-up of musicians playing along with Elvis. The film opens with footage taken from The King's 1973 'Aloha' from Hawaii TV Broadcast, with Elvis introducing a band of legendary names such as; Marvin Gaye, Keith Moon, Stevie Wonder, Noel Gallagher, Sheryl Crow and Jimmy Page. With the exception of the Sugababes, all the other artists were painstakingly sourced from archive material and then even more painstakingly super-imposed into the original Elvis footage. The creative agency was DFGW, the production company Red Bee Media.

Archival highlights

The trail seems to have touched a chord in so many viewers and had such an overwhelming response maybe because so many people were momentarily fooled into believing this really was Elvis's band or maybe because it was wonderful seeing such an amazing line up of artists all on one stage' It's a creative and clever use of some great archive material; really fresh and exciting idea achieved using some classic footage.

Hockey: A Peoples History

Director:

Peter Ingles

Producer(s):

Hubert Gendron

Footage Archive Researcher:

Mia Webster, Jean Simard

Archival Sources:

CBC/Radio-Canada, nfb, Hockey Hall of Fame Toronto, Libraries and Archives Canada, Molstar

Country of Production:

Canada

Synopsis

With the arrival of television in Canada in 1952, hockey becomes a national pastime. In this episode, real heroes and ordinary people come to life through archives. A young black player attempts to cross prejudicial boundaries to the NHL. In Toronto a 9 year-old girl marks it into organized hockey by passing as a boy. Rivals Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe, both number 9, dazzle professional hockey. Then Richard is suspended for the playoffs, causing a riot, transcending the realm of hockey. And in the heart of the Cold War, the Soviets shock the world by defeating the Canadians.

Archival highlights

The visual research for this episode was extensive. We insisted upon archival accuracy and authenticity. We included footage and photos from 59 different institutions and personal collections, having contacted many more, including sources from Canada, the US, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and Russia. Television had just begun to air; "Hockey Night in Canada" was uniting people from coast to coast. We see excerpts of historic hockey matches, behind the scenes filming of games, interviews with players, unexpected footage of our heroes with kids, pertinent firsts, hard to find original footage and colour film. Footage blends harmoniously with HD filming.

Chernobyl : The Invisible Thief

Director:

Christoph Boekel

Producer(s):

Christoph Boekel

Footage Archive Researcher:

Christoph Boekel, Natalia Domrina

Archival Sources:

Archive Videofilm TV Company (Moscow), WDR Archive (West German Radio), BAUM-FILM GmbH Archive, Informations - und Medienzentrale der Bundeswehr (Archive of German Army), Private Archive Christoph Boekel

Production Company:

BAUM-FILM

Country of Production:

Germany

Synopsis

April 26th 1986. The day a nightmare scenario became horrific reality: the day reactor block 4 of the Chernobyl atomic power station exploded. While researching and filming this project filmmaker Christoph Boekel met numerous victims of the atomic catastrophe. His own wife was one of them and she, too, died of cancer. A moving film told from the personal perspective of the director, it is a requiem for the often forgotten victims of the disaster and a caveat against putting blind trust in technological advancement.

Archival highlights

Director Christoph Boekel uses his own archive footage and the footage of people he worked with to tell the dramatic fate of the victims of the Chernobyl catastrophe. The footage use creates the personal perspective of the director.

Folk Britannia: Ballads and Blues

Director:

Mike Connolly

Producer(s):

Mike Connolly

Footage Archive Researcher:

Kalbir Dhillon

Archival Sources:

Historic Films, Peter Kennedy, DR-TV, Alan Lomax Archive, Jill Donnellan

Production Company:

BBC Music Entertainment

Country of Production:

UK

Synopsis

This three part series on British Folk music begins with the birth of the folk revival in the 50's and the political struggles that ensued over the ownership of the movement. Lined up on one side were the traditionalists in The English Folk Song and Dance Society whose patron was Princess Margaret, and on the other, communists like Ewan McColl and A.L. Lloyd whose patron was more likely to be Joseph Stalin. Programme one also takes in the skiffle explosion and the birth of a more bohemian brand of folk which would eventually end the left's dominance of the scene.

Archival highlights

Kalbir Dhillon sourced a rich mix of colour footage of 1950s field recordings from The Alan Lomax Archive, classic archive such as 'Caller Herrin' and Philip Donellan's 'The Irishmen', performances from the 60s folk series 'Hullabaloo' and rare footage and stills from the vaults of the English Folk Dance & Song Society. The wealth of stills includes gems from the Brian Shuel Collection and Peter Kennedy's archive. The series earned plaudits from mainstream press as well as the folk community, many of whom who uphold it as the definitive history of modern Folk Music in the British Isles.

l'aventurière: L'Impératrice et le Dragon

Director:

Alain Wieder

Producer(s):

Maurice Ribière

Footage Archive Researcher:

Anne Connan, Marie D'Origny

Archival Sources:

Pathé Gaumont Archives, Lobster Films, British Film Institute, NARA, Kaleidoscope

Production Company:

La Compagnie Des Taxi-Brousse

Country of Production:

France

Synopsis

During the Popular Front in Paris, Cheung Li, a young Chinese woman, asks Iris, "l'Aventurière", for help. Terrified by opium dealers, she needs to recover her little girl who still lives in China. In this country torn by the civil war between nationalists and communists, partly occupied by Japanese, Iris will little-by-little discover the past of the young woman. A singular friendship between Iris and the one who legend will baptize 'The Red Empress', will take them from Manchuria to the remote places of China, following the Last Emperor's and the Great Helmsman's footsteps.

Archival highlights

This series is an international programme. It relates the extraordinary destiny of a young imaginary Adventurer who travels through the world between the 1920s and 1940s: from Russia to America, in Africa, in Asia, in India, in South America and in the Far North. By following her adventures, we relive the principal historic events of the beginning of the 20 th century. Between reality and fiction, this story is narrated by comic characters. The tale is illustrated with drawings and archive footage coming from more than 30 different countries. The footage is largely unknown and is used like film rushes. "L'Aventurière" will be subtitle in English in January.

Nation On Film: Womens Football

Director:

Jacob Hinkey

Producer(s):

Jacob Hinkey

Footage Archive Researcher:

Rachel Bowering

Archival Sources:

Private Collection (Ron Frankland), ITN Source/British Pathe

Production Company:

BBC

Country of Production:

UK

Synopsis

This is the story of how film captured the rise and controversial fall of one the most extraordinary sports teams Britain has ever seen. From the newsreels of the 1920s to the films of one passionate amateur, we've pieced together rare and unusual archive to tell their story. The story of how a group of wartime factory workers played to raise money for injured war heroes, attracted crowds of 50,000, became the first unofficial England women's football team and then paid the price and was banned by the Football Association.

Archival highlights

The Dick, Kerr Ladies story is journalistically fascinating. Their extraordinary achievements and their highly controversial demise is the stuff of Hollywood films never mind a documentary. The fact that is essentially an untold story (this is the first television documentary that's focused on the Dick, Kerr tale) only adds to the intrigue. But for our series, which puts film first, makes archive 'King', we needed to weave this remarkable story together with the film story. This meant giving the back story to the archive, the context, the why it was filmed, even the how it was filmed.

Miss Universe 1929-Lisl Goldarbeiter. A Queen in Wien

Director:

Pacter Forga¡cs

Producer(s):

Ralph Wieser

Production Company:

Mischief Films

Country of Production:

Austria/The Netherlands

Synopsis

A personal documentary film about the life of Lisl Goldarbeiter 'the first and only Austrian Miss Universe' and her cousin Marci, who kept his camera trained on her throughout his life. A little film about big-time fame and eternal love, set against the background of 1930s Vienna.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple

Director:

Stanley Nelson

Producer(s):

Kristin Lesko

Footage Archive Researcher:

Robert Chehoski, Stephen Parr

Archival Sources:

Oddball Film+Video, Film Archives, Fulcrum TV, KGO TV, KTVU

Production Company:

Firelight Media

Country of Production:

USA

Synopsis

On November 18, 1978, over 900 members of Peoples Temple died in the largest mass suicide in history. What drew so many people across racial and class lines to the Peoples Temple? How could a diverse group of 900 people be convinced to commit suicide? Who was Jim Jones to command such loyalty that parents would murder their own children? Using never before seen archival footage and survivor interviews, 'Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple' tells the story of the people who followed Jim Jones from Indiana, to California, and finally to the remote jungles of Guyana, South America, in a misbegotten quest to build an ideal society.

Archival highlights

The San Francisco based Peoples Temple, led by Indiana native Jim Jones had a large following, initiated many community based programs and had capital, political clout and the good will of the San Francisco Bay Area. The mass suicide/murder shocked the nation and crippled San Francisco's spirit. We worked with Stanley Nelson to uncover rare, never-before-seen historical footage in our archives to reveal the complex truths behind the Peoples Temple's charismatic leader Jim Jones, his multiracial, multicultural San Francisco following and the rapid-fire events that resulted in the tragedy. We're proud to have worked on this cinematic metaphor for the spiritual yearning and cultural catharsis of those times.