Robert Flaherty

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Robert J. Flaherty’s follow-up to Nanook of the North shifts from the Arctic to the South Seas, portraying Samoan village life with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized “Gauguin idyll,” the film celebrates daily rituals, communal traditions, and the passage into adulthood, suffused with what Flaherty called “pride of beauty, pride of strength.”

On the South Pacific island of Bora Bora, a young couple's love is threatened when the tribal chief declares the girl a sacred virgin.

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.

An alcoholic doctor on a Polynesian island, disgusted by white exploitation of the natives, finds himself marooned on a pristinely beautiful island.

The fifth film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World War.

In India, Toomai, a young mahout, helps lead the British on a large expedition to round up wild elephants.

The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant existence centred around the struggle between man and his hostile but magnificent surroundings. A blend of documentary and fictional narrative, the film captures the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands.

The second film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series. It introduces Germany as a nation whose aggressive ambitions began in 1863 with Otto von Bismarck and the Nazis as its latest incarnation.

Finnish filmmaker and artist Sami van Ingen is a great-grandson of documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty, and seemingly the sole member of the family with a hands-on interest in continuing the directing legacy. Among the materials he found in the estate of Robert and Frances Flaherty’s daughter Monica were the film reels and video tapes detailing several years of work on realising her lifelong dream project: a sound version of her parents’ 1926 docu-fiction axiom, Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age.

An unfinished omnibus film project by Orson Welles exploring Latin American life through documentary and dramatized non-fiction.

The life and works of the great artist Michelangelo Buonarroti are shown against the historical background of his time. It begins with his earliest artworks, and follows his life and career as he achieves lasting fame. The documentary includes detailed looks at some of the artist's most renowned creations. American heavily re-edited version of the Swiss 1938 film Michelangelo: Das Leben eines Titanen, with new footage shot by Robert J. Flaherty added. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

Grierson set out to make "propaganda," and this film--with it's voice-over proclaiming the great value of the British industrial worker, without a hint of ambiguity or doubt--fits that category well. The authoritatarian narrator feels out-of-date and unsophisticated, but the footage is well shot and interesting, and the transparency of the propaganda aspect is almost a reflief at a time when so many films have hidden agendas.

This short film is Godard’s message to the people of Lausanne, specifically journalist and critic Freddy Buache, addressing his reasons why he will not make a film about their town’s 500th anniversary. Rather than cynical or defensive, Godard's bemused narration of the footage of Lausanne is imaginative and even playful, a rumination on cinema's possibilities.

Illustrated travel lecture directed by Robert J. Flaherty, composed of film shot during his time with the Inuit in 1914-1915. After enthusiastic reception, the entire film stock was burned in an accident in 1916 leaving this a lost film. Soon after, Flaherty would return to the Inuit to reimagine his project as Nanook of the North (1922).

Documentary showing the poor state that American agriculture had fallen into during the Great Depression.

A well known storyteller, Tomas O' Diorain tells tales of the sea around a fire in an old Irish cottage. His storytelling is juxtaposed with images of the sea. This film, thought lost was rediscovered by Houghton Library curators during a cataloging update in 2013.

A visual celebration of Manhattan and its waterways on the 300th anniversary of purchase from the local Native Americans.

Robert Flaherty is credited with being the father of the modern documentary after making "Nanook of the North" and classics such as "Man of Aran" and "Louisiana Story", but he is also criticized for engaging in distortion and stereotyping.