Pandora's Box (German: Die Büchse der Pandora) is a 1929 German silent drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, and starring Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, and Francis Lederer. The film follows Lulu, a seductive young woman whose uninhibited nature brings ruin to herself and those who love her. It is based on Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist ("Earth Spirit", 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora ("Pandora's Box", 1904). Dismissed by critics on its initial release, Pandora's Box was later rediscovered by film scholars as a classic of Weimar German cinema.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew - 1964 | by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Italian: Il vangelo secondo Matteo, lit. 'The Gospel according to Matthew') is a 1964 epic biblical drama film in the Italian neorealist style, written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It is a cinematic rendition of the story of Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew, from the Nativity through the Resurrection. In the neorealist tradition, the film utilizes a cast of non-professional actors, and is filmed entirely on-location throughout Southern Italy. The dialogue is taken directly from the Gospel of Matthew, as Pasolini felt that "images could never reach the poetic heights of the text."He reportedly chose Matthew's Gospel over the others because he had decided that "John was too mystical, Mark too vulgar, and Luke too sentimental." The film is considered a classic of world cinema and the neorealist genre. After initial release, it won the Venice Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, and three Nastro d'Argento Awards including Best Director. It was nominated for three Oscars - Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Score. In 2015, the Vatican City newspaper L'Osservatore Romano called it the best film on Christ ever made.

Esther and the King - 1960 (HD) | Starring Joan Collins & Richard Egan. Esther and the King (Italian: Ester e il re) is a 1960 religious epic film produced and directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Joan Collins as Esther, Richard Egan as Ahasuerus, and Denis O'Dea as Mordecai. Walsh and Michael Elkins wrote the screenplay, which was based on the Book of Esther of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament. It recounts the origin of the Jewish celebration of Purim. An international co-production released by 20th Century-Fox, Esther and the King was filmed in Italy in the CinemaScope format (although not signed as such) and the Technicolor color process. Mario Bava, the film's cinematographer, was credited as a co-director on Italian prints of the film. #history #bible #esther #joancollins

Manina, the Girl in the Bikini (French: Manina, la fille sans voiles) released in the UK as Manina, the Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter), is a 1952 French film directed by Willy Rozier and starring Brigitte Bardot, Jean-François Calvé and Howard Vernon. The film is one of Bardot's first film roles, at the age of 17 and was controversial for the scanty bikinis worn by the young Bardot in the film, one of the first occasions when a bikini had appeared in film and when the bikini was still widely considered immodest. Though released in France in 1952 as Manina, la fille sans voiles, the film was not released in the United States until 1958 as Manina, the Girl in the Bikini and in the United Kingdom until 1959 as The Lighthouse-Keeper's Daughter. In other countries it was released under other names. The film was able to be screened in the United States notwithstanding the Hays Code prohibition of exposure of the midriff as a foreign film. The film was shot in Cannes, Nice and Paris in the summer of 1952. Brigitte Bardot's father had signed a contract, on behalf of his minor daughter, specifying that the film was not to show indecent images. When in the course of filming, a series of "highly suggestive" photographs of his daughter was released, he accused the producing company of not respecting the contract and demanded that the film not be projected without the permission of a court. He lost the suit.

La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (HD) est un film de procès français réalisé par Carl Theodor Dreyer en 1927 et projeté pour la première fois à Copenhague le 21 avril 1928. Il s'agit d'un film muet mais qui avait été initialement conçu comme un film parlant, ce à quoi Dreyer dut renoncer pour des raisons liées à l'équipement technique du studio. D'où l'aspect déconcertant de ce film, qui adopte déjà les codes du parlant tout en restant un film muet. La plupart de la musique a été publiée avec des compositeurs français, à quelques exceptions.

Metropolis - 1927 (HD) | by Fritz Lang. Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name (which was intentionally written as a treatment). It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). Metropolis is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction film, being among the first feature-length ones of that genre. "On 1 January 2023, the film's American reserved copyright expired, thereby entering the film into the public domain." Wikiipedia. Remastered and Musically edited by Rueda Books & Arts with some master pieces of the greatest German classical baroque music composers: Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Wagner.

Battleship Potemkin - 1925 (Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov & More | HD): SM Eisenstein. Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergej M. Eisenstein. Edited and remastered by Rueda Books & Arts, with its main texts in Spanish and subtitles in English. Music by the great Russian composers: Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Rachmaninov and Karsakov. "The Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец Потёмкин, or Bronenósets Potemkin) is a 1925 silent historical drama film directed by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. The film depicts the mutiny that occurred on the battleship Potemkin in 1905, when the crew rebelled against the officers of the tsarist army. The film is considered one of the best in the history of cinema. It was named the best film in history at the 1958 Brussels General Exhibition." Wikipedia. This work is currently part of the public domain #tchaikovsky #classicalmusic

The Private Life of Henry VIII - 1933 (Colorized - HD) | Starring Charles Laughton. The Private Life of Henry VIII is a 1933 British film directed and co-produced by Alexander Korda and starring Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Merle Oberon and Elsa Lanchester. It was written by Lajos Bíró and Arthur Wimperis for London Film Productions, Korda's production company. The film, which focuses on the marriages of King Henry VIII of England, was a major international success, establishing Korda as a leading filmmaker and Laughton as a box-office star. Remastered by Rueda Books & Arts.

Napoleon - 1927 (Childhood: snowball fight). Napoléon is a 1927 French silent epic historical film, produced, and directed by Abel Gance that tells the story of Napoleon's early years. It is also the only film to use Polyvision (for the finale).

Agora | Black & White Version. Agora (Spanish: Ágora) is a 2009 historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenábar and written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The biopic stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, a mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in late 4th-century Roman Egypt, who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system and the heliocentric model that challenges it. Surrounded by religious turmoil and social unrest, Hypatia struggles to save the knowledge of classical antiquity from destruction. Max Minghella co-stars as Davus, Hypatia's father's slave, and Oscar Isaac as Hypatia's student, and later prefect of Alexandria, Orestes.

The Legend of Tomiris (HD) | Black & White Version. Tomiris is a 2019 Kazakhstani feature film directed by Akan Satayev, which tells the story of the queen of the Massagetae, Tomyris, and the Persian king, Cyrus the Great. The film co-stars Almira Tursyn, Aizhan Lighg, and Ghassan Massoud. The film was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Kazakhstan. The idea to create a film about Tomyris was brought by Aliya Nazarbayeva, the youngest daughter of the first president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. She was later employed as a general producer of the film.

Closely Watched Trains - 1966 (HD): Oscar Award. Closely Watched Trains (Czech: Ostře Sledované Vlaky) is a 1966 Czechoslovakian New Wave coming-of-age comedy film directed by Jiří Menzel and is one of the best-known films of the Czechoslovak New Wave. It was released in the United Kingdom as Closely Observed Trains. It is a story about a young man working at a train station in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. The film is based on a 1965 novel by Bohumil Hrabal. It was produced by Barrandov Studios and filmed on location in Central Bohemia. Released outside Czechoslovakia during 1967, it received widespread acclaim and won the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 40th Academy Awards in 1968. Nowadays the movie is assessed as one of the finest works of the Czech New Cinema.

Embrace of the Serpent (Spanish: El abrazo de la serpiente) is a 2015 Colombian internationally co-produced adventure drama film directed by Ciro Guerra, and written by Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal. Shot almost entirely in black and white, the film follows two journeys made thirty years apart by the indigenous shaman Karamakate in the Colombian Amazonian jungle, one with Theo, a German ethnographer, and the other with Evan, an American botanist, both of whom are searching for the rare plant yakruna. It was inspired by the travel diaries of Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, and dedicated to lost Amazonian cultures.

The Last Man on Earth is a 1964 post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. The film was produced by Robert L. Lippert and directed by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow, and stars Vincent Price and Franca Bettoia. The screenplay was written in part by Matheson, but he was dissatisfied with the result and chose to be credited as "Logan Swanson". William Leicester, Furio M. Monetti, and Ubaldo Ragona finished the script. The Last Man on Earth was filmed in Rome, with scenes being completed at Esposizione Universale Roma. It was released in the United States by American International Pictures. In the 1980s, the film entered the public domain. Sound and Music edited by Rueda Books & Arts.

La Tulipe Noire - 1964 (The Black Tulip) is a Franco-Italian-Spanish swashbuckling film directed by Christian-Jaque, released in theaters in 1964. This film, which is one of the most broadcast cinema films on French television channels, has only a distant connection with the eponymous novel by Alexandre Dumas which is nevertheless credited in the film's credits as having inspired it.

Captain Pantoja and the Special Services (HD) | Black & White Version. Captain Pantoja and the Special Services (Spanish: Pantaleón y las visitadoras) is a 1999 Peruvian-Spanish film directed by Francisco J. Lombardi, Starring Angie Cepeda and Salvador del Solar. It is based on the eponymous comic novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. The film was chosen as Peru's official Best Foreign Language Film submission at the 72nd Academy Awards.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (known as Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in German) is a 1926 German animated fairytale film by Lotte Reiniger. The story is based on elements from the One Thousand and One Nights written by Hanna Diyab, including "Aladdin," "The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Perī-Bānū", and "The Ebony Horse." It is the oldest surviving animated feature film. (Two earlier ones had been made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani, but they are considered to be lost.) The Adventures of Prince Achmed features a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented that involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera. The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets, though hers were animated frame by frame, not manipulated in live action. The original prints featured color tinting. Reiniger also used the first form of a multiplane camera in making the film, one of the most important devices in pre digital animation. Several famous avant-garde animators worked on this film with Lotte Reiniger, among them Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, and Carl Koch.

Les Misérables. Complete Summary of Victor Hugo's Novel (illustrated audiobook), 7 minutes and 14 seconds long, written and edited by Juan C. Rueda, with the voice of the British narrator Oliver "Wheel", with images from the French Series, based on the same novel by Victor Hugo (With Gérard Depardieu, Christian Clavier, John Malkovich and Virginie Ledoyen).

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly - 1966: Music Intro. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, literally "The good, the ugly, the bad") is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach as "the Ugly".[9] Its screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni, and Leone (with additional screenplay material and dialogue provided by an uncredited Sergio Donati),[10] based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film's sweeping widescreen cinematography, and Ennio Morricone composed the film's score, including its main theme. It was an Italian-led production with co-producers in Spain, West Germany, and the United States. Most of the filming took place in Spain." Wikipedia