This short traces the history of sound in the movies, beginning with French scientist Leon Scott's experiments in 1857. Featured are snippets from early sound pictures.

Movie

5.0

1984

O Som, ou Tratado de Harmonia

film about the desire of listening. An intermingling of voices from childhood, dreams, history, sex and politics. A visual essay about the universe of sounds. What is sound? What is the sound experience? Sound placed and replaced as Energy. Nothing more should be said. The final conclusion, while the spectator flies over an infinite sea, talks about spreading fragility open. That is the Sound.

Movie

6.7

1946

Okay for Sound

This short was released in connection with the 20th anniversary of Warner Brothers' first exhibition of the Vitaphone sound-on-film process on 6 August 1926. The film highlights Thomas A. Edison and Alexander Graham Bell's efforts that contributed to sound movies and acknowledges the work of Lee De Forest. Brief excerpts from the August 1926 exhibition follow. Clips are then shown from a number of Warner Brothers features, four from the 1920s, the remainder from 1946/47.

Movie

2006

Parc Central

"Central Park" is composed of 11 films that offer a visual, sound and poetic journey through 11 cities crossed by the artist. Fascinated by the city, space and urbanism, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster has been developing the concept of "tropical modernity" for several years, starting from the cohabitation and the confrontation between architecture and vegetation. It is around this research that she designed "Central Park" 11 films : - Kyoto (1998) - Taipei (2000) - Buenos Aires (2003) - Los Glaciares (2003) - Hong Kong (2000) - Encore Tapei (2000) - White Sands (2003) - Brasilia (1998) - Paris (1999) - Shangai (2003) - Rio de Janeiro (2000)

Movie

2015

Everybody's Cage

In “Everybody’s Cage”, German film artist Sandra Trostel turns John Cage and his approach to art into a tangible fascination, without giving in to explain just a single bit of it.

Movie

8.0

2016

Melody of Noise

The film accompanies musicians who have devoted themselves to new, uncharted sounds with a great deal of passion. They build new instruments and work with quotidian noises. In the process, the ostensible noise often becomes sound. An adventurous journey of discovery into the realm of noises and sounds, rhythms and stillness. Together with people who listen closely and without reservation. A film that aims to engage viewers to listen with their eyes and see with their ears. Astonishingly sublime.

Movie

2010

Soundtracker

Pure sound unaltered by human hands is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Gordon Hempton is an Emmy Award-winning sound recordist who has spent the last 30 years trying to find and record the vanishing sounds of nature in an attempt to capture a disappearing sensory experience. Filmmaker Nick Sherman observes Hempton in the wilderness for 30 days and uncovers an obsessive artist on a quest for perfection in this obscure medium. Hempton’s natural ability to locate and articulate himself through sound has a contagious energy and gives his work a transportive quality. Soundtracker is a fascinating meditation on the world’s changing landscape and the things we may be leaving behind in the service of progress.

Movie

10.0

2011

KanZeOn

An unusual documentary exploring sound. Unique elements of Japanese culture are revealed through ancient rituals and extraordinary musical spectacles. A young Buddhist priest whose family has been serving a temple for the past 500 years is also a DJ and beat-boxer. A drum teacher takes part in a costume performance of a 700-year-old ghost story. A female performer plays the Sho, a rare bamboo instrument that is believed to imitate the call of the mythical phoenix. The core ideas explaining the magical potential of sound that permeates all parts of the film are presented in the tradition of Shingon Buddhism. These beliefs are explored through following Buddhist chanting lessons for student priests at Shuchiin University in Kyoto.

Movie

2013

Obscure Pleasures: A Portrait of Walerian Borowczyk

During a hospital stay in 2001, the Polish painter, sculptor and filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk compiled a handwritten list of the objects and animals that were featured in his films. While he had used both encyclopedias and dictionaries to order chaos in his own films, this list saw Borowczyk putting his own life in order.

Movie

2019

Absence of Me

Hundreds of boxes left by the famous uruguayan musician and political activist Alfredo Zitarrosa (1936-1989) who run away the dictatorship in the 70s, have not been touched since his death 27 years ago. Now his wife and daughters are trying to save the memories, tapes, music and sound recordings that the boxes contain to the posterity.

Movie

6.0

2016

Actors of Sound

Since the 1930’s, sound gurus referred to as Foley artists have recreated the sounds that infuse a film with life. During a film’s post-production, Foley artists recreate sound that will match the moving image on-screen, using whatever objects are at their fingertips, from hundreds of pairs of old shoes to clunky old tools and squeaky mattresses. But how will Hollywood’s low-tech sound artists survive as digital technology consumes modern movie-making?

Movie

7.0

2016

Sonic Sea

The devastating impact of industrial and military ocean noise on whales and other marine life.

Movie

5.0

2014

Film Is Not a Sausage: Borowczyk and the Short Film

A documentary about Walerian Borowczyk's short films and animation, featuring his collaborators from that time.

Movie

2014

Ballad of Imprisonment: Making Blanche

A documentary about the making of Walerian Borowczyk's 'Blanche'.

Movie

6.4

1929

Plane Crazy

Referred as the actual first Mickey Mouse short. Inspired by Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris, Mickey builds a plane to take Minnie for a trip.

Movie

6.0

1978

The Shout

A traveller by the name of Crossley forces himself upon a musician and his wife in a lonely part of Devon, and uses the aboriginal magic he has learned to displace his host.

Movie

1988

How Does Sound Sound?

"Toot!" "Tick!" "Chirp!" Onomatopoeia is introduced in this "soundsational" adventure. To learn the importance of sound in the world, Peter and Jessica accept Figment's invitation to go with him into Soundspace where they unlock the power of words and the magic of their imaginations. By journey's end, our intrepid explorers learn that language and sound have rhythm—and that the five senses may be used to explore the world around us.

Movie

4.3

2017

Listen

Despite living in a doomed country that hangs by a thread, Joud, a handsome sound engineer meets and falls in love with strong and free-spirited Rana. The young lovers, from completely different social and religious backgrounds, are drawn closer to each other, but a drastic turn of events gets between them and Rana suddenly slips away. As her parents forbid Joud from seeing her, the young man determined to see her again, finds new means of communicating with her by convincing Marwa, her sister, to download his voice messages and secretly play them to Rana

Movie

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Live Aid

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