Oh good! You found us.
We're an on-demand movie theater where you can discover hand-picked films from festivals and collections around
the world. We make it easy for you to find films you'll love, no matter what your interests are.
Ephemera
see all genres ›Archivist/filmmaker Rick Prelinger coined the term “ephemeral film” to describe films produced outside the contexts of art and entertainment. He has referred to the style of the industrially-sponsored films as “capitalist realism.” Films made with practical purposes in mind are considered ephemeral: advertising films, educational films, training films, government-produced films and home movies all fit the bill (as well as works that incorporate found footage in new configurations).
Discover Ephemera Films
Genres / Ephemera
SUB-GENRES · Advertising · Amateur · Educational · Industrial · Newsreel · Snipe
-
Dewar's
In 1897, two years after they expanded out of Scotland and opened their first New York office, Dewar's Scotch commissioned the Edison Manufacturing Company to produce this advertisement to be projected onto the roof of a building in Herald Square. Featuring a single shot of kilted men dancing a happy jig (perhaps due to the...Start your free trial to watch
-
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
Buckle up for DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, the acclaimed hijacking documentary that eerily foreshadowed 9/11. We meet the romantic skyjackers who fought their revolutions and won airtime on the passenger planes of the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1990s, such characters were apparently no more, replaced on our TV screens...Start your free trial to watch
-
The Dirigible "Homeland"
A short documentary portrait of a dirigible leaving the hanger and taking flight. Regardless of the brief duration, the film is a beautiful display of early-1900s lighter-than-air travel and a precursor of the newsreels that would follow in later years..Start your free trial to watch
-
Double Take
An Official Selection at both the Berlin and Sundance Film Festivals, Johan Grimonprez's DOUBLE TAKE is a unique film that combines early 60's advertising, hysterical Red Menace newsreels and Alfred Hitchcock (featuring his hilarious introductions to his TV show and movies, and interviews with actual Hitchcock impersonator...Start your free trial to watch
-
Double-Headed Eagle
Rather than offering a contemporary interpretation of history through narration and interviews, filmmaker Lutz Becker allows the disturbing saga of German fascism to unfold on its own terms. The rise of the National Socialist Party is depicted almost exclusively in newsreel footage and clips of features...Start your free trial to watch
-
Dream Sphinx
Ondine and Sally Dixon "star" as ecstatic 19th century lovers in Roger Jacoby's first home-processed film. Nickelodeon imagery, school children of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Botanical Conservatory. "As the strains of an aria rise, the grainy specks of Jacky's self-processed film begin to darken and swim like fruit fles,...Start your free trial to watch
-
Everything Is Better Now
EVERYTHING IS BETTER NOW is an infomercial on the importance of ambiguity in life. The main presenters start out with a cheerful and upbeat presentation but slowly become lost in their examples and drift into a personal argument regarding a handwritten note. The camera work and the editing move from a...Start your free trial to watch
-
The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty
The campaign for a montage style that preserved the intelligibility of film as a historical record was bolstered by the 1927 release of Esfir Shub's compilation film THE FALL OF THE ROMANOV DYNASTY. Universally acclaimed, the film established Shub as a new type of documentarian, an editor-director. Made...Start your free trial to watch
-
The Family Album
THE FAMILY ALBUM is a one-hour experimental documentary utilizing a vast collection of rare 16mm home movies from the 1920s through the 1950s. These raw materials are woven into a composite lifetime, passing through the celebrations and struggles from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience....Start your free trial to watch
-
Fears of Children
Why are children afraid? Where do their fears come from? In FEARS OF CHILDREN, a young boy is afraid. His parents have difficulties with his fear. In turn, their son unexpectedly resolves these issues in unusual way. It is the 1950s after all. Things were different then. Or were they?Start your free trial to watch
-
Fed Up!
About 70% of the food we eat contains genetically engineered ingredients and the biotech industry is spending millions a year to convince us that this technology is our only hope. Using hilarious and disturbing archival footage and featuring interviews with farmers, scientists, government officials and activists, FED UP!...Start your free trial to watch
-
The Fever of '57
THE FEVER OF '57 shows what happened after the launch of Sputnik and reveals how Cold War tensions escalated between the Superpowers to a fever pitch. THE FEVER OF '57 is a must-see for students. Dramatic and fast-paced, it shows what happened after the launch of Sputnik 1 and what happened in America as a...Start your free trial to watch
-
For What Purpose
Wooden crates, bundled cardboard, trash cans and stacks of magazines become fodder for a protracted brawl between two young men over a briefcase. But what could be inside? An amateur production from the young Don Glut who would later go on to create not only the novelization of a STAR WARS film but many...Start your free trial to watch
-
From Rugs to Riches
Ever wondered about rugs? Ever wondered about how to sell a rug? If so, as a rug salesperson, did you ever wonder how to sell more rugs? More rugs than ever before? In this training film for Caprolan nylon rugs, the great Jonathan Winters shows sales-folks how to do their job better. How, indeed, to go...Start your free trial to watch
-
Golden Digest
ANIMAL CHARM makes videos from other people's videos. By compositing TV and reducing it to a kind of tic-ridden babble, they force television to not make sense. While this disruption is playful, it also reveals an overall 'essence' of mass culture that would not be apprehended otherwise. Videos such as STUFFING, ASHLEY, and...Start your free trial to watch
-
The Graceless
A post-9/11 meditation on the new millennium, THE GRACELESS is a video tapestry of digital and analogue artifacts rephotographed and collaged from discarded 16mm educational films, Air Force test footage, live broadcast streams of pre-invasion television news and reality entertainment. Layers of images collide and tear away,...Start your free trial to watch
