Joris Ivens

Rain falls on a Dutch city. (imdb)

A film crew headed by a veteran director (Joris Ivens) travels to China's Gobi desert in this symbolic documentary-styled fantasy. While the crew waits for the wind to kick up, weather reports tell of tidal waves every place but China. The director is hospitalized after a fall from his chair and has dreams he is part of the Melies film A Trip To The Moon. (allmovie.com)

Accompanied by a musical score, the film shows the manufacture and assembly of the various components of a radio in 1930

A docu-drama of Soviet industrialization from the early 1930s showing the conversion of coal and ore into coke.

The film is a documentary portraying a struggle as man tries to subdue nature. To prevent flooding and for purposes of land reclamation, the people of the Netherlands struggle and succeed in building a breaker, thereby eliminating the wild inland body of water once known as the Zuider Zee (now called Ijsselmeer). (imdb)

Documentary about the Vietnam war from the perspective of Vietnamese villagers.

A documentary showing the struggle of the Spanish Republican government against a rebellion by ultra-right-wing forces led by Gen. Francisco Franco and backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. (imdb)

A report on an ideological debate between a teacher and a pupil regarding an incident with a football.

Instructional film about the (former) biggest harbour in the world, with a hybrid format. Well known Ivens themes are revisited, like The Flying Dutchman in the fiction part of the film, who returns to the modern day Rotterdam, that has recovered very well after the devastating bombardments in the second world war.

Scenes of life and landscape in Provence where a chilly wind called the Mistral blows down the valley of the Rhône to the Mediterranean (imdb)

A travelogue of Valparaiso, Chile, a city built on steep hills. Life is a constant struggle against geography (imdb)

Quotidian scenes of Paris along the quays beside the River Seine. Fishing, snoozing, cutting hair, washing clothes (imdb)

Documentary about the Indonesian struggle for independence from the Dutch.

A documentary showing the struggle to bring electricity to rural areas of the United States. (imdb)

The 400 million people of China are heirs to a great civilization, as their pagodas and stone lions can attest (imdb)

Documentary about a miner's strike in Borinage.

Close shots of a railway train underway: track racing underneath, steam escaping, cars coupling, gears ratcheting, signals changing. (imdb)

Shots of Parisian traffic.

On the age of 13 Joris Ivens was fond of Cowboys and Indians stories, so he decided to invent one himself. He made a script and used a camera from his father's shop. This became his first film Wigwam, with his own family as cast. Black Eagle, a bad indian, kidnaps the daughter of a farmer's family. Flaming Arrow, played by the young Joris Ivens, saves the child from the kidnapper and brings it back to her family. No better conclusion than smoking a piece pipe.

Life in the province of Sinkiang near the Chinese frontier with the Soviet Union (bfi.org.uk)

In seven different parts, Godard, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamees army during the Vietnam-war. (imdb)

The Drugstore documents a community outreach pharmacy, one which goes beyond the notion of merchandising to that of healing-clinical consultations, on-the-spot accupuncture, as well as drug dispensing are all part of the daily routine for a conscientious, caring, self-motivated (and self-critical) staff.

From 1972 until 1974, Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan, along with a Chinese film crew, documented the last days of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of an era. The vast amount of footage they shot was edited into twelve films of varying lengths. Focusing on ordinary people spread over a wide geographic area-many of whom were living and working in collectives-the filmmakers recorded a unique moment in history, and also captured some of the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture. (MoMA)

Our Russian Front is a 1942 American documentary film directed by Joris Ivens and Lewis Milestone, and narrated by Walter Huston to promote support for the Soviet Union's war effort. (wikipedia)

An American wartime propaganda film about the history of Japan from the 16th century to the 1930's.

Propaganda film for the National Film Board of Canada about the Royal Canadian Navy's escorting of convoys in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Film about the third ‘Weltfestspiele der Jugend und Studenten für den Frieden’ in East Berlin, 1951. West Germany is represented as a degenerate country which has been occupied by the Americans and is still inclined to fascism. We see the construction of the stadium, the departure and arrival of the delegations, the opening and closing by Enrico Berlinguer, a sports event, the parade of the delegations, a visit to Potsdam, folk dancing, and police violence against youngsters from West Berlin.

An examination of convoy ships that were deployed by the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II.