The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle — where the sun never sets. Founded by Aki and Mika Kaurismäki along with Anssi Mänttäri and Peter von Bagh in 1985, the festival has played host to an international who’s who of directors and each day begins with a two-hour discussion. To mark the festival’s silver anniversary, festival director Peter von Bagh edited together highlights from these dialogues to create an epic four-part choral history of cinema drawn from the anecdotes, insights, and wisdom of his all-star cast: Coppola, Fuller, Forman, Chabrol, Corman, Demy, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, Varda, Oliveira, Erice, Rouch, Gilliam, Jancso — and 64 more. Ranging across innumerable topics (war, censorship, movie stars, formative influences, America, neorealism) these voices, many now passed away, engage in a personal dialogue across the years that’s by turns charming, profound, hilarious and moving.

Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner were siblings who were born in Poland and emigrated to Canada near the turn of the century. In 1903, the brothers entered the budding motion picture business. In time, the Warner Brothers moved into film production and would open their own studio in 1923.

The story of Tasmanian-born actor Errol Flynn whose short & flamboyant life, full of scandals, adventures, loves and excess was largely played out in front of the camera - either making movies or filling the newsreels and gossip magazines. Tragically he was dead from the effects of drugs and alcohol by the time he was only 50 & the myths live on. But there is another side of Flynn that is less well known - his ambitions to be a serious writer and newspaper correspondent, his documentary films and his interest in the Spanish Civil War and Castro's Cuba

Short documentary about the "woman's picture" at Warner Brothers.

Produced by Warner Brothers as one of the extras to the DVD release of MR. SKEFFINGTON (1944), this short documentary has a variety of talking heads describing the origins and impact of the film on its original release, as well as explaining how and why its appeal has lasted so long.

A documentary about the life of Errol Flynn, with recollections from friends and family.

Film noir, which enjoyed particular success in the 1930s and 1940s, is probably the most profound genre of classic Hollywood cinema. Eckhart Schmidt tries to show the background and developments and speaks, among others, with directors such as Richard Fleischer and Robert Wise as well as with "femme fatale" actresses. Filmmakers of the following generations explain how the style and themes of noir continue to shape cinema today.

Daniel Anker’s 90-minute documentary takes on over 60 years of a very complex subject: Hollywood’s complicated, often contradictory relationship with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The questions it raises go right the very nature of how film functions in our culture, and while hardly exhaustive, Anker’s film makes for a good, thought provoking starting point.

Biography of 1940's sex goddess Rita Hayworth.

Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.

In this documentary on the life of Joan Crawford, we learn why she should be remembered as the great actress she was, and not only as "mommie dearest." caricature she has become. Friends, fellow actors, directors, and others reminisce about their association with her, and numerous film clips show off her talent from her start in silents to bad science fiction/horror movies at the end of her career.

Noted Hollywood stars and directors talk about the history and evolution of the film industry in Los Angeles.

Documentary overview of Peter Lorre's ascension to fame as a master purveyor of silky but disquieting peril.

Glamorous and hugely popular Joan Crawford raised herself from brutal poverty to Academy Award-winning stardom by guts, determination and hard work. During her 50-year career, she made over 80 films. But her obsessive perfectionism led to the later caricature of coat-hanger-wielding harridan that even the adoration of fans could not counter. Still, she has endured as one of the most popular icons of the movies, an early role model to a million young women who aspired to her image of stylish magnetic power and unquestioned independence.

An insider's account of Jack Warner, a founding father of the American film industry. This feature length documentary provides the rags to riches story of the man whose studio - Warner Bros - created many of Hollywood's most classic films. Includes extensive interviews with family members and friends, film clips, rare home movies and unique location footage.

Narrated by actor Christopher Lee, this documentary details the life of timeless Hollywood adventure hero and sex symbol Errol Flynn, who swung his way into the hearts of the world's moviegoers with a sword and an errant grin. Interviews with friends and family balance a collection of clips from classic films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Charge of the Light Brigade and Captain Blood, revealing the man behind the movie star.

Inspector Steve Trent tracks the stolen Cortez emerald, last pilfered by a murdered gangster.

An elderly woman provides an alibi to a man she scarcely knows who is on trial for murder of his girlfriend's racketeer father.

As a result of arresting a nightclub singer, Millie Garland, for speeding, Tim Daley, of the California Highway Patrol, incurs the enmity of the gangster, "Trigger" Talano, who frames him and brings about his disgrace; but Tim organizes a band ox ex-criminals and turns the table on the racketeer with a vengeance.

Police Inspector Steve Trent is called to the Radford Arms, a high-rise apartment building that has been taken over by a bank and its apartments now-unoccupied.

An actress is murdered in the midst of shooting a dance sequence for her latest picture, with Inspector Steve Trent on the case.

A kidnapping, three airplane crashes and several fist-fights adds speed to the plot in which the plans of a new, faster airplane motor invented by brothers Tim and Jerry are stolen and suspicion falls on their office secretary Mary Stuart. But she can pilot an airplane with the best of them and she risks her life to save Tim. And when she gets kidnapped, Jerry regains his lost nerve in rescuing her.

A successful lawyer struggles to deal with his wife's unfaithfulness and his own hidden past.

The Joan Crawford crime thriller, The Damned Don't Cry (1950), is the topic of discussion for various interviewees.