In 1967, Swedish National Television was granted a rare interview with Victor Hasselblad at his home. In this video we also get a glimpse into the Hasselblad manufacturing facilities in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Hasselblad camera made its huge breakthrough when the American astronauts began to use it in space. The photographs of the first men on the Moon are some of the most published images in the world. The camera also figured largely for more earthbound photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, working in the fields of advertising, fashion, photojournalism, portraiture, nature, science and medicine. The idea for his camera came to Victor Hasselblad (1906-78) in his youth when he travelled around the Swedish countryside to photograph birds. Never really satisfied with his results, he began to dream about a better camera. This remarkable footage gives us an insight into the man whose idea of a camera – and camera system – is as admired today as it was ground-breaking over 75 years ago.
Our memory is dissipating. Hard drives only last five years, a webpage is forever changing and there’s no machine left that reads 15-year old floppy disks. Digital data is vulnerable. Yet entire libraries are shredded and lost to budget cuts, because we assume everything can be found online. But is that really true? For the first time in history, we have the technological means to save our entire past, yet it seems to be going up in smoke. Will we suffer from collective amnesia? This VPRO Backlight documentary tracks down the amnesiac zeitgeist starting at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, whose world-famous 250-year old library was lost to budget cuts. The 400.000 Books were saved from the shredder by Ismail Serageldin, director of the world-famous Library of Alexandria, who is turning the legendary library of classical antiquity into a new knowledge hub for the digital world. Images as well as texts risk being lost in this ‘Digital Dark Age’. In an old McDonald’s restaurant in Mountain View, CA, retired NASA engineer Dennis Wingo is trying to retrieve the very first images of the moon. Upstate New York, Jason Scott has founded The Archive Team, a network of young activists that saves websites that are at risk of disappearing forever. In San Francisco, we visit Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive that’s going against the trend to destroy archives, and the Long Now Foundation, which has put the long-term back on the agenda by building a clock that only ticks once a year and should last 10,000 years, in an attempt to reconnect with generations thousands of years from now. Directed by Bregtje van der Haak / produced by VPRO Backlight, The Netherlands You can watch the Dutch episode here: http://tegenlicht.vpro.nl/afleveringe... For broadcast rights: www.nposales.com / info@nposales.com.
Gizmo is a documentary about oddball inventions and inventors from the 20th century.Howard Smith`s 1977 documentary about improbable inventions compiles old newsreel footage of wacky inventions in action, (or inaction as the case may be), as well as some inventors` physical quirks and others` daring deeds in "bringing their invention to market," all for your enjoyment. Gizmo! is an irresistible collection of newsreel footage chronicling the inventive spirit in America. We are treated to some of the strangest inventions ever concocted by man, as well as a few forgotten contraptions that seem to make a great deal of sense. Naturally, filmmaker Howard Smith does not let slip the opportunity of showing the inventors at their most foolish, so once again those ubiquitous shots of collapsing one-man airplanes and malfunctioning jet-powered backpacks are trotted out.