Underplayed Gems

À la conquête de l'air (1901)

À la conquête de l'air poster
Original title
À la Conquête de l'Air
Directed by
Ferdinand Zecca
Genre
fantasy film, silent film
Country
France
Runtime
1 min
Rating
4.9 of 10 from 11 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This is a French silent film from 1901. It shows a pilot flying a fantastic machine through the air. The movie was one of the first to feature an aircraft in flight.

early-cinemawhimsicalsimpleplayfulhistoricalfantasticallighthearted

What happens

À la conquête de l'air (Conquering the Air) is a 1901 French silent film directed by Ferdinand Zecca and distributed by Pathé Frères. Based on contemporary accounts of aviation developments, À la conquête de l'air stars Ferdinand Zecca as the pilot of a fantastic flying machine. Aviation film historian Michael Paris considered the film, the first French aviation film and among the first to feature an aircraft in flight. Zecca was hired by company founder Charles Pathé to invigorate the pioneering cinema company that had mainly been involved in documentary film. With an emphasis on new topics, Zecca expanded into short films that explored everything from everyday events to fantastic flight of fancy. His other films included comedies, trick films, or fairy tales, such as Les Sept châteaux du Diable, both 1901, and La Belle au bois dormant in 1902, as well as social dramas like Les Victimes de l'alcoolisme (1902), Au pays noir (1905) and reconstructions of actual events, the most famous being La Catastrophe de la Martinique (1902). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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