"A University of Chicago student film production and “Young Chicago Filmmakers Festival” award winner in 1971, Holden Franz Aust’s "In The Divine Plan" pits Nietzsche against Jesus in an ultimate ideological battle. Christian moralism meets Nihilism." Chicago Film Archives
"It's about This Carpenter starts out with a bearded fellow carrying a huge cross across town. He goes into the subway, through crowded streets, and passes little colored girl who asks "Are you Jesus?" Finally he installs the cross on the wall behind the chancel of a church. All the whilst he is ignored, even by the lone organist. Finally, on his return trip after his mission has been accomplished, he again passes the little colored girl and she says, "Good-bye Jesus" PSA Journal, Sept. 1964, 51.
"'Japan and Its People,' Dr. Roy Gerstenkorn's educational class winner, was a pictured visit to the homes and temples of Japan. Ignoring the cities in his search for the story of the Japan that is not known to the average visitor the doctor penetrated the towns and smaller communities. His picture was awarded a high rating on its photography as well as on his treatment of the subject. After the showing of this picture before the Los Angeles Motion Picture Forum last summer the local school authorities requested and received permission from the doctor to make a duplicate of it for school purposes." American Cinematographer, Jan. 1938, 27-28.
"Edited film created by Frank L. Kreznar, an award winning amateur filmmaker, with assistance from his wife during a guided tour of the Soviet Union in 1965. Film consists of footage of Moscow and Leningrad mainly of public places with a special emphasis on historically important buildings. Throughout the footage Kreznar shows modern apartment buildings as they are being constructed, with his commentary discussing the Soviets’ efforts to modernize the territories under their control and the recent population growth in these cities. Kreznar is also interested in the modes of public transportation in each city – such as street cars or the metro in Moscow. Kreznar notes that most automobile production in the Soviet Union focuses on trucks for work while cars are considered a rare luxury for private citizens. He also discusses the high volume of pedestrian traffic. Kreznar also takes an interest in religion in this footage, showing churches in disrepair or having been de-sanctified and converted into housing, museums, or other government administrated buildings. Kreznar notes that this is due to the Soviet government’s anti-religious policy, but he also shows some churches under recently started restoration due to the government’s realization of the touristic value of these sites. Film includes occasional shots of people working, mainly in outdoor produce markets. Women are shown doing road construction in Moscow as well as various public parks, swimming pools, and other public recreation areas, with a special emphasis on how the Soviet government has given children places to play," Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Museum.
"On an actual Protestant missionary who brought Christianity, education, and medical aid to an illiterate, pagan tribe in the Belgian Congo." National Archives.
"Living Mayas of Guatemala is a detailed study of human ways which explains enough, as it goes along, to give those who see it a feeling of intimacy with the strange customs that are recorded. There have been special film studies of the descendents of the great Central Americans of the past, and these have singled out some particular phase of Mayan life. Giles G. Healey has set himself a larger task, in interpreting the unity of the modern Mayas by following them through each day of a week. We see them at home, at work, at play and engaged with singular devotion in religious observances. These major sequences of the various days are full, and, for the most part, adequately filmed. Action is not posed, and the audience shares with the cameraman the feeling of observing something so vital as to make the filmer's presence entirely incidental. The final portion of Mr. Healey's movie offers a fine record of the special religious ceremony at Chichicastenango. A deficiency of illumination, although a cinematographic detraction, does not destroy the illusion of participation in the communal devotions. Here is an important contribution to the study of folkways, done attentively, intelligently and interestingly." Movie Makers, Dec. 1942, 508.
"Lot, two reels 35mm., produced by Dr. James S. Watson, jr., ACL, and Melville Webber, may be said to be as much of an advance in motion picture technique over Fall of the House of Usher, their earlier production, as that film was an advance over standard professional cinematography. There are very few cinematographers in the world who have devoted the whole of their efforts to experimentation with the motion picture as an art medium and, in the opinion of Movie Makers' staff, there is none who has achieved the signal results of these two. Lot represents a complete innovation, not only in the treatment of the theme as a whole, but in the cinematic interpretation of the sequences. In it, the familiar tools of the advanced cinematographer, multiple exposure, trick printing, complicated lighting, symbolism, models and models in combination with life size sets are used to secure an entirely new and very beautiful cinematic representation of the Biblical story. In Lot these two amateurs have mastered the world of illusion of the motion picture but, in doing so, they have produced more than a mere novelty; they have founded a new cinematic art." Movie Makers, Dec. 1932, 538.
An avant-garde retelling of the biblical story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom (from the Book of Genesis, chapters 17-19), this film was controversial for its nudity and homoerotic overtones. (D.J. Duffy)
The film depicts Mayan rites in 1930's Guatemala along with intertitles describing the destruction of Mayan temples by conquerers and the performance of traditional ceremonies at the steps of churches.
‘Drama. A nun is seduced by a lothario. Her steadfast admirer is slain trying to protect her. Her redemption is ensured by a religious painting coming to life, the Madonna taking her baby’ (EAFA Database).
"On the Baptist Kimpese Mission Station, Republic of the Congo." National Archives.
Total Pages: 7
Amateur Cinema