Sweet Dreams Intermingled With Nightmares

A biopic of former Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant 1797 invasion of Italy.

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

Helmed by Giovanni Pastrone, with Segundo de Chomón ably handling the stop-motion animation segment, The War and the Dream of Momi is equal parts patriotic pageantry and eye-popping puppetry.

A family troupe of acrobats, made up to appear Japanese, perform various unbelievable stunts in front of the camera, achieved through a trick of the camera.

The devil takes Maciste down to hell in an attempt to corrupt and ruin his morality.

The documentary was entirely filmed in the province of Burgos, containing monuments and architecture considered emblematic of Spanish heritage. Color was added to the film at a later date, by hand. Burgos is a fine example of the timeless beauty of hand-stenciled film, as well as sound actuality filmmaking by two cinematic pioneers.

A film based on Gabriele D'Annunzio's novel The Flame. Pina Menichelli plays a vamp who ruins a painter's life just for the fun of it.

A group of travellers go into a house for protection. Little do they know, it is filled with ghosts who make unusual things happen to them.

"Le Pied de Mouton" is an adaptation of an old French stage play titled "The Talisman" written by Alphonse Martainville and César Ribié. The atmosphere is hilarious, oneiric and delicious. The film tells the story of Gusman and Léonora, two lovers who must deal with many spells and troubles in order to preserve their love. The tale is full of princes and princesses, damsels in distress, good witches and wicked lords and is an amazing piece of work.

A magician charms a caterpillar and turns it into a butterfly woman. This film is a blatant remake of Georges Méliès's "La Chrysalide et le Papillon d'or" (1901).

A woman imagines the revenge of a gypsy that she sent away. This piece is told in multiple scenes, in an increasingly artificial world, as the venue shifts from a realistic courtyard to a wild, stagebound prison in which various stage monsters appear.

The legend of Aladdin and his magic lamp: Aladdin finds a magic lamp which brings him wealth, luxury, and marriage to a princess. But his rival, an evil magician, steals the lamp for himself. Aladdin must regain the lamp or lose everything.

The legend of Ali Baba and the forty thieves: Ali Baba discovers a hidden cave where a band of thieves have stored their enormous treasure. Cassim also learns about the cave, but he is caught by the thieves and put to death. Knowing that their secret has been found out, the thieves devise a trick in an attempt to kill Ali Baba and anyone else who might know about their hiding place.

Rising from a stage are two vases which separate to reveal a female dancer behind each of the vases. They create magical circles of flowers from which other women emerge. The dancers construct an elegant floral display, in the middle of which a miniature dancer performs. Another circle of flowers is brought forward on the stage, toward the camera, and in the circle are shown a series of women. The original pair of dancers conclude by twirling their parasols.

"Tigre Reale" (1916) was the film that consolidated Frau Menichelli's stardom, a film more than suitable for her performing skills and silent idiosyncrasy that any silent diva would kill to star in… In "Tigre Reale", Frau Menichelli performs the part of Frau Natka, a Russian countess with a troublesome past and an uncertain future. She was married to a revolutionary and the matrimony ended in tragedy. She likes to flirt with men but due to her traumatic sentimental past, she doesn't allow herself attachments. That is until she meets a young diplomat who will help her to make up her mind and exorcize her old sentimental traumas.