Lewis' films are, surprisingly, absent tonight

TCM is putting the spotlight tonight on Milestone Films, a company that distributes otherwise hard-to-find films on DVD. They specialize in early movies, independent, and foreign films, and it's perhaps appropriate that tonight's lineup contains a series of documentaries that I think befits Mileston's ambit.

The night starts off at 8:00 PM with In the Land of the Headhunters, in which still photographer Edward Curtis went to northern Vancouver Island to film the native tribe that was still living there, with a way of life relatively close to what they'd had for centuries. In theory, this movie, made in 1914, should be in the public domain, but very few prints survived and it was re-edited with new music added, and the music would definitely not be in the public domain. So there are a few clips on Youtube, but not the whole movie.

Mikhail Kalotozov, whom I remember best for The Cranes Are Flying, follows at 9:15 PM with I Am Cuba, his docudrama about how wonderful the Communist revolution of 1959 was., that will be followed by a couple of independent documentaries from Americans looking at experiences ranging from modern-day (well, early 1960s modern) Native Americans to South Africa under the early days of apartheid.

I didn't check on the TCM website, but I'd presume that since the night is dedicated to a company which distributes movies, that all of the movies should be available on DVD from Milestone Films.

(Apologies for the otherwise brief post, but I'm feeling rather sick today.)