Volcanoes

A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject and primary plot device. Such disasters include natural disasters such as earthquakes or asteroid collisions, accidents such as shipwrecks or airplane crashes, or calamities like worldwide disease pandemics. The films usually feature some degree of build-up, the disaster itself and sometimes the aftermath, usually from the point of view of specific individual characters or their families.

These films often feature large casts of actors and multiple plotlines, focusing on the characters' attempts to avert, escape or cope with the disaster and its aftermath. The genre came to particular prominence during the 1970s with the release of high-profile films such as Airport (1970), followed in quick succession by The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974).

Germanfilms in the antebellum

German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture in fields such as architecture, painting and cinema. German Expressionist painting produced a great number of works, and led to Neo-expressionism.
The German Expressionist movement was largely confined to Germany due to the isolation the country experienced during World War I. In 1916, the government had banned more foreign films in the nation. The demand from theaters to generate films led film production to rise from 24 films (1914) to 130 films (1918). With inflation on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money's worth was constantly diminishing.

Besides the films' popularity within Germany, by 1922 the international audience had begun to appreciate German cinema, in part due to a decreasing anti-German sentiment following the end of World War I. By the time the 1916 ban on imports was lifted, Germany had become a part of the international film industry.

Highgate Cemetery in London

Highgate Cemetery is a famous cemetery located in Highgate, London, England. The cemetery in its original form was opened in 1839, part of an initiative to provide seven large, modern cemeteries in a ring round the outside of London. The inner-city cemeteries, mostly the graveyards attached to individual churches, had long been unable to cope with the number of burials and were seen as a hazard to health and an undignified way to treat the dead. Highgate, like the others, soon became a fashionable place for burials and was much admired and visited. The Victorian attitude to death and its presentation led to the creation of a wealth of Gothic tombs and buildings. In 1854, the area to the east of the original area across Swains Lane was purchased to form the eastern part of the cemetery.

This part is still used today for burials, as is the Western part. The cemetery's grounds are full of old-growth trees, shrubbery and wildflowers that are a haven for birds and small animals like foxes. The Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon feature tombs, vaults and winding paths dug into hillsides. For its protection, the oldest section, which holds an impressive collection of Victorian mausoleums and gravestones, plus elaborately carved tombs, allows admission only in tour groups. The newer section, which contains a mix of Victorian and modern statuary, can be toured unescorted.

 

George Pal in Eindhoven

He was born in Cegléd, Austria–Hungary, the son of György Pál Marczincsak Sr. and his wife Maria. He graduated from the Budapest Academy of Arts in 1928 (aged 20). From 1928 to 1931, he made films for Hunnia Films of Budapest, Hungary.
At the age of 23 in 1931 he married Elisabeth "Zsoka" Grandjean, and moving to Berlin, founded Trickfilm-Studio Gmbh Pal und Wittke, with UFA Studios as its main customer from 1931 to 1933. During this time, he patented Pal-Doll (known as Puppetoons in the USA).
In 1933 he worked in Prague; in 1934, he made a film advertisement in his hotel room in Paris, and was invited by Philips to make two more ad shorts. He started to use Pal-Doll techniques in Eindhoven, in a former butchery, then at villa-studio Suny Home. He left Germany as the Nazis came to power.
He made five films before 1939 for the British company Horlicks Malted Milk. In December of that year, aged 32, he emigrated from Europe to the United States, and began work for Paramount Pictures. At this time, his friend Walter Lantz helped him obtain American citizenship.
As an animator, he made the Puppetoons series in the 1940s, which led to him being awarded an honorary Oscar in 1943 for "the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons". Pal then switched to live action film making with The Great Rupert (1950).