Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The audience for institutional training films is generally limited to those forced to endure them to collect a salary. However, as Everything You Wanted to Know About Sudden Birth (But Were Afraid to Ask) explores, there is a niche audience to whom the shoddy filmmaking, stiff acting and clinical dialogue of vintage training videos is a small thrill. The latest archival short from the US director Scott Calonico tells the story of a California police training video called Sudden Birth (1966), which has gone on to become something of a cult classic of the genre – in part due to its juxtaposition of clinical, amateurish production with the high human drama of an actual on-screen birth. Exploring the lives of the team behind Sudden Birth, Calonico untangles a web of personal stories that more than rivals the intrigue of the film at its centre, and in doing so builds a surprisingly heartfelt narrative to accompany the campy fun.
Director: Scott Calonico
Producers: Skip Elsheimer, Harmon Leon
video
Consciousness and altered states
You need to make friends with pain to run through the Grand Canyon and back
5 minutes
video
Art
Grotesque imagery meets religious conservatism in Hieronymus Bosch’s art
51 minutes
video
Architecture
Why a sculptor pivoted from gallery installations to big-box stores design
9 minutes
video
Physics
Spectacular fractal patterns emerge when electricity meets a wooden surface
4 minutes
video
Values and beliefs
How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years
9 minutes
video
War and peace
Before he leaves to go to war, Artem, 18, says goodbye to the man who raised him
12 minutes
video
Art
A mindbending trip that summons the forgotten women of surrealism
17 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
How machine learning can help historians decode ancient inscriptions
7 minutes
video
Animals and humans
What the ancient city of Kars looks like from the perspective of its stray dogs
9 minutes