Mysteries in the Archives

In June 1944, Félix Forestier was sent from Paris to film the resistance in the Vercors maquis: his images were only found in 2013.

In 1940, shortly after the start of the Second World War, Charlie Chaplin began shooting his film "The Great Dictator", a comedy of great lucidity.

In March 1916, Pancho Villa attacked the small town of Columbus, New Mexico; How did this outlaw become public enemy No. 1?

In February 1972, Richard Nixon was the first American president to meet Mao, in an attempt to normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In 1939, two reporters were filming images in several penitentiaries in French Guiana: how can we explain that the penal colony of Cayenne was still in operation at the time?

Films about the funeral of Mahatma Gandhi in the newly independent India.

Hitler forbade Eva Braun to appear with him in public, but he gave her a film camera.

Fidel Castro visiting Manhattan for the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September 1960.

While all authentic film material had been confiscated, John Ford started making a docudrama more appropriate to the US war effort about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Hundreds of kilometres of coastline in Britain and France were covered with oil when the supertanker Torrey Canyon was shipwrecked in March 1967. The governments of both countries were unprepared for such a disaster.