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The History of Cinema: 1915

Argentina - Germany

– Humberto Cairo, Eduardo Martinez De La Pera and Ernesto Gunche make Nobleza Gaucha, the country’s first feature-length film. The 20,000 pesos budget film earns 600,000 pesos in six months. [ADD]

Austria

– Vienna has 150 permanent cinemas in 1915. [ADD]

Azerbaijan

– The Pirone brothers from Belgium open a film production lab in Baku. [ADD]

Bulgaria 

Vassil Gendov makes Balgaran e Galant, the country’s first feature film.   It is a remake of his 1910 short of the same name. [ADD]

Czechoslovakia 

– Vaclav Havel takes over Antonin Pech’s Kinofa assets and forms the Lucerna company. [ADD]

Dominican Republic

– Rafael Colorado, shoots the first moving pictures in the Dominican Republic, Excursión de José de Diego a Santo Domingo. [ADD]

France 

Abel Gance undertakes to film Un Drame au chateau d’Acre in five days on a budget of 5,000 francs. [ADD]

Scenes of desolation created by the enemy are banned by the Prefect of Police. [ADD]

The Union of Cinematograph Directors organise a private screening of banned films at the Palais des Fetes in Paris in protest at censorship. [ADD]

Charles Pathe returns from a trip to America where he opened 22 distribution agencies in the same number of states, making Pathe American the leading exporter of American films to France. [ADD]

Abel Gance signs with Films d’Arte to write and direct nine films a year. [ADD]

Louis Feuillade is discharged from active service due to heart problems and returns to directing. [ADD]

Vincent Denizot and Luigi Romano Borgnetto’s Maciste, inspired by Giovanni Pastone’s Cabiria, is released.   In the film, a young girl hides from her pursuers in a cinema showing Pastrone’s epic, and enlists the aid of the film’s strongman, Maciste, to rescue her. [ADD]

In Montreuil, Gaston Melies converts part of his old film studio into a cinema to aid the local hospital. [ADD]

The Gaumont Palace in Paris and the Majestic Cinema in Lyon re-open after being closed at the outbreak of the war. [ADD]

Production begins to pick up after the outbreak of war. [ADD]

Gaumont release the first two episodes of Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires.   The episodes are entitled La tete coupee (The Severed Head) and La Bague qui tue (The Ring That Kills). [ADD]

The Chamber of Deputies vote to form a committee which will encourage the making of educational films. [ADD]

Germany 

Ernst Lubitsch directs his debut film, On the Slippery Slope. [ADD]

– Erich Pommer and Fritz Holz found the Decla production company. [ADD]

Other Key Films of 1915

Ned Med Vaabnene (Forest Holger-Madsen)

Ceux de chez nous (Sacha Guitry) [ADD]

Les Epaves de l’amour (Albert Capellani) [ADD]

La Folie du Dr Tube (Abel Gance) [ADD]

Der Bar von Baskerville (Harry Piel) [ADD]

Ihr Unteroffiziere (Alfred Halm) [ADD]