Ellis Island, a unique documentary about immigration into the USA, for the first time in color!

Описание: Probably the periode between 1892 and the first World War, during which approximately 12 million immigrants entered the USA, can be considered as the most important in American history. After reading numerous comments under Youtube videos that deal with this topic, it has become clear that this is not the most popular subject on any school's curriculum. One of the reasons could be that the available poor quality film footage makes it difficult, especially for young people, to associate with such an old period on history, including the ordeals that immigrants experienced. Therefore this restored and colorized film is an attempt to bring these historic events better into perspective and thus become more appealing to be viewed through todays eyes.

It is important to understand why people wanted to become an American citizen more than a century ago, especially in view of the fact that there is a 40% chance that one of these immigrants was your great, great grandfather or great grandmother. What drove them to undertake such a dangerous journey that would also totally change their lives? The answer is fairly simple: poverty, hardship, joblessness and persecution were widespread in Europe around 1900. In Eastern Europe young men were being drafted for compulsary conscription. Life, especially in Southern and Eastern European countries like Italy, Poland, Tjecho Slovakia, Russia, Romania and other was hard. The USA was thought to be to be the land of the future with huge potential for a better life, maybe even the possibility to become rich. In fact this is when and where the American dream started.

This is my first home made documentary! It combines all my skills of restoring and colorizing of film footage using state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence software, complicated video editing, complemented with self-written narrative and great music by contemporary composer Trevor Kowalski.
I hope you all will share my enthousiasm for this finished project and encourage me to continue on the path of making more historic documentaries in this same style. Thank you very much for watching.

Source: Archive.org, Prelinger Archive, Library of Congress and other.
Music: Trevor Kowalski.
Trevor Kowalski is a composer and multi-musician from the foothills of New York’s Adirondack Mountains. He wrote some of his first melodic ideas during the breaks of his piano lessons as early as at the age of six!