Julien Hequembourg Bryan (1899-1974) was an American documentarian and filmmaker. Bryan traveled widely taking 35mm film that he sold to motion picture companies. In the 1930s, he conducted extensive lecture tours, during which he showed film footage he shot in the former USSR. Between 1935 and 1938, he captured unique records of ordinary people and life in Nazi Germany and in Poland, including Jewish areas of Warsaw and Krakow and anti-Jewish signs in Germany. His footage appeared in March of Time theatrical newsreels. His photographs appeared in Life Magazine. He was in Warsaw in September 1939 when Germany invaded and remained throughout the German siege of the city, photographing and filming what would become America's first cinematic glimpse of the start of WWII. He recorded this experience in both the book Siege (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1940) and the short film Siege (RKO Radio Pictures, 1940) nominated for an Academy Award in 1940. In 1946, Bryan photographed the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency in postwar Europe.
Detailed preservation notes from the film lab are available in Film and Video department files. Additional photographs are available in the USHMM Photo Archives.
Lowicz, Poland, 1936: Preparations for a religious holiday. MS, young girl with a full head of curly blonde hair that is being braided and combed by her mother and her sister in preparation for the ceremony. The entire town seems to be taking part in the celebration. VS of the elaborate celebration. The scenes inside the church seem to under cranked, causing the scenes to move at a faster than normal speed. INT church shots end at 01:09:36. EXT, VS of the procession through town. 01:10:41 Brief cut to a different location, probably a city. Bride and groom exit an automobile and enter a church. The bride is wearing a striped woolen skirt characteristic of the area around Lowicz, Poland. Most of the women and men are dressed in more contemporary clothing, men with ties and hats. CU of the bride and groom entering the church, the groom takes off his hat, and guests follow. 01:10:52 Return to Lowicz with high angle shot of the festivities for Easter Sunday. Townspeople are dressed in traditional, central Polish folk costume. Townspeople riding bicycles, horse drawn wagons, etc.
Catholic procession in Lowicz, Poland, 1936 and wedding in city