(Bolex camera clicking) (relaxing piano music) (film reel flapping in wind) (birds chirping) Alyssa: I grew up with video cameras, always wanting to tell stories and make movies But it wasn't until I was in film school that I touched actual film.

(film reel flapping in wind) At the time I had no idea that there was a long, lost family legacy waiting to be uncovered It all started at my grandfather, Emil's memorial.

(clock ticking) I never knew my grandfather well.

He lived across the country from me and he had a strained relationship with my with my father So after he died there was just an enormous amount to go through.

(relaxing piano music) (relaxing piano music) And that's when I discovered that he saved an entire archive of his father, my great-grandfather, Jacques, and Jacques was some kind of forgotten camera inventor.

(playful upbeat music) I spent the weekend in the attic, reading some articles Jacques wrote about cameras the future and camera automation It was almost like he was envisioning the kind of technology that we all have today.

I had been going through cameras all weekend but one was different from the others.

It was wrapped up, kind of like a present.

(paper rustling) (playful upbeat music) I knew it was important but I didn't yet know how important the Bolex was.

(upbeat guitar music) (upbeat guitar music) From iconic avant-garde filmmakers like Maya Deren in the 1940s, to artists like Andy Warhol.

Just, you don't have to do anything.

Or filmmakers like Steven Spielberg in the 1960's or Peter Jackson and Spike Lee in the '80s For maybe two generations of people who grew up in the 50's, 60's 70's... the Bolex was the gateway and their dreams were attached to that camera.

Bolex Reflex It was like I died and went to heaven.

We had to stop frame and wind the film back you could double expose on it.

Basically, it was a box of tricks.

(Bolex Paillard clicking) (upbeat instrumental music) They're nice and light and you can do a lot of camera moves with them.

This is a versatile little beast.

As soon as I had it I realized I could be a filmmaker.

(film reel rolling) I had always thought I was the only filmmaker in the family but we found reels and reels of films.

I was thinking by the titles, that most of them were home movies.

And all of a sudden my great-grandfather, Jacques, went from a man in a picture frame to motion.

(Bolex camera clicking) (upbeat guitar music) Apparently Jacques was known as an early filmmaker in Switzerland, or even a film pioneer.

And there were even lists of his lost films I was consumed by the idea that maybe it wasn't too late to get to know Jacques.

There were boxes of documents and photographs Everything was a challenge because they were in several languages.

Jacques went by three different last names And a lot of the material was quite technical.

And then there were the gaps... months and years missing.

Roland Cosandey is a film historian who has been researching Jacques and his films for decades.

I contacted him to let him know what we had found.

You are working on something with gaps.

You are trying to find out where, if one can fill up that those gaps.

You have your questions.

I have mine.

But in a certain way we are confronted with the same difficulties.

My great-grandfather had taken thousands of photographs and dozens of hours of films in his lifetime So we started with where Jacques came from Jacques was born in Kiev in 1895.

His given name was Yakov Bogopolsky.

He and his three brothers and one sister grew up in Astrakhan, Russia.

His family were Jewish intellectuals with medical and engineering degrees.

And his mother was a concert pianist.

What we do know about the family is that they were all scientifically oriented And the kind of twist with Jacov is that he started going off in his own tangent which was art.

He was intensely visual, whether it was science or optics or engineering.

To him and made no... there was no differentiation.

In 1913, when he was 17 years old, Jacques left his family behind to study medicine in Geneva, Switzerland.

He enrolled in medical and art school While in medical school, one of his professors was researching the peristaltic movements of the heart, which at the time was a medical mystery.

The professor mentioned that he wished he could record those movements on film.

And Jacques impulsively volunteered to build a movie camera to do just that.

Six months later the camera was a success and they were on the road doing lectures about it at universities.

And 10 years later he was inventing the Bolex.

The model that I had found in the attic was almost a 100 years old, but it was a lot different than the early cameras I'd been learning about in film school.

I wanted to know more about what he was trying to do and what kind of cameras he grew up with Well, in the teens, most cameras that were being used were professional 35 millimeter movie cameras.

The professional cameras you could buy for like $250 or $300 which was a lot of money in those days.

(cameras clicking) The difficulty with early amateur systems for making films is the film stock itself was extremely flammable, number one.

The skills that you needed to get a good exposure were difficult.

And the equipment itself was large and bulky.

The Bolex must've been Jacques' solution to these problems.

It was relatively lightweight and I'd read that it was user-friendly.

But embarrassingly I had never even loaded one before.

(winding clicking) So I looked it up on YouTube.

(plastic clicking) (birds chirping) The Bolex was designed to be portable, self-powered and quick to learn, and had a turret for multiple lenses.

(upbeat guitar music) It could be loaded anywhere, even in the daylight.

It was durable and it could withstand extreme conditions and temperatures that other cameras couldn't.

Being hand-powered, the Bolex could be taken anywhere around the world.

(birds chirping) (camel grunting) (Bolex clicking) The portability of the Bolex, even now at almost 76, I find this an exceedingly balanced camera It's not only portable but once it's in your hands, you can use your body like a tripod.

And I do not have to have my eye on the lens because I have a 10 millimeter on and everything is in focus.

You can take her to bed.

You can cradle her.

You can take her to the mountains.

(Bolex clicking) Talking about this makes you wanna make another film with the Bolex.

(Barbara chuckling) So this is my film on the shelf.

(film reel wheel clanging) Jonas Mekas has used the Bolex for decades and is often referred to as the godfather of American avant-garde cinema.

See, and there is the screen.

He helped define the way we use the movie camera with his diary films.

(dramatic upbeat music) From Andy Warhol and "The Velvet Underground" to Lou Reed and John Lennon, Jonas has been in the heart of the art scene in New York City.

(clapperboard clicking) Bolex is like a typewriter and the video camera is like a pen, like a pencil.

And just listen to the noise it makes.

(Bolex reel humming) And you can change the noise.

(Bolex reel humming) Oh, that was 64 frames.

(dramatic music) Bolex can do all that things that I need it.

You can superimpose, you can slow down, You can wind back exactly three frames, and again, hit it back where you started.

I began filming in November, 1949.

That's when I got my first Bolex.

But I finished my first film only in '61.

You see, filming is one thing and to make a film is another thing.

I kept a film diary.

(dramatic accordion music) I consider myself in a way like anthropologist trying to catch essential moments of human of humanity, today, around me.

No matter what film you watch, you get to know the filmmaker if you know how to read images.

(Bolex camera clicking) The Bolex story is getting bigger and clearer to me.

But Jacques remained elusive.

So I found my great-grandfather's films that he shot over 40 years, and I can't ask him any questions about it So he's kind of telling the story through his own footage but it almost has to be my interpretation of it because I don't know the story behind those films.

Maybe some of the facts you don't know, but there may be feelings in the images that speak to you, That's a big weight, a big load, you're making a film about your great-grandfather.

Any film that you make comes out of yourself, you know.

But He'll probably speak to you through the film some way.

and that's a beautiful thing.

I wonder what it would be like to meet Jacques, I mean, like really meet him in person?

Was Jacques a filmmaker?

Or was his interest just in making tools for others?

Why would Emil save all of this, and yet, not talk about his father?

Did my grandfather, Emil, secretly want his father's archive to be found?

(suitcase clicking) I spent the week in the attic looking for anything I may have missed the first time.

And then there was the journal.

Pages and pages of Jacques's own thoughts.

The journal was from his time in Switzerland, starting just months before he released the first Bolex.

[Jacques Voiceover] August, one, my journal allows me to stop in the daily cause of things to go down into myself and to verify things such as hopes, if there is progress and to correct as needed the goals of my existence.

And from time to time it's good to see if the compass is working, if the ship is actually sailing toward the goal.

Business made a series of films on the Bolex.

This one is a marvel of clarity and value.

It is in fact the first impeccable film made with the Bolex.

His journal was almost like a treasure map He wrote about a precursor to the Bolex, a 35 millimeter movie camera he invented called the Cinegraph Bol.

I found the manuals for it in one of the boxes but there was no camera there.

For some reason he didn't save one, and he actually didn't save much from the 1920s while living in Geneva.

I needed to walk the streets he walked and to trace his steps.

I needed to go to Switzerland.

(airplane rumbling) (relaxing piano music) (uplifting music) (bicycle sound) (uplifting music) (bolex camera sound) (uplifting music) Hi Michel: You say Jacques?

Alyssa: Jacques.

You say, Jacques.

Yeah, Jacques.

Yes, okay.

Alyssa: Do you call him Boolsky, Bosky or Bolsey?

Well, I don't know.

The first time I heard about him it was Bogopolsky.

And then afterwards Bolsky and then Bolsey and then Bolsey, or you say, Bolsey?

Alyssa: I say, Bolsey.

Wow.

Michel and his wife created the Auer and Ory Collection which is one of the most important photography collections in Switzerland.

And they even have an original Cinegraph Bol camera.

The inventors are not enough known.

I don't think he is as known as he should.

And the Bolex cameras are the finest cinema cameras in Switzerland.

(relaxing upbeat playful music) Alyssa: Wow.

Michel: Let's be surprised.

So when's the last time you used this?

I don't know.

Never?

(Bolex camera clicking) It's the automatic... Cinegraph?

Bol Cinegraph Automatic, yes.

(Bolex camera clicking) Apparently it works but I don't know how to stop it.

Jacques started developing the Cinegraph Bol in the 19-teens.

So the first one was exactly the same as that but it was hand cranked.

So you didn't have this motor, this mechanism and you would have the crank here and you would operate it like this.

It was 35 millimeter, simple to use and included multiple functions.

The camera had an exposure guide, shot both still and motion picture images, and projected the film, all within the same device.

And then you would put the film like this.

Who was using this camera?

Well, it's an amateur camera.

The publicity, the advertising would say, you get a cine camera for the price of a still camera.

Jacques brought the Cinegraph Bol to market when 35mm was the standard.

But in 1923, Eastman Kodak released a new film format for amateur filmmakers, 16 millimeter.

In the 1920s Eastman Kodak was the dominant force in motion picture film stock production.

And Kodak continued to dominate the motion picture film stock field all through that time period into the '20s and beyond.

[Jacques Voiceover] At that time, Eastman had been obtaining direct positives of inferior quality.

Incidentally the same trouble was being experienced by European manufacturers.

The film was brownish and milky.

While my chemist, Mark (indistinct) and I had developed a process for using a high quality brilliant direct positive.

Seeing the enthusiasm on the Eastman people I disclosed to them on the spot my secret formula.

The very next day, Dr. Melies brought me into a no entrance room and showed me the whole line of 16 millime of 16 millimeter cameras.

I received all the information on the standards, dimensions and all other characteristics of the entire line as compensation for my gift of the reversal process.

When I mentioned that I might become their competitor if they gave me all this data, they replied, you're welcome.

(ship horn blowing) On the boat returning to Switzerland, I designed an automatic camera.

We tooled up immediately after and came up with the first 16 millimeter fully automatic movie camera under the name Bolex Model A.

It's compact, you can handhold it.

Everything is built in.

As you'll notice, there's nothing that sticks out.

The finder doesn't stick out.

You don't have filters on the front.

You don't have all of this stuff.

I think the expression that you could use today is it was user-friendly.

So yes, it's quite extraordinary.

It's also built like a tank, which is lovely you know, in the day of disposable things made out of plastic.

(relaxing jazz music) November 20 1927 Business, first Bolex camera of the series as arrived a week ago.

Perfect Wasn't expecting this result from the first camera.

Much to do.

Patents flood my desk.

(water splashing) (relaxing upbeat jazz music) Alyssa: Around the same time, Jacques fell in love with his Swiss bookkeeper.

Her name is Maria but he called her Mariette.

(relaxing piano music) She was young, 11 years his junior, but they were madly in love.

May 26 1927 The day was good Superb walk with Mariette in the afternoon (relaxing piano music) (water trickling) The rain was mixed with a bit of shy, indecisive sun.

Mariette is sweet in her new flower dress, the color of a half crushed strawberry.

(Bolex camera clicking) Alyssa: The problem was Jacques was still at the time with two young sons.

My grandfather, Emil, and his older brother, Raphael.

Jacques was separated from his first wife, Sima, but the Swiss courts wouldn't grant him a divorce.

Both of them were very young.

He was probably not even 20.

She was pregnant so they had to get married And both of them were kind of alone in Geneva.

They were separated from their families.

He was very focused on what he was doing, his inventions.

This is the only footage I found of my great-grandmother, Sima, in Jacques's home movies.

(Zeppelin rumbling) It must've been lonely for her living in Geneva, watching her marriage crumble while raising two young sons, and separated from her own family in Russia.

July 21 1927 Finally, a letter from father with a photo of the family.

Mamma's still the same with her gentle intelligent eyes.

Father, greatly aged.

Since the Russian Revolution in 1917, Jacques was no longer a citizen of any country.

He repeatedly applied for citizenship for himself and his Swiss-born children, but was continually denied.

There is a Bolsky code in the history of the 20th Century.

What does it mean to be an immigrant without paper and what is it to be a Jew?

(motorbike humming by) The difficulties with passports crossing borders were manifest.

Jacques and his financial partner, Charles Haccius wanted to see the Bolex reach people around the world.

But the Bol company was too small to mass produce a camera.

Decided with the board of directors to lower the cost of Bol company, so we can continue to live within our means.

Gaumont in England is interested in Bolex.

Awaiting to hear from Agfa, late in responding.

Not a good sign.

Reporter: It was panic.

16 and a half million shares of stock sold in a single day, It was the forerunner of depression and crisis.

This huge downturn in the economy worldwide, that was a really tough time for even professional filmmaking.

So with the amateur market, that was just like the end of the world.

That year, Jacques met with a Swiss music box and gramophone company that was looking to that was looking to diversify.

They were intrigued by Jacques's movie camera.

The company's name was Paillard.

October 4 1930 Business, on the 1st of October we signed the contracts with Paillard.

It is still very early.

I hope that with them I can develop various inventions of cinema It's hard to abandon my role as captain after great struggles, but I take consolation in being able to concentrate on my research.

(train clickety-clacking on track) (relaxing piano music) (lady speaking in foreign language) (wind chimes jingling) The main Paillard factory was in a small village called Saint Croix in the Jura Mountains, famous for its music boxes and mechanical and mechanical music.

(music box chiming) (music box ticking) (music box bells pinging) (speaking in foreign language) The movie camera industry was changing fast and the Bolex model needed updating to stay ahead of the competition.

Paillard was upset that they couldn't mass produce the Bolex immediately.

They blamed Jacques for the delay, accusing him of tricking them into buying the patents.

December 25 1930 Christmas day.

This past week set off the bomb.

Paillard are convinced today they were wrong about making the Bolex deal.

I am outraged by the actions of these mountain men and affirm with all my heart that I never thought to trick them in any to trick them in any way.

For a week I have been deeply depressed and I keep it hidden within.

How to make them understand their vulgar mistake?

Those beautiful dreams, have they all drowned?

Jacques was contracted to stay on as consulting engineer for five years.

But the excitement was short-lived as tensions grew between Jacques and the Paillard company.

Once he went in contact with the Paillard people, there are hints of antisemitism in the way they talk about him in private letters.

That had to do with the idea that he was a crook because Jews are crooks, of course, as everybody knows at that time.

During the years under contract with Paillard, Jacques rarely wrote anything positive in his journal.

At the same time, he was filming up a storm.

(relaxing percussion music) We found a behind-the-scenes film of Jacques directing in the 1930s.

His focus expanded to making educational films.

Jacques also experimented with animation and made one of the first Swiss animation films ever.

(birds chirping) (wings swishing) It was a classic fable, "The Cicada and the Ant".

It was about planning for the future and hard work.

(relaxing upbeat instrumental music) (smooching kiss) The Bolex Model H was released just months before Jacques's contract with Paillard was set to expire.

(relaxing piano music) Complete change of attitude.

Paillard asked me to become a consulting engineer in all their branches.

The success of the new camera is the reason for this change in attitude.

The Bolex is a great success.

(papers flapping) I am free.

My contract is up.

I feel unimpeded, lighter of heart.

Paillard calls me, asking to continue working together.

Alyssa: But he chose to go his own way.

I went to Jacques's old apartment that he and Mariette were living in in the 1930s.

I couldn't believe that Jacques never benefited from the success of the Bolex.

It was like he planted a seed and walked away while Paillard watered it and helped it grow.

(Bolex camera clicking) I thought creating a camera like the Bolex was his goal but now I'm not so sure what Jacques was looking for.

(relaxing somber piano music) (relaxing upbeat instrumental music) As the Bolex was beginning to expand around the world, Jacques was working on flurry of new inventions.

Cine-Fader, finished the first series of 500.

Splicer, Monopod, Room Projector Still waiting for the optical elements to complete the model.

In the meantime, trying to establish the manufacturer of a cigarette case, lighter, pocket flashlight.

It turns out when you look at the letters that his advisors were his two sons.

This was true even when they were teenagers.

He would write in a letter you know, all the social stuff, you know, hi, how are you doing and so and so forth and he would lay out a problem, some technical problem.

So who did he turn to?

He turned to his teenage sons.

They were really a dynamic duo together.

One of them would answer on behalf of the two of them and they would say, hi dad, how are you doing?

I hope everything's okay.

Now, as to your problem with the shutter, here's why we think this is happening.

Just because they always did thought experiments.

My dad was brilliant at this and his brother was too.

They could visualize stuff, you know, like a musician that can visualize a symphony in his or her head and doesn't need to write it down And then it would just be, there it was.

There was a solution There was always that kind of synergy.

(dramatic ominous instrumental music) Narrator: 20 years ago ago, firing ceased.

20 years ago a rejoicing world saw then end of its most terrible carnage.

Today, people are again plagued by unsound theories, the desire for conquest.

Again, the world is offered the false idea that might makes right.

(dramatic drum music) Alyssa: From his journal, it became clear that Jacques was worried about the possibility of a Second World War.

April 4 1938 gas mask, Cine Machine Gun, got the first shots.

Great cinematic results on the first try.

Jacques began making films for war preparedness.

One film was, "What To Do In Case of an Aerial Attack".

(dramatic ominous instrumental music) You find a filmmaker who is not only interested because he's commissioned to do films about aerial defense, but who probably is afraid of what may happen in the '30s because it was clear to many people.

(dramatic ominous music) (soldier boots clomping in tandem) Narrator: The responsibility lies on the shoulders of one man.

By his latest act of naked aggression, Hitler has committed a crime not only against Poland, but against the whole human race.

February 27 1939 Parents, no news for months.

It is said that those who receive letters from abroad are suspected.

Don't dare write to them.

(dramatic droning humming) September 20 1939 Parents, no news for weeks.

Soon it will be months.

Assume that the sensor does not allow for any correspondents.

What has become of them?

What becomes of my brothers in the war?

(somber piano music) My immediate goal is naturalization for the boys and for me.

After over 20 years living in Switzerland, Jacques was still a citizen of no country, as were his children.

The government has finally deigned to notice my existence.

They refuse my residency permit as if I were one who has broken the law like a common criminal.

World War II changed everything.

His sons who were military age were finally made citizens.

And then they were drafted into the military that same month.

But Jacques was still a citizen of no country.

So he decided to leave Switzerland behind and find a new home.

July 16 1939 Just received a visa for the United States Again, I'll find some roots in a soil.

It's clear from his writing, he put off leaving Switzerland to the last possible minute.

He gets one of the last transports going out of Europe to before the war breaks out, ends up in New York Harbor and he was essentially a refugee I mean, here's a guy who doesn't speak English.

And in two or three years he's got a company that's producing photographic equipment for the US Military that's being installed on airplanes and being used in the war.

(rapid Gatling gun fire) (airplane rumbling) (airplane exploding) (rapid Gatling gun fire) Soon, he was inventing line after line of cameras for the war effort and was granted us citizenship.

After 20 years as a man without a country, he finally had a home, but he was alone.

For almost 15 years, Jacques and Mariette had been lovers, while Jacques struggled with the Swiss courts to obtain a divorce from his first wife, Sima.

Mariette, a Catholic, and in no immediate danger was supposed to join him in the US a few months later.

But the war escalated.

For the duration of world war II, Jacques was separated from Mariette and his sons in Switzerland.

During his seven years alone, Jacques's memories were only recorded in still image.

And even those were rare, as he spent his time designing and manufacturing countless cameras.

At first, I thought it was strange that he didn't make films during the war.

Business was booming and he had a home in America.

But then it started to make sense to me.

When he was at home and he could bring the camera up to his eye, who could he record?

March 21 1947 New York More than seven years have passed since the last page of my diary.

These seven years are perhaps the most volatile in my life.

Three companies formed, one after another here, hard work, hopes and disillusionments, war and separation from my family.

Parents, two years ago I learned of my parents' and sister's tragic death at the hands of the brutal Germans.

My brother has also disappeared.

It is very hard to get used to the idea of the tragic departure of my loved ones.

(somber piano music) Boys, Raphael married.

Emil, about to get married too.

(paper rustling) After that, he never wrote in his journal again Since we've just recently learned what he knew about his family having been killed by the Nazis, now I see him differently.

I think that maybe he was racing through life.

He was trying to get so many things in.

He was maybe trying to not think about it.

I had no idea that these things had happened and I certainly had no idea that he knew about them, but he did and I don't think he told anybody in the family.

(somber piano music) I couldn't help reading Jacques's last journal entry again and again, hoping it would end differently.

As he counted the years of separation from his parents and siblings in Russia, I imagined his future reunion with them.

(somber piano music) Even though I've been working on this for 12 years, or whatever the reality is, I think it's like 11 and a half Most of my adult life.

(chuckling) He had never come to me in my dreams, or at least, I'd never had a dream about Jacques until a month ago.

So what happened in the dream was I was going up an elevator in a high-rise for a job interview.

I'm nervous, I don't really even know what the job is in my mind at the moment.

And I go and I sit in the reception and they call me in.

And so I walk in the door and there's a man standing in front of me.

(Alyssa sniffing) And he turns around and it's JB and he's interviewing me.

I'm sorry.

I don't even know why I'm emotional.

It kind of hits you by surprise, doesn't it?

I can see that.

Yeah, so anyways, he's interviewing me for a job and I think it's, like, to make the documentary.

And I don't feel confident at all, total self-doubt.

He gave me some advice.

He said something about, (Alyssa sighing) it's not about the place, it's the context.

Wow.

And then I kind of walked out, shook his hand and I said, even if I don't get the job, this isn't even sad, I don't know I'm crying.

I said, even if I don't get the job, can we go get dinner, I have some questions for you?

(laughing) And he's like, sure.

After the war Jacques flew to Switzerland to finally reunite with Mariette and bring her back to the US.

Starting in December of 1947, he filmed again.

This is where my great aunt Carole enters his story.

(relaxing upbeat classical music) (relaxing upbeat classical music) Finally, after 22 years of elicit love, they were elicit, they were Americans.

They became citizens.

(relaxing upbeat classical music) (relaxing upbeat classical music) My father was very patriotic about America What he most cherished in America, I think was a sense of possibility, that everything was possible.

Being Jewish had cost so much over so many years and been such a factor in Europe.

And now he was breathing what he thought as the free air of a new world and he just said, I'm not gonna mess this up.

I'm not gonna bring in the old hatreds that was part of the air that you breathed in Europe.

I'm gonna do this a new way.

He wanted his sons to be part of his new life in America.

A year later, his son, my grandfather, Emil came to New York.

But Raphael stayed in Switzerland with his wife, Lillian, to help watch over his mother, Sima.

Soon, Emil and Margo started a family of their own.

First Michel.

Then my father, Robin.

And finally, Laureen.

(upbeat jive music) Jacques and Emil worked together closely.

They created new lines of still 35 millimeter civilian cameras based on his military inventions.

There was a huge post-war boom in the early '50s.

There was plenty of money around and one of the things that you did with it was you bought consumer goods.

And now cameras were seen as consumer goods.

When the war ended, that company was in fact a big player.

But more importantly, I think, for him, he's developing the market for his ideas.

And it looks like things, it's gonna be smooth sailing.

This is like a launchpad.

You have to assume that it was kind of an immigrant's stream come true.

Introducer: Here is Edward R. Murrow.

Edward: "This, I believe."

Jacques Bolsey heads one of America's leading photographic companies.

He mass produced the first amateur motion picture camera.

This is Jacques Bolsey's creed.

I applied for the citizenship the day I arrived in the United States in 1939.

I wanted to become an American because I believed this country is a living example of the benefits available to all, any color race or creed.

My grandfather He felt really strongly that it was the job of private companies to give their employees very generous benefits of all kinds.

He wanted his workers to have a full stake in the company, emotionally, as well as in every other way.

He wanted them to feel like the company was theirs.

For him, success wasn't money.

He didn't show any real interest in amassing huge quantities of money.

He was also trying to build this city for employees.

He would be building all these different projects and they would get around in electric cars in electric cars in the community.

I think that my father was looking ahead to a time when business and progress would give everyone a chance at happiness.

Jacques continued to innovate new consumer cameras but the competition proved to be fierce.

(camera clicking) The 35 millimeter still camera market was really a difficult, cutthroat market to be in because there were a tremendous number of manufacturers.

And suddenly my grandfather discovered the there was no money.

According to my dad, anyway.

My dad described it to me in kind of sketchy details, but he went from being a wealthy man, essentially, to a man with nothing.

My mother said American business changed him.

American business was so driven, so tough, so go, go, go that she said it changed him completely.

He no longer had the ease in the sense that he had time to do anything except work.

And that's what I remember.

I saw my father's mood darken and darken and darken.

Again, there wasn't any laughter.

Inventors also are very often pretty self-absorbed because their minds are so active.

Everything is devoted to this hopeful creative process that the inventor is engaged in.

They're not paying that much attention to the people around them.

(relaxing piano music) As an attempt to revitalize the Bolsey company, Jacques held a press conference for his new invention, the Single 8 Pocket Camera.

In 1958, we finally came out with the Bolsey 8mm Miniature Movie Camera the smallest camera in the world.

It is a very simple camera.

I tried to take such a camera out of the class of photographic item and bring it into the class of appliances, most specifically, of pocket appliances.

The main idea being that such a camera should be used by people who knew absolutely nothing about photography, and can be instructed in practical, good picture taking within a minute or so.

Such a pocket appliance should be as easy to use as a pencil or pen.

I am sure that such a pocket appliance-type camera will be like everything in life, just another beginning and another step forward.

(Bolex camera clicking) In January of 1962, Jacques died of a sudden heart attack.

He had just turned 66.

The day my father died was a sleety, freezing, wet day.

They told us that my father had been brought in to the White Plains Hospital right away.

We raced over to the hospital which was only a few blocks from where we were at the time.

The doctor, Dr. Silverstein arrived.

He was the family doctor.

He went in and a few minutes later he came out and looked at my mother and said, I think he said, he's gone.

And my mother was completely flabbergasted She sat up and then she stood up and then she burst into tears.

(somber eery music) We found a letter that Jacques had written to himself three weeks before he died.

December 18 1961 I am not afraid to die.

I am not afraid of death.

I just think of the amount of experience, know-how and certain knowledge I have accumulated during my over 50 years of activities and and hard work.

There are still so many things to be finalized but I am afraid I have not the time to finish.

I believe that these things are beneficial not only to my family and interesting to me as a challenge, but they are also possibly beneficial to some of the humanity at large.

I am afraid I may die before I have time to finalize them, another disturbing thought that does not help my work.

Many new ideas keep coming all the time, incessantly.

That means I have to live even longer to fulfill the task I assigned myself.

Methuselah, why didn't you leave me your secret to longevity?

I just don't know what my dad thought, it's just too hard to fathom what he would think, reading this.

His whole life was always in the shadow of his father.

His whole world was crashing down around him.

Everything his father had left him was crashing down and it had started crashing down before his father died.

what happened after that was basically what happens to every company when they become under-capitalized and they have problems, they just kind of crumbled.

The company was Jacques.

I mean, that's what it came down to, it was Jacques, it was the embodiment of him.

My dad used to use the word, pipe dream.

Sometimes he would tell me I needed fewer pipe dreams.

I think that is a reflection of what he thought about what his father had.

Not because he didn't understand the great that he had done, but he saw it all come to that end which was hard to fathom.

(somber piano music) Maybe the reason my grandfather, Emil didn't talk about the past was because he was afraid we would chase our own pipe dreams.

In his own way, Emil must have been trying to protect the family from facing the same hardships that he and his father went through.

But looking at it now, Jacques' dreams are the reason my family is here today.

In a sense, his dream saved our family.

I think deep down, Emil knew it too.

(somber piano music) It's been over 90 years since Jacques penciled his first drawings of the Bolex and the camera is still being made.

Paillard is gone and now the owners are Bolex International in Yverdon, Switzerland.

Even though the building looks big, the Bolex International offices are now just a couple of rooms where, Marc, the office manager and, Otello, the technician work every day to keep the Bolex going.

(buttons clicking) Welcome, this is the reception, Bolex International in Switzerland.

Most of our customers today are young people between 18 and 30 years old.

(skateboard wheels rumbling on tar) (skateboard banging on tar) (upbeat music playing) (upbeat music playing) (upbeat music playing) (upbeat music playing) (upbeat music playing) (upbeat music playing) To me, success, Jacques' success wasn't in accomplishing everything he wanted to do because there was always a new idea, but he planted seeds and he never stopped.

He just kept going.

It's almost like the Bolex.

It just keeps going.

And the number of lives Jacques has touched, the people his camera brings together, the stories they have told, the memories they have shared, even now during the transition from film to digital his vision continues to play out.

The footprints of the Bolex are everywhere And with the collaboration and the imagination of thousands, his seed of an idea continues to grow.

(relaxing classical music) (relaxing classical music) (relaxing classical music) And now, "This, I believe".

"This, I believe."

This is Jacques Bolsey's creed.

Be straight as an arrow in your dealings with man.

Always look forward and up.

Never despair as long as the sun shines as long as the sun shines there's hope.

I believe that so long as I follow this guide post, I will prosper and be happy, this I believe.

Beyond the Bolex is available with PBS Passport and an extended feature length version with additional scenes is available on Amazon Prime Video.