First Contact (1983 film)
"First Contact" is the first documentary in what later became known as "The Highland Trilogy". The other two films are "Joe Leahy's Neighbours" (1989) and "Black Harvest" (1992). These three films, between them, have won some thirty major awards, included each film winning both the Grand Prix at the Festival Cinéma du Réel in Paris and AFI Award for Best Documentary.
Actuality film
The first actuality films date to the time of the very emergence of projected cinema. The Lumière Brothers in France were the principal advocates for this genre and also coined the term — "Actualités" — and used it as a descriptor in the printed catalogues of their films. "La sortie des usines Lumière" (1895) — the first film exhibited by the Lumières—is by default the earliest actuality film; it might have not been the first one made, but it was definitively the first one shown publicly, on December 28, 1895.