Working for the Enemy

A documentary on the rise and fall of Project Cybersyn, an attempt at a computer-managed centralized economy undertaken in Chile during the presidency of Salvador Allende.

The Amsterdamse Bos (Amsterdam Forest), located between Amstelveen and Schiphol, was constructed during the years of economic crisis. In 1934, Amsterdam had 50,000 unemployed residents, who were put to work on the project as part of a government relief scheme. Annette Apon made this short documentary about the creation of the Amsterdamse Bos for the Amsterdams Stadsjournaal.

This program investigates the ways various art forms are used to sway minds and to argue political causes. Examples include Napoleon and Hitler; artist such as Daumier, Hogarth and Shann; writers Dickens, Swift and Orwell; and pop artists who mock popular ideals.

Leon Trotsky is considered one of the most controversial revolutionary figures of his time. Was he a practical revolutionary or a naive idealist? On the practical side, he was the mastermind behind the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, and was totally ruthless during the ensuing Civil War. As an idealist, he was committed to the pursuit of international revolution, but created many political enemies. After Lenin's death, Trotsky lost in a power struggle with Stalin, and later was expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union, eventually finding refuge in Mexico. In 1940, Stalin ordered his assassination, and Trotsky died after being struck in the head with an ice-pick. History records that Trotsky was a master theoretician, a skillful propagandist and a brilliant orator.

This film examines Trotsky, the revolutionary; venerated and reviled, loved, hated, feared. Archive material compiled from all over the world, citations and new shoots create an electrifying proximity to the historical person and to the man Leo Trotsky. Stages in his life and eventual flight are carefully examined, from St. Petersburg, to Mexico City. This is the riveting political biography of the Revolution's onetime hero.

During the first days after the 1973 Chilean coup d’état, the political leadership of the Popular Unity government was arrested and transferred to Dawson Island, Magallanes Region, extreme south of Chile and the mainland. The wives of the then political prisoners began an incessant effort to find out the whereabouts of their husbands and then try to return them alive. In these circumstances, they meet and spontaneously organize into a group they call the “Dawsonianas.”

Through the eyes of journalists and photographers working at Barricada, the official publication of the FSLN, the film observes the problems of putting socialism into practice, with reports on the war, the economy, the prison system and the political process leading up to the 1984 elections.

A portrait of a remote area in the rural north of Nicaragua facing difficulties with the revolutionary process. It follows Marlon Stuart, the regional FSLN political organiser, at the time of the 1984 elections.

An interview with the president of Chile conducted by Roberto Rossellini in 1971, but broadcast only after his death.

Composed of stills by renowned Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas taken in 1978 and 1979 during the overthrow of the fifty-year dictatorship of the Somoza family. Written in the form of a letter from Meiselas to Karlin, it is a ruminative and often profound exploration of the ethics of witnessing, the responsibilities of war photography and the politics of the still image.

Shot in 1983–84 and focusing on the work of the Historical Institute, this film witnesses how Nicaraguans are recovering their history, the memory of Sandino’s struggle, to transform their sense of identity.

The UCS struggle is a campaign film supporting the fight to retain their jobs by the workers at Upper Clyde Shipyards who developed a new weapon for waging this fight – the occupation and the work-in. The film was screened at the time at meetings attended overall by 25,000 workers. It includes a speech by Jimmy Reid.

"Jeunesse Rouge" is a documentary exploring young French Communist revolutionaries fighting for a just and equal society. The film follows their organizing and mobilizing, while delving into the history of the Communist movement in France. Archival footage and interviews with activists show their passionate commitment, from protests and strikes to political education. It highlights the power of youth activism and their potential to bring about change in the face of systemic inequality.

Taking the demise of a textile factory in Austria’s Waldviertel region as its starting point, with the antiquated manufacturing plant initially shown in full operation, this film poses the question of what work means for people’s self-image and character. After the factory goes bankrupt and closes, the filmmaker accompanies some of its employees as they continue to make their way, questioning them about their daily routines, the circumstances in which they live, about looking for work or the new jobs they find. One woman’s situation is precarious, but that doesn’t prevent her from bringing up her grandchildren. Another woman works here and there, flexible and resourceful. One man blossoms visibly in his newly unemployed state. Bit by bit, different aspects of their private lives and personal misfortunes emerge.

"My Socialist Home" is a documentary film exploring the significance of gender in the constitution of domestic space in the socialist and postsocialist state.

A leftist revolutionary or a reformist democrat? A committed Marxist or a constitutionalist politician? An ethical and moral man or, as Richard Nixon called him, a "son of a bitch"? In SALVADOR ALLENDE, acclaimed Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán (The Battle of Chile and Chile, Obstinate Memory) returns to his native country thirty years after the 1973 military coup that overthrew Chile's Popular Unity government to examine the life of its leader, Salvador Allende, both as a politician and a man.

Trzeci zjazd

Documentary film about four families in Pori, Finland, all struggling with unemployment and poverty.

Rok stalinské epochy

In 1984, eleven miners entrenched themselves underground to protest for better working conditions in the mining village of Almaden in southern Spain. The strike, deep within the toxic mercury mine, lasted for eleven long days, during which the whole village showed its solidarity with the men protesting underground. The mine was the heart of Almaden, around which everything revolved – until it longer existed. The mercury mine was closed for good at the beginning of the 21st century. As a consequence, the area has experienced mass unemployment and slow decline.