Reading Book of Blockade

Premiers résistants, seuls contre tous

This communist history film recalls the heroism of Soviet soldiers fighting the Nazis in World War II. Forty of the 236 cameramen used for the feature were killed during their mission filming the Red Army.

A double portrait of two dictators who were thousands of miles apart but were constantly fixated on each other.

August 1942: Amidst the unimaginable suffering inflicted during the blockade of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht, an orchestra director was given an almost impossible task: to stage the premiere of Dimitri Shostakovitch's "Leningrad Symphony". The performance became a symbol of the brief triumph of culture over the barbarism of war.

It was one of the great crimes of the Second World War: from 1941 to 1944, a total of 872 days, the siege and starvation of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht on Hitler's orders lasted. Over a million people fell victim to the blockade, most of them dying of hunger. Countless of these starving people wrote diaries with the last of their strength, and cameramen filmed in the paralyzed city. Evidence from the hell of the siege, many of the film recordings, but above all the written memories on which this documentary on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation is based, remained under lock and key after the war. The voices of those who had suffered through this terrible time should not be heard by anyone, because they did not fit the pathos of the Leningrad heroic song that was officially sung. Most of the recordings come from women. The writers feared neither the enemy nor the Communist Party or Stalin, who often proved incompetent in providing for the population.

Katyusha

Triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early spring of 2022, Ukrainian journalist and writer Ivan Avramov struggles to navigate his fluid identity and the shifting reality around him.

The documentary focuses on the struggles of those who survived the long siege by German forces during World War II (from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944). The three million inhabitants of Leningrad (now renamed St Petersburg) suffered extremes of starvation and deprivation.

"Den Pobedy" (Victory Day) is counted among the most important celebrations for many former Soviet Republics. It is held on May 9 and commemorates the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). This day pays homage to the war veterans and to the over 26 million Soviets who lost their lives fighting this war. Kalinichenko Vasily Porfirievich fought in the Red Army on the 3rd Ukrainian Front and on the 1st Belarusian Front. As a member of the 226th Infantry Regiment he entered Berlin on April 22, 1945. This documentary explores the war, his life and his family story.

An old woman from Caucasian Mountains goes to the front line do give her sons weapons of their ancestors.

Soviet propaganda film. After the end of the WWII, a group of bridge builders comes to the village of Lyubotin, but around them, disturbing the peaceful life, the “Banderites“ are rampaging around.

Lithuania, 1941. German tanks and motorized columns broke into the border military town. Seven Soviet soldiers were cut off from the garrison. Without food and weapons, they went through the occupied territory to the location of the Red Army units.

Kirovakan, Armenia, 1968. A street in the town is being renamed, but nobody seems to know whom after. A chance encounter between a student running late to his thesis defense, and a young woman determined to leave the town forever. 25 years earlier, Genrikh Zakaryan, a young resistance fighter, smuggles a secret Nazi operations map through occupied territory. Imaginings and history meld into one, echoes of past and future coalesce: “the fate of Genrikh Zakaryan is intangibly intertwined with the fate of today’s youth.”

In June 1941, the Extraordinary Defense Headquarters of Leningrad, under the leadership of Zhdanov and Voroshilov, decided to build the Luga defensive line. Heavy fighting west of Pskov forced units of the front to withdraw, and on July 9, Pskov was also abandoned. The battles in the Luga direction held back the enemy. The first attacks of the Germans, intending to cross the Luga line on the move, were repulsed with heavy losses for them.

A story about the tragic events in the life of besieged Leningrad from September 1941 to January 1943.

Wartime, summer 1941. Train carrying criminals gets under enemy fire and crashed. Out of all of the living are only a young lieutenant of the NKVD and two prisoners - the thief and repressed Communist party worker.

Autumn 1941. In a Nazi POW camp near Kyiev, a person claiming to be a doctor appears. He convinced Germans to set up a hospital. Raising no suspicions in Germans, he supplied prisoners with weapons and helped them to escape.

Biopic about general Hazi Aslanov, who died fighting Germans in WW2.

When barbarian hordes threaten her homeland, the brave and cunning Mulan disguises herself as a male soldier to swell the ranks in her aging father's stead. The warrior's remarkable courage drives her through powerful battle scenes and brutal wartime strategy. Mulan loses dear friends to the enemy's blade as she rises to become one of her country's most valuable leaders — but can she win the war before her secret is exposed?

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