Libera, My Love

During World War II, a plane transfers Bulgarian antifascists from the USSR to Bulgaria. They jump with parachutes. The eighth paratrooper heads a guerilla group. In the group, there are doubts about the existence of a traitor. Initially, an innocent person is accused, but later the real traitor is caught and killed. Still, the most dangerous enemies of the guerillas are the colonel and the troops stationed in the nearby village. The battle between them and the guerillas is won by the latter who continue to fight for their cause.

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

Five Bulgarian émigrés return to their country by submarine from the Soviet Union. They have to organize the antifascist resistance.

Diego is one of the chiefs of the Spanish Communist Party. On his way from Madrid to Paris, he is arrested at the border for an ID check but manages to get free. When he arrives in Paris, he starts searching for one of his comrade to prevent him from going to Madrid where he could be arrested.

At the end of the Spanish Civil War, the members of a group of vaudeville performers have been stripped of everything: all they have left is hunger and the instinct to survive. Day after day, agonizingly, lost and helpless between the victors and the vanquished, the musician Jorge, the ventriloquist Enrique, the couplet singer Rocío and the orphan Miguel search tirelessly for something to eat and a safe place to live.

Lisbon, 1938. Mr. Pereira is the editor of the culture section of an evening paper. Although fascism is on the rise in Europe, like in nearby civil war Spain or even inside Portugal itself in the form of Salazar's regime, Pereira only concerns himself with writing bios and translating French novels. Things change after he hires a young writer as his assistant, getting to know also his girlfriend – both opponents to the regime – and reluctantly helps them when they begin to get in trouble for subversive activities. Eventually, he's forced to take a stand...

Mário a kúzelník

Working with children led Barskaya to create superb direct sound and an inspired style of shooting. Don’t look for conventional cinematic syntax here. The film is chaotic in the way that Soviet films still knew how to be, and Langlois couldn’t help but be seduced by its rebellious spirit, its anarchy and love of children, comparable to Vigo’s Zero de conduite. As well as being a film made with and for children, it offers a complex take on Western society. Pre-Nazi Germany is not named as such but is carefully reconstructed, possibly under advice from Karl Radek, and children offer a playful reflection of class struggle – doubly excluded, as proletarians and as minors. “They play in the same way that they live”, one intertitle says. The interaction between their comical games and the yet more ludicrous ones played by adults is developed on several levels.

In 1925, young Florentine typographer Mario moves to via del Corno to be near his girlfriend Bianca. Here befriends Maciste, his landlord, and Ugo, anti-fascists both of them. After a resident is beaten by the fascists, Mario meets the wife Milena at the hospital, falling in love with her and leaving Bianca. Maciste is killed, again by fascists, while Ugo is wounded and he seeks shelter in a nearby house. Here he falls in love with Gesuina and the two marry. Milena's husband dies, but she and Mario part ways. Later, Mario is arrested by the police.

France, 1975. Jean, an exiled Spanish Communist, is a successful screenwriter who, after a tragic event, struggles with his political commitment, his love for his country, under the boot of General Franco, whose death he and his comrades have waited for years, and his complicated relationship with his son. (A sequel to “The War Is Over,” 1966.)

This film is the first of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. In early November 1918, Ernst Thälmann is an unwilling soldier serving on the western front. As the revolutionary movement at home is threatened by the betrayal of the Social Democrats and fissures in the working class, Thälmann calls on his fellow soldiers to put down their weapons and unite with the workers in the communist struggle at home. Thälmann’s qualms about which side he is fighting on continue, but when the local police attempt to prevent a shipment of provisions and supplies from reaching the people in Petrograd, he intervenes and the ship is unloaded. With this moment of clarity, Thälmann continues to follow his political convictions and joins the workers at the Hamburg uprising in October 1923.

This film is the second of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. Autumn, 1918: Somewhere on Germany’s western front, Ernst Thälmann, age twenty-four, is calling on his fellow soldiers to put down their guns and join him in the communist struggle at home. When Hamburg’s Police Commissioner blocks a much-needed food shipment to the workers of Petrograd, Ernst battles to see it allowed through. Until his murder on August 18, 1944, Ernst remained true to his political convictions in the face of many setbacks.

The Second World War. French authorities ban political parties and unions. In Algeria, the leaders of political and trade union organizations were arrested and interned in "surveillance" camps with more than 2,000 French and foreigners: communist activists, trade unionists, brigadists, Spanish republicans and other opponents of the Vichy regime. The Djenien Bourezg camp is one of these camps, located in southern Algeria and is one of the most formidable. An old activist for the Algerian national cause returns to the scene. He blows away the ashes that cover this part of history. And through it, we discover the hard fight of the camp inmates for respect and human dignity, under a fascist command.

In Venice in 1943, a group of partisans led by Renato Braschi organize a series of autonomous terrorist attacks against the fascists while the National Liberation Committee urges caution. Renato is determined to carry out his ideas, risking his own life, and not only that...

During the 20 months before Italy's liberation from Fascism, a group of university students trade empty rhetoric for action by joining the Partisans into the mountains of Nazi-occupied northern Italy. There, group leader Gigi falls in love with his best friend's girl. As the Resistance struggle continues, some of the "little teachers" are killed, and the brutal reality of war leaves its mark on their youthful idealism.

Annita Malavasi was just 22 when the Germans occupied Italy, their former allies, in 1943. As a partisan in the Italian resistance named “Laila”, she moved throughout the Apennines with and between fighting units, delivering information, transporting weapons, and taking part in battles. She spent over a year in the Apennines, fighting against the German occupation. At the same time, she had to assert herself against the men of the mountain villages. By the end of the war, Laila had risen among the ranks to become one of the few female commanders in the Italian resistance. This film chronicles the story of a lifelong struggle for emancipation that began with the battle for Italy’s liberation from fascism. Laila and her two comrades, Gina “Sonia” Moncigoli and Pierina “Iva” Bonilauri talk about their time in the Resistenza and what it meant to them and many other women.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Second World War (1939-1945), around three thousand people managed to elude their pursuers, and probably also avoided being killed, thanks to the heroic and very efficient efforts of the Ponzán Team, a brave group of people — mountain guides, forgers, safe house keepers and many others —, led by Francisco Ponzán Vidal, who managed to save their lives, both on one side and the other of the border between Spain and France.

Propaganda short film depicting the rise of Nazism in Germany and how political propaganda is similarly used in the United States. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.

Leftist extremist groups operating in Europe have chosen violence as a political tactic: they attack the right-wing parties offices, attack the police, provoke riots in demonstrations. Although leftist violence is increasing, it receives almost no public attention. An investigation into the alleged good violence exercised in the name of a supposedly just cause.

Letter from Tokyo is a documentary film that looks at art, culture and politics in Tokyo, Japan. Shot over three months during the summer of 2018, and with a particular focus on grass roots arts initiatives, the use of public space, and queer politics, the film provides a snapshot of Japan’s capital in the run up to the 2020 olympics.