For the past 40 years, Bruce Beach has been preparing for a nuclear disaster. A bunker of 42 school buses is buried on his property, designed to save humanity. Curious onlookers and interested preppers regularly visit the site named Ark Two, but it's clear that the creator of this decaying shelter is the only one truly convinced of its practicality in the event of an apocalypse. Now that Bruce is in his 80s, he and his wife Jean need to spend more time taking care of their immediate needs than worrying about the future. What could easily be dismissed as evangelical paranoia becomes a tragic yet uplifting story about a risk-taking inventor who has lived without regrets. Sometimes outside-the-box thinkers become millionaires and are recognized for their genius ability to guide us into the future, while others are pushed to the margins. There’s a lot to be learned from both
For many, the name Malvinas/Falklands evokes an absurd war between England and Argentina in 1982. For Julieta Vitullo, the protagonist of this film, this tragic history becomes deeply personal 25 years later when she suffers a loss associated with her search to uncover that past, unfolding into a life-affirming struggle for renewal and rebirth. This film tells the story of two trips, one made in 2006 and the other in 2010. In the space between one trip and the next, between past and present, between the public and the private, between what can and cannot be told, the movie reflects on the possibilities of conveying extreme life experiences, presenting landscapes and sounds that suggest subtle contours of that shape, 'The Exact Shape of the Islands.'
Greek Theo Angelopoulos traveling from Athens to Ostia, the Roman beach where Pasolini was killed. Far from there, in a Spanish train station, Víctor Erice wanders in an interview about the film resistance. And in Italy, Tonino Guerra, Ninetto Davoli and Nico Naldini lend his voice to the missing Passolini to close a historic triangle on film and solitude.
The story of the Battle of Midway, and the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome massive odds.
The Jacobite Rebellion of Scotland, and thirty years after the first battle, Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army make a stand at Culloden.
A close look at Alexander the Great - from Macedonia to India. Alexander the Great has always enjoyed a unique status in history. To the Greeks and Romans, he was a hero, to the Arabs, he was a prophet, to Westerners, he is a myth. Alexander the Great Hellenized the ancient world and spread Greek civilisation single-handedly throughout, as far as the borders of India, by relentlessly pursuing his sworn enemy Darius the Great, King of Persia. But what remains today of the "real" Alexander? Of his life and environment? Through the many depictions of the hero and the archaeological traces of his triumphant conquest, this film portrays the legendary figure, who has always been, and continues to be, a great source of inspiration, even for artists of today.
Film from Andrew Morgan. The True Cost is a documentary film exploring the impact of fashion on people and the planet.
In 2010 the Freedom Flotilla attempts to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. In international waters the flotilla is attacked by the Israeli army and 9 people are killed. 9 anonymous people. But the dead still have a name. In 2014 Gaza is attacked by Israel. 2131 Palestinians are killed, among them 513 children. 513 dead children. But the dead children still have names. The film is about a Jewish person who has made a political journey from the Vietnam war to Gaza. This person is the paediatrician Henry Ascher, who lost his fathers entire family in the Holocaust.
In medieval France, young lawyer Richard Courtois leaves Paris for the simpler life in the country. However, he is soon drawn into amorous and political intrigues. At the same time, he is pushed to defend a pig, owned by the mysterious gypsy Samira. The pig has been arrested for the murder of a young boy.
On an obscure Pacific Island just north of Australia, the Japanese Empire has operated a prisoner of war camp for Australian soldiers. At the close of World War II, the liberated POWs tell a gruesome tale of mass executions of over eight hundred persons as well as torture style killings of downed Australian airmen. In an attempt to bring those responsible to justice, the Australian Army establishes a War Crimes Tribunal to pass judgement on the Japanese men and officers who ran the Ambon camp. In an added twist, a high ranking Japanese admiral is implicated, and politics become involoved with justice as American authorities in Japan lobby for the Admiral's release. Written by Anthony Hughes
Documentary about the work of Claude Lorius, who began studying Antarctic ice in 1957, and, in 1965, was the first scientist to be concerned about global warming.
The Wages of Resistance is a feature-length documentary film that portrays an "extended span of time" of the protests against building Narita International Airport which have continued from the 1960's to today through documenting monologues of those whose lives were twisted by the movement.
A poignant documentary about the history of a family haunted by World War II. On the basis of archive material, documents left behind by her great-aunt Ro Miller and stories told by her father Eli Asser, Hella de Jonge reconstructs what happened to her family during, before and after the war. How they became aware of the danger, how they fled, how they hid, how they survived and how they died. And how, after the war was over, it continued to weigh on their lives. In Hella’s words, “The doctor advised my mother to have children, to help cope with the incredible loss.” A portrait of her grandmother, who died in the war, still hangs in her father’s living room. The filmmaker’s relationship with him has always been difficult. Fragments of memory never before discussed run together during an emotional journey embarked upon together by father and daughter to places of significance in the history of their family.
It is late spring of 1942, and the Great Patriotic War is in full swing. A long way off from the front-line, at some God-forgotten junction, the Germans make an air landing operation in an attempt to get through to the Kirov railway and the White Sea - the Baltic Sea Canal. These aren't just ordinary paratroopers. This is a team of seasoned and highly trained infiltrators, the elite of the Waffen-SS, superhumans. The only thing in their way is an anti-aircraft artillery unit of corporal Vaskov and five young women in training. It may seem like a fight of local significance, but the countrys main strategic transportation artery is at stake. Can the corporal and his 'petite newbies' prevent Nazi sabotage and at what cost? Television version: An extended version made out of four 45 minute episodes was released on Channel One Russia, on 9 May 2016. Available on PrimeVideo.
'Ringers: Lord of the Fans' is a feature-length documentary that explores how "The Lord of the Rings" has influenced Western popular culture over the past 50 years.
After his men are killed in Burma, a lone soldier returns home in search of solace. Hiding a dark secret and confronted by an unrelenting journalist, he's forced to face the ghosts of his past one last time.
In 1941 Hitler deported over 2000 British men, women and children from the Channel Islands to the heart of Nazi Germany. It was a terrifying journey into the unknown and some killed themselves rather than go. Others had just hours to pack one bag, destroy their pets and leave. However, the initial horror of the camps and the struggle to survive in the primitive conditions was replaced with a determination not just to survive, but to thrive, as Hitler's crime created one of the most bizarre episodes of the war.
In 1940 the Channel Islands became the only part of Britain to fall under Nazi rule. Now in this film Islanders speak from the heart about one of the most extraordinary periods in our history. Reliving in their own words the horror of the first air raids, the shock of occupation and the islands' gradual five year long decent into privation and starvation before experiencing the capitulation of the German forces and the joy of liberation.
As soon as Hitler's forces occupied the Channel Islands in 1940 he ordered a series of fortifications to defend the only British territory he ever conquered. The problem was he never stopped - pouring men, concrete and weapons into the islands. By 1944 his officers talked of the Fuehrer's inselwahn - his 'island madness' and the Channel Islands had become the most fortified place on earth.
In 1940, carried on a wave of rumour and panic, thirty thousand Channel Islanders fled their homes, their livelihoods and the islands for five long years in exile. Arriving in England with just one small case and only twenty pounds in cash, they were sent by rail across the country from Oldham to Glasgow. Children separated from parents, all cast adrift in an alien culture. Homeless and jobless, the adventures that befell them helped forge friendships the length and breadth of Great Britain which survive to this day. This is their story.