Marx and his heirs

Scenes from holiday life at Lake Balaton in Hungary during the communism.

Filmed on the 60th anniversary of the republic, this dark-humor documentary delves on the highs and lows of living in North Korea.

Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution

A Experimental Docu-Drama about the Red Army Faction's formation, and events leading up to their imprisonment and death, from 1970 to 1977.

Großes Kino made in DDR

A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.

Inside the Khmer Rouge takes an in-depth look at the history, domination, and current status of the Khmer Rouge (a Communist regime) in Cambodia. The film features revealing interviews with soldiers of both the modern Khmer Rouge and those who fight in opposition. A comprehensive timeline of the regime's five-year occupation in Cambodia is dissected and includes a review of key individuals, ideologies, and locations where devastation hit hardest. Following this, the film takes a look at the effects on the Cambodian citizens upon the retraction of Vietnamese forces. Inside the Khmer Rouge continues to investigate the current tactics the modern Khmer Rouge implement and their attempts to persuade followers in order to rebuild and expand their regime. Oppositely, local forces or "jungle soldiers" discuss their devices for assuring the destruction and atrocities once caused by the Khmer Rouge never happen again.

The life of a female weaver is thrown onto the socio-political canvas of pre-war and post-war communist Poland through the use of expressive allegorical and symbolic imagery in this imaginative take on the documentary form.

On June 5, 1989, one day after Chinese troops expelled thousands of demonstrators from Tiananmen Square in Beijing, a solitary, unarmed protester stood his ground before a column of tanks advancing down the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Captured by Western photographers watching nearby, this extraordinary confrontation became an icon of the fight for freedom around the world. FRONTLINE investigates the mystery of the tank man — his identity, his fate, and his significance for the Chinese leadership.

Xu Xin’s film “Dao Lu” (China 2012) offers an exclusive “in camera” encounter with Zheng Yan, an 83 year-old veteran of the Chinese Red Army, who calmly relates how he has navigated his country’s turbulent history over three-quarters of a century.Born to a wealthy family in a foreign concession, Yan joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1941 because he sincerely believed in the socialist project, and in its immediate capacity to free China from the Japanese yoke and eradicate deep-rooted corruption.

A fragment of reality about a less affected part of the third world, and how it got to the moon.

Taking stock of the extraordinary adventure of "Pif Gadget", a French publishing phenomenon of the 1970s-80s and even of the whole history of children's press. For the comic-strip magazine with the iconic dog, created in 1969 by the French Communist Party, often reached a million copies. With editions available for all of Europe (including Germany, under the title Yps), and on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Paul Robeson was a celebrated African-American Actor, Athlete, Singer, Writer, and Civil Rights Activist. Robeson's many achievements are chronicled in this program, ranging from playing with the NFL to graduating from Columbia Law School, performing on Broadway and in Hollywood films to founding the American Crusade against Lynching as well as Council on African Affairs. Robeson was one of the most talented performers of his time and a dedicated humanitarian who ultimately sacrificed fame and fortune for what he believed in. His association with Leftist Politics during the era of the Cold War, and frequent denouncing of American political parties led to his eventual blacklisting with other prominent writers and artists during the McCarthy Era. His talents in all areas are remarkable, and his dedication to attaining a peaceful coexistence between all the people of the world is truly admirable.

Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory started as an investigation of the link between politics and chocolate, at the Karl Marx Confectionary Factory in Kiev, Ukraine. Since access to the factory was denied, the project had to be re-considered, re-invented or re-enacted. Mostly made of archival footage and re-enacted performances based on the company's website, the film merges what was left of the initial idea with what has been collected and realized instead. It borrows from the genres of video art, 'Man on the street' interview, direct address, corporate film, essay, and music video, without legitimately belonging to any of them. The film unravels as a reflection on its own failure, and yet keeps on investigating what has always been at stake: the shift from public to private property (and from analog to digital technology), dialectics of permanence and change, language as a mirror of ideology, and post-Soviet oligarchy culture.

Jesus Was a Commie presents modern society with questions and leads the audience on a dialectical journey. The film challenges the viewer to seek their own answers and personal truths.

Short Croatian documentary from the former Yugoslavia by Ante Babaja that captures the different faces in a waiting room.

La Tragédie des Brigades Internationales

Alex Jones interviews Walter Burien, commodity trading adviser (CTA) of 15 years about the biggest game in town. There are over 85,000 federal and regional governmental institutions: school districts, water and power authorities, county and city governments – and they own over 70 percent of the stock market.

On May 1st, unions all over Japan celebrate May Day, the international day for workers. Workers gather together at parks and hold demonstrations and parades. May Day has its origins in a strike that occurred in the United States on May 1, 1886, a strike that called for an eight-hour workday. Prokino recorded the May Day every year from 1927 to 1932. Among these films, this work is the only one that has survived. However, only its first part has survived. The original film depicts the march to the Ueno Park where the rally was dismissed. Iwasaki Akira coordinated the entire Tokyo Prokino organization as it photographed the 1931 May Day celebrations. They shot in both 16mm and 35mm (other 35mm productions were planned, but this is the only one that achieved completion). A 16mm print was circulated around the countryside by mobile projection units, and a 35mm print was shown at Soviet film nights in Tokyo and Osaka.