The enigma of the personality cult is revealed in the grand spectacle of Stalin’s funeral. The film is based on unique archive footage, shot in the USSR on March 5 - 9, 1953, when the country mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.
This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.
The film interweaves the personal accounts of polio survivors with the story of an ardent crusader who tirelessly fought on their behalf while scientists raced to eradicate this dreaded disease. Based in part on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky, Features interviews with historians, scientists, polio survivors, and the only surviving scientist from the core research team that developed the Salk vaccine, Julius Youngner.
BBC documentary about Franz Kafka played by GREEK TV in 1990.This documentary is one of the ten films of "The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988)".
It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.
Raphael: The Lord of the Arts is a documentary about the 15th century Italian Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio.
The film tells of the beginnings of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. At the end of the 1950s, the Tanzanian National Park Administration wanted to fence in the protected area around the Ngorongoro Crater. Bernhard and Michael Grzimek were invited by the national park administration in 1957 to get a precise picture of the animal migrations and to provide the national park administration with the values they needed for their project. Using a new counting method with two airplanes, the Grzimeks found out that the migration of the herds was different than assumed.
Buddhist monks open up about the joys and challenges of living out the precepts of the Buddha as a full-time vocation. Controversies swirling within modern monastic Buddhism are examined, from celibacy and the role of women to racism and concerns about the environment.
Examine the history of bluegrass music, from its origins to its eventual worldwide popularity, and hear from dozens of musicians who explain the ways bluegrass music transcends generational, cultural and geographic boundaries.
In 2007, the Writers Guild of America, the Screenwriters Union, hit an impasse in their contract negotiations with the Studios. At the center of the dispute was jurisdiction over the internet. Unable to make progress, the WGA called a strike which brought Hollywood to a halt for 100 days.
Lost Heroes is the story of Canada's forgotten comic book superheroes and their legendary creators. A ninety-minute journey to recover a forgotten part of Canada's pop culture and a national treasure few have ever heard about. This is the tale of a small country striving to create its own heroes, but finding itself constantly out muscled by better-funded and better-marketed superheroes from the media empire next door.
Three years in the making in conjunction with the BBC. Using never seen before home movies, photos and eye witness accounts - this is the inside story of the world's biggest motorsport disaster.
In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station’s opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.
This timely, bold set of one-on-one interviews presents two of the most venerable figures from the American Left—renowned historian Howard Zinn and linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky—each reflecting upon his own life and political beliefs. At the age of 88, Howard Zinn reflects upon the Civil Rights and anti–Vietnam War movements, political empires, history, art, activism, and his political stance. Setting forth his personal views, Noam Chomsky explains the evolution of his libertarian socialist ideals, his vision for a future postcapitalist society, the Enlightenment, the state and empire, and the future of the planet.
Resorting on a vast archive material of newsreels, photographs, letters, family videos, fiction movies, diary and popular songs excerpts, the documentary reassesses the legacy of the dictatorial period of Getúlio Vargas (1937-1945). Through the comparison and analysis of these heterogeneous records, produced for different purposes, from political propaganda to family celebration, the film explores the several layers of the political web of the Estado Novo, exposing its external inspirational sources, functionality and contradictions.
Archival footage of an American Nazi rally that attracted 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden in 1939, shortly before the beginning of World War II.
Over the period of 25 years the director met General Võ Nguyên Giáp, a legendary hero of Vietnam’s independence wars, a number of times. She was the first American who entered the home of the “Red Napoleon”. The fruit of this friendship is a film, personal and politically involved at the same time. Travelling across the country and talking to important figures as well as ordinary people, the director finds out more about her roots and offers the audience a unique perspective on Vietnam’s present and past.
Arguably second only to Muddy Waters among the Mississippi Delta singers who traveled north and pioneered urban electric blues (their supposed rivalry is the subject of one of this DVD's bonus features), Wolf was a big, imposing man with an inimitable, booming voice and a lasting influence on generations of rock & rollers--all of which comes across in the 90-minute film.
In China, there exists an astonishing place. A burial ground to rival Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, where pyramid tombs of stupendous size are full of astonishing riches. In 221 BC, China's first Emperor united warring kingdoms into a nation that still exists today. To memorialise this achievement, he bankrupted the national treasury and oppressed thousands of workers to build one of the world’s biggest mortuary complexes. China's second dynasty, the Han, inherited the daunting challenge of building larger tombs to command respect and establish their right to rule without running the nation into the ground. Although no Han emperor's tomb has been opened, the tombs of lesser Han aristocrats have revealed astonishing things: complete underground palaces (including kitchens and toilets) and at least one corpse so amazingly well-preserved some believe Han tomb-builders knew how to "engineer immortality".
An in-depth look at the lost burial site of Emperor Jing Di's hidden army. Lost for over 2,000 years, this immense site covers 81 burial pits, each containing various goods for the afterlife, and as many as 100,000 terracotta figures.