Return to Manila: Filipino Cinema

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

The incredible story of Bruno Lüdke (1908-44), the alleged worst mass murderer in German criminal history; or actually, a story of forged files and fake news that takes place during the darkest years of the Third Reich, when the principles of criminal justice, subjected to the yoke of a totalitarian system that is beginning to collapse, mean absolutely nothing.

The story of French filmmaker Jean Rollin (1938-2010), one of the most singular voices of European cult cinema, deeply misunderstood and widely misrepresented.

The story of how Aurora Mardiganian (1901-94), a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (1915-17), became a Hollywood silent film star.

A look at the life and work of Spanish filmmaker and film critic Fernando Méndez-Leite, as he writes his memoirs and a novel with autobiographical resonances.

Tehran, Iran, August 19, 1953. A group of Iranian conspirators who, with the approval of the deposed tyrant Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, have conspired with agents of the British MI6 and the US CIA, manage to put an end to the democratic government led by Mohammad Mosaddegh, a dramatic event that will begin the tragic era of coups d'état that, orchestrated by the CIA, will take place, over the following decades, in dozens of countries around the world.

Ferruccio Castronuovo was the only authorized eye, between 1976 and 1986, to film the brilliant Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993) in his personal and creative intimacy, to capture the gears of his great circus, his fantastic lies and his crazy inventions.

Critical investigation of The World Bank and IMF. Too hot for PBS, but prime time TV everywhere else. Do the World Bank and IMF make the poor even poorer? Are the Bank and IMF democratic institutions? Why do people demonstrate against the Bank and IMF? For the first time, a documentary global investigation of major criticisms of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two of the most powerful financial institutions in the world. Five country case studies are presented, each concentrating on a different aspect of critics' charges: 1. Bolivia: Debt, Drugs and Democracy 2. Ghana: The Model of Success 3. Brazil: Debt, Damage and Politics 4. Thailand: Dams and Dislocation 5. Philippines: The Debt Fighters. The charges, including those related to structural adjustment, are controversial and provocative. Some go to the heart of the power and policies of these institutions.

Beneath Hong Kong's glittering facade, Filipina domestic helpers work in relative anonymity and for near-slave wages. In a beauty pageant like no other, five helpers give themselves makeovers for a day and gleefully reclaim their dignity.

The tale of an activist’s journey during the turbulent years of Martial Law, until his capture in the mountains and the dark, nine years of imprisonment that followed, leading to his birth as a poet.

A journey through the work of Spanish filmmaker Juan Piquer Simón (1935-2011).

In 1945, two young American soldiers, brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg, are commissioned to collect filmed and recorded evidence of the horrors committed by the infamous Third Reich in order to prove Nazi war crimes during the Nuremberg trials (1945-46). The story of the making of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, a paramount historic documentary, released in 1948.

A portrait of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, creator, for three decades, of an imperfect, astonishing, fascinating, damaged and poetic work.

This is not merely another film about cinema history; it is a film about the love of cinema, a journey of discovery through over a century of German film history. Ten people working in film today remember their favourite films of yesteryear.

Besieged by cancer and nearing the end, the genius Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco (1946-2016) asks Bárbara Paz, his wife, for one last wish: to be the protagonist of his own death.

An account of the life and work of Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-86) in his own words: his memories, his vision of art and his reflections on the fate of the artist and the meaning of human existence; through extremely rare audio recordings that allow a complete understanding of his inner life and the mysterious world existing behind his complex cinematic imagery.

A tribute to a fascinating film shot by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and to the city of San Francisco, California, where the magic was created; but also a challenge: how to pay homage to a masterpiece without using its footage; how to do it simply by gathering images from various sources, all of them haunted by the curse of a mysterious green fog that seems to cause irrepressible vertigo…

Recalling his childhood and relationship with his mother, a film student tries to understand the origin of his love for cinema and tragedies.

More than anyone in the cynical film industry, legendary artist Robert Redford embodies the United States' brightest side: perseverance, independence, idealism, and integrity. A champion of active environmentalism and the right to openly criticize any institutional abuse, he has put his artistic work at the service of his political commitments, whether as an actor, director, producer, or founder of the Sundance Festival, a formidable forum for his struggles since 1985.

Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.