As Carpathian legend has it, Oleksa Dovbush was a heroic outlaw with excellent fighting skills and a gift to predict the future. He was left an orphan as a small boy after a local lord murdered Oleksa's mother. After spending his childhood in exile in the mountains, he returned as a grown man to avenge his mother's death. Oleksa gathered followers to begin a crusade against the lord, but destiny made other plans for him.
The story of the "Hutsul Robin Hood" Oleksa Dovbush, an 18th century Carpathian Mountains outlaw who's a popular figure of Ukrainian legend.
During the Soviet occupation of Ukraine in a Hutsul village, a young orphaned traumatized woman named Darusya is trying to overcome her terrible recollections. She only knows the deep feeling of guilt about an unknown tragedy commited when she was an innocent child.
In a Carpathian village, Ivan falls in love with Marichka, the daughter of his father's killer. When tragedy befalls her, his grief lasts months; finally he rejoins the colorful life around him, marrying Palagna. She wants children but his mind stays on his lost love. To recapture his attention, Palagna tries sorcery, and in the process comes under the spell of the sorcerer, publicly humiliating Ivan, who then fights the sorcerer. The lively rhythms of village life, the work and the holidays, the pageant and revelry of weddings and funerals, the change of seasons, and nature's beauty give proportion to Ivan's tragedy.
“The Carpathians are medieval!” one character bellows, and this tale of the tree-chopper Petro, his faithless wife Marijka, and various scheming businessmen and foremen does little to disprove the assertion. Interestingly filmed with a nonprofessional cast recruited from the region, Faithless Marijka may have a neorealist conceit, but its direction is utterly futuristic, filled with the lightning-fast montage techniques and low-angle camera of the Soviet avant-garde (along with its invigorating agitprop).
The 20th century was the roughest in history for the Carpatho-Rusyns of Central Europe. After World War II, when they were declared Ukrainians by the new Communist regimes in every country where they live, Carpatho-Rusyns in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere became extinct overnight -- and this was their existence for more than 50 years. But with the 1989 Velvet Revolution, led by the playwright and former dissident Václav Havel, Carpatho-Rusyn ethnicity revived in every country - including the United States. This is the story of that revival.
Dedicated to the Lemkos, who through their extraordinary love for the country overcame the trauma of massive deportations during the "Operation Vistula" and managed to return to their homeland. This film is a story about the fate of people from the annihilated Długie village, and it talks about Małastów village, where Lemkos, originally the dominant group, were transformed into a defenceless minority. Today, with admirable perseverance, they continue to fight for their rights. Above all, this is a film about love, which is the most precious thing.
1939 . A young Ukrainian-American man Yaro comes to the Carpathian Mountains, because his father left him a fortune under the condition that he would marry a Ukrainian girl. There Yaro meets a Hutsul girl Ksenya and has to rethink his plan.
Життя і Смерть у Гуцулії
The documentary film is not a search for the survived truth of the inhabitants of the Ruthenian village Ladomírová. It captures their subjective memories, often frozen in time and in everyday life. Only strong impressions of sadness, joy, suffering, which reflect the great history of the 20th century. There is no truth about the past, it is only the human mind that actually makes morytates - bloody enlightening stories and legends.
This film is a romantic story of love between a Hutsul girl and wounded Soviet guerrilla Andrii whom she rescues from certain death. The events unfold against the backdrop of WW2 presented with many obligatory falsehoods of the imperial Russian historiography: heroic Soviet guerrillas, poor and backward Hutsuls, rich Hutsuls betraying their own people and collaborating with the enemy, Ukrainians incapable of their own agency. Crude and mendacious as it is, this ideology is relegated to the narrative background, and the viewer's attention gets quickly captivated by the artistic fortes of the film: riveting stage presence of Kostiantyn Stepankov, Ivan Mykolaichuk, Boryslav Brondukov and the debuting Ivan Havryliuk; gorgeously atmospheric photography of Mykola Kulchytsky, beautiful faces, language, and dress of the Carpathian Ukrainians, and a faithful presentation of Hultsul folk culture devoid of typically condescending Soviet colonial slant.
The Great Wall of the South-China Sea
A biographical film about the life of Gani Muratbaev, the founder of the Komsomol in the Kazakh SSR .
The history of Jewish people in Russia up until the 1917 revolution.
Chu Yuan was a patriotic poet and statesman in ancient China, born over 2000 years ago in the state of Ch'u of the "Warring States" Period, a period of transition from Slavery to Feudalism System. Ch'in, Ch'u, Chao, Wei, Yen, Han and Chi were the Seven States occupying various parts of China at incessant war of annexation with one another. Of the Seven States Ch'in grew most powerful. Vis-a-vis Ch'in's military pressure and Ch'u's political corruption, Chu Yuan advocated alliance with Chi to resist Ch'in abroad, and political reforms at home so as to unify whole China. Chu Yuan's political viewpoint met with sabotage by slave-owning aristocrat bloc, was unable to be carried out in Ch'u. Being so indignant he finally took his own life by jumping into the river. His poems "Li Sao" "Tien Wen" etc. in the development history of Chinese literature, shone with everlasting brilliance.
Following the Battles of Mons and Le Cateau the already near exhausted British Expeditionary Force, who had been marching and fighting for six days without a break , embarked on a nine day epic march across France. They headed back to the safety of the far side River Marne south of Paris rather than to the traditional haven of British Armies – the Channel Ports.The BHTV team of historians and battlefield guides take us to the scene of some sharp rear guard actions fought during the Retreat from Mons including the great cavalry actions at Cerizy and Nery, where the mounted British soldier established domination of his German counterpart. As they travel the highways and byways of France they analyze the decisions made by the commanders in that fog of war that together spelt the end of the Schlieffen Plan and set conditions for the 'miracle of the Marne'.
Radio powstańcze "Błyskawica"
The story of a great hero of the Second World War - Captain Witold Pilecki, who, after carrying out military operations, opposed Poland's Soviet domination. His biography shows the heroic, sometimes hopeless, fight with two ruthless totalitarianisms of the 20th century: German and Soviet.
The story of a communist Security Service agent who kept Karol Wojtyła under surveillance for many years.
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.