A short documentary covering the conclave and election of Pope Pius XII.
Everyone knows the public archive footage of Hitler. But most of it is silent. What was he saying? Special computer technology enables us for the first time to lip-read the silent film.
BBC TV movie about the life of the late Francesco Forgione, widely known as Padre Pio.
Documentary taking a look at the making of the controversial 1978 film I Spit on Your Grave.
Director Miguel Kohan tries to connect the memories of his Gaucho-Jewish family with the fleeing of the Sephardim from the Iberian Península in 1492. Surinam, New York, Jamaica, and Brazil are some of the places where the untold story of those who escaped inquisition is visibilized.
One of the key works in creating the American social documentary film, this 1934 newsreel compilation crams a lot of information into just 11 minutes. Skillfully edited, the picture captures a panorama of international events centered on the labor movement. Scenes include Mussolini, Hitler and FDR preparing for war, Nazi soldiers persecuting German Jews, a political strike in Paris, the Scottsboro demonstration in Washington, DC, police violence against striking steelworkers in Pennsylvania and union members stopping scab workers from delivering milk during a dairy farmers strike in Wisconsin. Under the direction of pioneering documentarian Leo Hurwitz, the images are edited together to create a powerful image of a world that, in his view, desperately needed radical change.
The Unknown Woman is a documentary film scripted and directed by Elina Kivihalme. It depicts the reality of Finnish agriculture and forestry during the war years, when the home front relied entirely upon the work and endurance of the women. All farm work, caring for the children, woodcutting and other forestry operations were undertaken by the civilians, as the men in their prime were on the front.
This documentary is the story of two Mennonite brothers from Manitoba who were forced to make a decision in 1939, as Canada joined World War II. In the face of 400 years of pacifist tradition, should they now go to war? Ted became a conscientious objector while his brother went into military service. Fifty years later, the town of Winkler dedicates its first war memorial and John begins to share his war experiences with Ted.
The story of those Italian women who, for eighty years, have fought against power in all its forms.
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
Mexican American Rodolfo P. Hernandez faced death along the 38th parallel, earning a Congressional Medal of Honor for valor during the Korean War. A story of heroism, perseverance and service, Hernandez proved that even in the most dire circumstances a wounded soldier can accomplish his mission and go on to greater service as a veteran.
The incredible story of the Avro Lancaster, one of the finest bombers of the Second World War, which played a crucial role in the long and savage campaign to defeat Hitler's Third Reich. This documentary features interviews with surviving veterans of Bomber Command, who share frank personal accounts of their part in an aerial battle of attrition which claimed the lives of 55'000 aircrew.
Lieutenant Colonel John Stevens served in both World War II and the Korean War. During the Korean War, he received a Bronze Star for leading his company in one of that war's harshest battles.
In a tale of double agents and decoys, this documentary reveals, for the first time, the story of King George VI's elaborate ruse to divert German attention away from the Normandy landings in 1944.
In March 1943, twenty-year-old Ovadia Baruch was deported together with his family from Greece to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival, his extended family was sent to the gas chambers. Ovadia struggled to survive until his liberation from the Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945. While in Auschwitz, Ovadia met Aliza Tzarfati, a young Jewish woman from his hometown, and the two developed a loving relationship despite inhuman conditions. This film depicts their remarkable, touching story of love and survival in Auschwitz, a miraculous meeting after the Holocaust and the home they built together in Israel. This film is part of the "Witnesses and Education" project, a joint production of the International School for Holocaust Studies and the Multimedia Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this series, survivors recount their life stores - before, during and after the Holocaust. Each title is filmed on location, where the events originally transpired.
On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).
La mia bandiera - La resistenza al femminile
A woman’s Holocaust memoir takes the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher-turned-detective reveals her story as an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth.
The story of the German occupation of Latvia and one of Rīga’s major 20th century historical tragedies, which will be remembered by the people of Rīga forever. French teacher Riva Šefere, lawyer Aleksandrs Bergmanis, music teacher Gabriela Paraša, film historian Valentīna Freimane and historian and founder of the museum “Jews in Latvia” Marģers Vetermanis are just a few of the 30 000 Latvian Jews who were imprisoned in the Riga ghetto. These are eyewitness memories of the holocaust that need to be told.
Made famous by the 1957 Hollywood movie, the bridges of the River Kwai emblematize one of the most misunderstood events in history. Contrary to the romanticized film version, the structures represent a period of terror, desperation, and death for over 16,000 POWs and 100,00 local slaves. The Thailand - Burma Railway was the vision of the Japanese Imperial Army: a 250-mile track cut through dense jungle that would connect Bangkok and Rangoon. To accomplish this nearly impossible feat, the fanatical and ruthless Japanese engineers used POWs and local slaves as manpower. Candid interviews with men who lived through the atrocity - including Dutch, Australian, British, and American POWs - illuminate the violence and horror of their three-and-a-half-year internment. From Britain's surrender of Singapore the enduring force of friendship, The True Story Of The Bridge On The River Kwai narrates a moving and unforgettable account of a period in history that must be remembered.