Pre-WWII Czech democratic politician Milada Horáková was one of the first victims of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Opposing the 1948 coup but not leaving the country, she was arrested and tried for treason on fabricated charges in a show trial broadcast on the radio.
London, England, May 2000. The peaceful life of elderly Joan Stanley is suddenly disrupted when she is arrested by the British Intelligence Service and accused of providing information to communist Russia during the forties.
Emmy Awards nominee for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research: Multi-faceted portrait of the man who succeeded Lenin as the head of the Soviet Union. With a captivating blend of period documents, newly-released information, newsreel and archival footage and interviews with experts, the program examines his rise to power, deconstructs the cult of personality that helped him maintain an iron grip over his vast empire, and analyzes the policies he introduced, including the deadly expansion of the notorious gulags where he banished so many of his countrymen to certain death.
January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.
Two young university students wish to escape the oppressive Soviet Union. But their plans are monitored by the KGB, who try to intimidate them. One of them is taken into custody and tortured, which spurs them to make an escape attempt that could cost them their lives
A genetically engineered assassin with deadly aim, known only as "Agent 47" eliminates strategic targets for a top-secret organization. But when he's double-crossed, the hunter becomes the prey as 47 finds himself in a life-or-death game of international intrigue.
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)
Based on true events, an American submarine collides into a Soviet sub of the coast of America and an ensuing standoff occurs that could lead to total annihilation.
Historical drama depicting the events leading up to the 1917 October Revolution produced to celebrate the 40th anniversary.
Compilation short film about the Communist Revolution and Soviet Union.
An intrepid television journalist sent to cover the Canadian prime minister's visit to the Soviet Union has trouble sticking to her assignment when she unearths a horrific experimental drug trial involving children. Determined to prepare a video that will show the world exactly what's been going on, she dodges the long arm of the KGB and falls into bed with a Communist bureaucrat.
The story of Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) and his masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, published in Paris in 1973, which forever shook the very foundations of communist ideology.
Two parents put their child in his crib for the night and leave the room. The child starts crying, and the Cat comes into the room to keep him company. The child grabs her tail, and the Cat angrily reminds him that they agreed a thousand years ago that he would not do that. Upon seeing that the child doesn't remember, the Cat sighs and decides to tell him the story from the beginning. The story starts when the planet was young and life on Earth is starting with dinosaurs.
The film tells a story about the extraordinary journey of the modest little girl Gerda. She is looking for her friend Kai, who was kidnapped and taken to her kingdom by the powerful evil Snow Queen. In search of her beloved friend, Gerda ends up in the castle to the cunning, insidious and at the same time funny king, meets forest robbers. On the way, the girl will have many obstacles before the decisive battle with the Snow Queen. But Gerda’s faithful heart will overcome all adversity...
The film's protagonist Valera - cheerful guy from Moscow, who at age 19 learned a whole hell of war in Afghanistan, where he lost a leg. Returning from the war, he had no idea what a nightmare for him is just beginning.
A story of two boys who obstinately, in spite of everything and everyone run to the front when the war was almost over.
An ongoing experiment, evolving from a biopic about Soviet physicist Lev Landau into a large scale project – part cinematic cycle, part behavioral experiment – involving hundreds of participants from around the world. Combining elements of film, theatre, science, psychology, architecture, visual arts and performance, it has created a complex and absorbing world that has to be lived as much as seen.
Based on an excerpt from the novel by L.N.Tolstoy "War and Peace." The war of 1812. The defeated Napoleonic army is retreating. Three Russian soldiers settled in a snowy forest near a fire: a young (Zaletayev), an elderly and a middle-aged one. Zaletayev fantasizes — as if he had captured Napoleon. The soldiers laugh good-naturedly at him. After dinner, they fall asleep... Two Frenchmen go to the clearing — an officer and a soldier. Russian soldiers wake up and, seeing that the officer is barely standing on his feet from cold and hunger, take him to the colonel. The French soldier sits down to the fire. The Russians give him porridge and vodka. The soldier, encouraged, sings a french song. Zaletayev echoes him. A tired Frenchman falls asleep on Zaletayev’s shoulder. The soldiers carefully shelter him. “Also people,” an elderly soldier says with a sigh.
Pavel Pavlovich Goryaev is not that young of an actor. For many years he plays in the provincial theater in leading roles. The director of a play based on a play that was written for Goryaev takes the young actor for his role. Goryaev at first falls into despair, leaves the theater, turns to friends. After a while he digests what happened and realizes that it is time to leave the stage with dignity.
Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.