Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.
This expansive Greek drama follows a troupe of theater actors as they perform around their country during World War II. While the production that they put on is entitled "Golfo the Shepherdess," the thespians end up echoing scenes from classic Greek tales in their own lives, as Elektra plots revenge on her mother for the death of her father, and seeks help from her brother, Orestes, a young anti-fascist rebel.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
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)
A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.
Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks.
The story of the romance between the King of Siam (now Thailand) and the widowed British school teacher Anna Leonowens during the 1860s. Anna teaches the children and becomes romanced by the King. She convinces him that a man can be loved by just one woman.
In 1935, German scientists dug for bones; in 1943, they murdered to get them. How the German scientific community supported Nazism, distorted history to legitimize a hideous system and was an accomplice to its unspeakable crimes. The story of the Ahnenerbe, a sinister organization created to rewrite the obscure origins of a nation.
In the early 1980s, at the beginning of what would become a 12-year-long civil war, El Salvador's talented football team was one national institution upon which both the left and the right could agree. When the team pulled off a stunning 1-0 upset against Mexico and qualified to compete in the 1982 World Cup, it was a high point for the tiny country's national pride. Unfortunately, the team's Cinderella story devolved into a nightmarish farce.
In WWII-era Rome, underground resistance leader Manfredi attempts to evade the Gestapo by enlisting the help of Pina, the fiancée of a fellow member of the resistance, and Don Pietro, the priest due to oversee her marriage. But it’s not long before the Nazis and the local police find him.
Paul Robeson was a celebrated African-American Actor, Athlete, Singer, Writer, and Civil Rights Activist. Robeson's many achievements are chronicled in this program, ranging from playing with the NFL to graduating from Columbia Law School, performing on Broadway and in Hollywood films to founding the American Crusade against Lynching as well as Council on African Affairs. Robeson was one of the most talented performers of his time and a dedicated humanitarian who ultimately sacrificed fame and fortune for what he believed in. His association with Leftist Politics during the era of the Cold War, and frequent denouncing of American political parties led to his eventual blacklisting with other prominent writers and artists during the McCarthy Era. His talents in all areas are remarkable, and his dedication to attaining a peaceful coexistence between all the people of the world is truly admirable.
During the Spanish Civil War, sworn enemies must work together when they encounter flesh-eating zombies created in a Nazi experiment.
An account of the brief life of the writer Albert Camus (1913-1960), a Frenchman born in Algeria: his Spanish origin on the isle of Menorca, his childhood in Algiers, his literary career and his constant struggle against the pomposity of French bourgeois intellectuals, his communist commitment, his love for Spain and his opposition to the independence of Algeria, since it would cause the loss of his true home, his definitive estrangement.
Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger's charm and audacity endear him to much of America's downtrodden public, but he's also a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover and the fledgling FBI. Desperate to capture the elusive outlaw, Hoover makes Dillinger his first Public Enemy Number One and assigns his top agent, Melvin Purvis, the task of bringing him in dead or alive.
Spain, 1953. Pedro Zaragoza, mayor of the city of Benidorm, in the province of Alicante, by the Mediterranean Sea, visits the Palacio del Pardo, General Franco's residence in Madrid, to ask him for help, in the hope of solving a very delicate problem.
The emotional journey of Margalida Bover, who was the lover of the anarchist militant Salvador Puig Antich, convicted of murder and executed by Franco's regime in 1974.
Que mi nombre no se borre de la historia
Bajo el signo libertario is a propaganda documentary, with the script and direction of Les (known for his articles in Solidaridad Obrera and the magazine Espectáculo) whose central theme is the reconstruction of the development of life in a libertarian community in the Aragonese town of Pina de Ebro.
The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.