This is the unlikely story of 21 ministers and prime ministers who have crossed or are crossing the french Fifth Republic today. Twenty-one politicians who, from one day to the next, find themselves at the head of a ministry by the grace of a President of the Republic and his Prime Minister. The formation of the government, conflicts of attribution, reshuffles, rumours of appointments, evictions, casting errors: it is all the capricious backstage of the games of power examined here under the angle of confidence and which sheds light on the prestigious but unknown function of minister. An original and instructive political saga on the reality of those who hold or have held this prestigious position.
South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.
Korean War, April 1953. Lieutenant Clemons, leader of the King company of the United States Infantry, is ordered to recapture Pork Chop Hill, occupied by a powerful Chinese Army force, while, just seventy miles away, at nearby the village of Panmunjom, a tense cease-fire conference is celebrated.
Nowadays we associate Johannes Kepler with his famous laws of planetary motion. But the history of his discoveries is a drama of Shakespearian proportions - full of intrigue, passion, depravity and corruption.
The years of Mánes' studies at art schools and on the period when the mature and distinctive artist was already promoting his concept of a new decoration of the Old Town Clock.
The life story of Blessed Zdislava of Lemberk, about whom legends rather than sparse historical references tell us that she was a deeply religious woman with healing powers who devoted herself entirely to the humble service of her sick and suffering neighbors.
France, World War II. In order to somehow make ends meet, the mother of two children, Marie Latour, does underground abortions and rents a room to a familiar prostitute. She doesn't pay any attention to her husband, who returned from the war because of his injury, and lives her own life. Abortions gradually begin to bring a good income, and boredom can be easily dispelled by starting up with a young lover.
An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1876. A secret society of Irish coal miners, bond by a sacred oath, put pressure on the greedy and ruthless company they work for by sabotaging mining facilities in the hope of improving their working conditions and the lives of their families.
The carefree and somewhat idyllic life of a ten year old boy named Marijan is violently interrupted when war ravages his small town of Dalj and his families closest friends and neighbors turn on them purely because they are Croatian. Marijan is forced to witness and experience things an adult would have an incredibly difficult time dealing with. He is nevertheless faced with the inexplicably horrid events war brings out in people. The story centers on a present day Marijan- now the very successful owner of a wood manufacturing business. On one random day a man walks into his store and all of the memories he wishes he could long forget come flooding back, forcing him to relive them. Despite his immense hardships, Marijan lives on in forgiveness, always seeking the positives that lay in the future rather than rehashing and remaining in the past.
The novelette was written by I.Huseynov. In the film, the problem of war is viewed from the perspective of love. Almost all of the men of the village are at the battlefront. The women who stayed in the night and day to support their efforts. Children wake up in the middle of the night, crying for bread. All of the villagers feel anxious for the men to return. Mothers are waiting for their sons; wives, for their husbands and children, for their fathers. When Sayali's husband dies at the front, her husband's friend Jabrayil proposes to her. The people of the village are furious. Jabrayil's brothers leave home, convinced that their family has been disgraced. One brother goesw crazy; the other fall ill and dies. The only person who doesn't blame Jabrayil is the "agsaggal" (the wise old man) of the village - Isfandiyar Kishi. In this film, note single sound of weaponry is heard, not are any battle scenes depicted, yet we still witness the inherent tragedy of war.
The story of the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII, whose marriage to the Henry led to momentous political and religious turmoil in England.
Paris, 1894. Who is Fanni, who claims to be voluntarily locked up in a women-only mental institution? Searching for her mother among the multitude of so-called 'madwomen', Fanni discovers a community of modern heroines who defy her expectations, along with the unexpected friendship of fellow patients. The sumptuous and renowned 'Party of Fools' of the asylum is in preparation. Politicians, artists, and socialites will flock to it. It’s her last hope of escaping the closing trap.
In autumn of 1526, the Emperor, Charles V, sends his German landsknechts led by Georg von Frundsberg to march towards Rome. The inferior papal armies, commanded by Giovanni de'Medici, try to chase them in the midst of a harsh winter. Nevertheless, the Imperial armies manage to cross the rivers along their march and get cannons thanks to the maneuvers of its Lords. In a skirmish, Giovanni de'Medici is wounded in the leg by a falconet shot. The attempts to cure him fail and he dies. The Imperial armies assault Rome. The film is beautifully but unassumingly set, and shows the hard conditions in which war is waged and its lack of glory. It ends straightforwardly with the declaration made after the death of Giovanni de'Medici by the commanders of the armies in Europe of not using again fire weapons because of their cruelty.
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.
Indonesian activist Soe Hok Gie experiences a political awakening during the tumultuous regimes of Soeharto and Soekarno.
A TV adaptation of the famous novel in which writer Zikmund Winter depicts the life story of Prague university professor and humanist poet Jan Campanus Vodňanský and his efforts to save the ancient university after the Battle of White Mountain. Campanus gradually loses all his battles. The path of concessions leads to unintentional but tragic guilt when, at Campanus's unwitting instigation, the Jesuits seize the child of the executed Jesenius. The difficult post-White Mountain period in the Czech lands presented Campanus with a dilemma: whether to convert or to keep a clear conscience, a conflict of power and honor so common in our history...
After losing his best friend in a fierce battle against Baekje in the first year of Queen Jindeok's reign, Hwarang Won-hyo questions life and death and becomes a monk. Despite being courted by countless women, from Queen Jindeok to Princess Yoseok, Sammo, and Asaga, Won-hyo resists all temptations. Until one day, when he is moved by Princess Yoseok's desperate prayers, he wanders the streets, feeling guilty for his disloyal behavior.
The story is based on the life of Pothuluri Veerabrahmam (N. T. Rama Rao), a well-known saint and astrologer of the 17th century. A brief life of Gautama Buddha, Ramanuja, Adi Shankara and Vemana (all essayed by NTR) are shown at the beginning of the film.
The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.