Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective (Деревенский детектив), a 1969 Soviet film—, caught in the nets of an Icelandic trawler, is the first step in a fascinating journey through the artistic life of film and stage actor Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899-1981), icon and star of an entire era of Russian cinema.
This short cautionary training film examines dangers associated with earthmoving equipment operation, showing many simulated accidents on construction sites.
The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.
The early days of the future genius of Spanish cinema Luis García Berlanga, from his birth in Valencia in 1921 to his departure to Madrid in 1947 to become a filmmaker.
Alain Lefevre is a boxer paid by a Marseille mobster to take a dive. When he wins the fight he attempts to flee to America with the mobster's girlfriend Katrina. This plan fails and he seeks escape by joining the foreign legion. As part of the legion he tangles with abusive lieutenant Steinkampf and bonds with legionnaires Luther, Mackintosh and Rosetti.
This experimental Western horror film set in the Moravian region of Slovácko offers a new take on the legend of Saint Wenceslas. Against the backdrop of a shabby folk festival, the mythical prince Boleslav, a zombie from a wine cellar, battles his brother Wenceslas over the nature of Czech statehood and a plate of tomato soup.
The second part of the endless series about Moravia offers an even darker descent into the soul of Moravia, which is, however, intoxicating like a slightly delirious state after a sip of wine and chewing on a clod of mother earth. A visually distracting journey focused on the undercurrents of Moravian identity, whose echoes even Friedrich Nietzsche would not want to hear...
Make Moravia Great Again
An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.
According to the official history of Afghanistan, ruthless destruction has always prevailed over art and creation; but there is another tale to be told, the forgotten account of a diverse and progressive country, seen through the lens of innovative filmmakers, a story that survives thanks to a few brave Afghans, a small but very passionate group that secretly fought to save a huge film archive that was constantly menaced by war and religious fanaticism.
A jaded lawyer wastes an afternoon trying to figure out if a dim-witted government employee has ever used a photocopier. All the dialogue in this short comes from an actual deposition filed with the Supreme Court of Ohio.
This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.
Tucson, Arizona, September 1996. At the request of his son Martin, George Goldsmith tells him of his past in Nazi Germany as a member of a family of Jewish musicians and the strange history of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, a Jewish organization sponsored by Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels.
'To the May sun of a September life', wrote Henrik Ibsen on the photograph of himself that he gave to 19-year-old Emilie Bardach in Gossensass in September 1889. This is a documentary about the sixty-second year in the life of the great Norwegian dramatist.
In the CHUV training center in Lausanne, ‘fake’ patients and ‘real’ carers simulate medical consultations, to learn how to perform kindness. But in an increasingly liberal hospital system, which itself exerts violence on medical staff, is this relational ideal really possible?
The story, told by the survivors, of a group of young men, members of a Uruguayan rugby team, who managed to survive for 72 days, at an altitude of almost 4,000 meters, in the heart of the Andes Mountains, after their plane, en route to Chile, crashed there on October 13, 1972.
KWAIDAN
The Heart of Man is a timeless tale of a father's relentless pursuit of his son -- interwoven with interviews of top thought-leaders on brokenness, identity, and shame.
The intricate history of UFA, a film production company founded in 1917 that has survived the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, the Adenauer era and the many and tumultuous events of contemporary Germany, and has always been the epicenter of the German film industry.
Still today, people say that during the stormy night from March 31st to April 1st, 1922, the devil had come to Hinterkaifeck. On the farmstead near Schrobenhausen, all 6 inhabitants – 4 Adults and two children – are struck down bestially. The police did not manage to seek out the murderer(s). As the case is still unsolved as of today, the story still lives on in the minds of the people. Motion pictures, theatre plays, and the bestselling novel “Tannöd”, behind all of them stands Hinterkaifeck. Aspiring police investigators and a self-declared “Internet – special commission ‘Hinterkaifeck’” have now once again taken up the trail of the case. This exciting search for traces is followed by the film, and its findings are recreated in elaborate play scenes. Thereby, a picture of an era thought to be bygone and an idea of what really happened back then comes into existence. More precise than any fiction, the docudrama manages to get closer to the truth.