Tsar to Lenin

During the first days after the 1973 Chilean coup d’état, the political leadership of the Popular Unity government was arrested and transferred to Dawson Island, Magallanes Region, extreme south of Chile and the mainland. The wives of the then political prisoners began an incessant effort to find out the whereabouts of their husbands and then try to return them alive. In these circumstances, they meet and spontaneously organize into a group they call the “Dawsonianas.”

From an archived interview originally recorded in 1982, this 1990 production reveals the findings of chief congressional investigator, Director of Research, Norman Dodd, and exposes the scope and purpose of various organizations in the findings of the 1953 Reece Special Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations.

"Jeunesse Rouge" is a documentary exploring young French Communist revolutionaries fighting for a just and equal society. The film follows their organizing and mobilizing, while delving into the history of the Communist movement in France. Archival footage and interviews with activists show their passionate commitment, from protests and strikes to political education. It highlights the power of youth activism and their potential to bring about change in the face of systemic inequality.

Cold War Leningrad: In a culture where the recording industry was ruthlessly controlled by the state, music lovers discovered an extraordinary alternative means of reproduction: they repurposed used x-ray film as the base for records of forbidden songs. Giving blood every week to earn enough money to buy a recording lathe, one bootlegger Rudy Fuchs cuts banned music onto such discarded x-rays to be sold on street corners by shady dealers. It was ultimate act of punk resistance, a two-fingered salute to the repressive regime that gave a generation of young Soviets access to forbidden Western and Russian music, an act for which Rudy and his fellow bootleggers would pay a heavy price.

A journey through several countries to find those who really know Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader, in an attempt to profile a contradictory dictator who seems to rule his nation with both disturbing benevolence and cold cruelty while being worshipped as a living god by his subjects in exalted displays of ridiculous fanaticism.

Film cameras cruise the Soviet Union's mighty Volga River, providing a view of the Russian people along its 2300-mile length, including looks at the fishing industry, a rural village, a manufacturing town and the wedding of two factory workers.

And When They Shall Ask

Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Scenes from holiday life at Lake Balaton in Hungary during the communism.

A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.

This one-hour film, narrated by Actor BURT LANCASTER, explores the lingering effects of The Hollywood Blacklist, which occurred in the late forties and early fifties as part of the Anti-Communist witch-hunts that terrorized the nation. This film is seen through the eyes of the wives and children of the now deceased Hollywood figures whose careers were destroyed when studio bosses, along with guild and union officials capitulated to the demands of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Jeremy Clarkson tells the dramatic story of the Arctic convoys of the Second World War, from Russia to the freezing Arctic Ocean.

Documentary recounting the story of the Cuban Revolution and its impact on the young people of Cuba.

Filmed on the 60th anniversary of the republic, this dark-humor documentary delves on the highs and lows of living in North Korea.

Dziga Vertov-directed Soviet newsreel covering: Streetcar collision / Arms manufacturing plant resumes operation / Assembling an automobile / Bicycle and motorcycle races / A parade of Red Army armored units and an attack exercise.

Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

A documentary about Fidel Castro's visit to the USSR from April 28 to June 3, 1963 and how the Cuban leader traveled throughout the Soviet Union for 40 days, from Severodvinsk to Khiva in Uzbekistan.

With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)

A documentary that explores questions of secrecy and power in relation to the East German Secret Police (the 'Stasi') within East German society. The film is based upon key findings from an extensive research project, 'Knowing the Secret Police', and reflects upon how different kinds of knowledge were circulated through social, religious, political and literary networks within the former GDR. The filmmakers present this research with footage filmed at key locations throughout East Berlin and the wider surrounding landscape, including the Stasi archives and former HQ, Karl-Marx-Allee, Volkspark Friedrichshain, rural 'dacha' cabins, the urban neighbourhood of Prenzlauerberg and the social housing estates of Marzahn.

The true history of the anti-government extremist terrorist group's century of violence. Focusing on the group which has caused nationwide rioting and violence, The film – which undermines the mainstream media’s depiction of the group as “just an idea” – has already been censored by YouTube and Vimeo.