The Distant Near

Peter a Lucia

1943. They have never stepped foot on French soil but because France was at war, Said, Abdelkader, Messaoud and Yassir enlist in the French Army, along with 130,000 other “indigenous” soldiers, to liberate the “fatherland” from the Nazi enemy. Heroes that history has forgotten…

A group of American pilots from Alaska ferry Airacobra fighter planes across the ocean on Lend-lease. The orderly course of life is disrupted when it becomes clear that the American pilots are attractive and charming young women. The feelings of the Russian young men collide into barriers of culture and language resulting in a host of awkward, funny, and sometimes tragic situations.It is the story of Russians, Americans, and natives of the Far North. It is the story of man and woman in war. Love and death are squeezed between the hills as human fates are destroyed and born.

Story of the early life of genius and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot.

In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.

Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.

After the Germans flooded large parts of The Netherlands towards the end of WWII, the Brouwer family find themselves trapped in their attic surrounded by water. With their rations dwindling, tensions arise within the household.

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II, but life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds peace-time Helsinki rampant with persecution of the homosexual and men around him even being pressured to marry women and have children. Touko finds refuge in his liberating art, specialising in homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions. His work – made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’ – became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.

Comedian Tommy Trinder plays it straight in this tribute to the wartime AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service). The dedicated band who kept the fires of London under control during the blitz and fire bombings of WWII.

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

Survivors tell the story of the Babyn Yar massacre from WWII, where some 100,000 people were massacred by German forces.

Five American soldiers fighting in Europe during World War II struggle to return to Allied territory after being separated from U.S. forces during the historic Malmedy Massacre.

With the death of her mother, eight-year-old Anna ends her childhood: From now on, she has to look after the nine-member family. Deprivation-rich years, which also find no end when Anna marries: Her husband Albert must be a soldier in the Second World War, and the pregnant Anna has to work hard in the farm and care sick relatives. Lonely and exposed to the harassment of the tyrannical mother-in-law, she waits for Albert, with no certainty that he will ever return.