Under the Radar: Burma

A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.

In 1968, Orlando Lovecchio was made victim of a guerilla's bomb terrorist attack, which main objective was to fight against the Military Regime. Orlando lost one leg after the world-reckoned attack against the U.S. Consulate in Sao Paulo.

An account of the childhood and youth of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, and how the hard experiences he lived during these formative years led him to write and publish his first major work when he was only 26 years old.

In the spring of 1974, a camera team from Studio H&S succeeded against the explicit orders of the Junta’s Chancellery, entered into two large concentration camps in the north of the country - Chacabuco and Pisagua - leaving with filmed sequences and sound recordings.

Argentine filmmaker Andrés Habegger embarks on a deeply personal journey in this documentary, seeking to recover memories and information about his father, Norberto Habegger, a journalist and Montonero activist who disappeared in Brazil in 1978 during a joint operation between the Argentine and Brazilian military. Traveling to places that were part of his life and revisiting old photos and his childhood diaries, the director fills in the gaps in a family history that was interrupted.

The long fight over the land, which demolished the wall between master and serf, continues to divide Peru to this day. But the 1969 agrarian reform marked a before and after in the country's story - a profound change that Peruvian cinema reflected and encapsulated, creating great imagination we continue to discover today. 50 years after the social experiments of the revolution, we ask ourselves whether Peru really messed up or not with Juan Velasco Alvarado.

Argentina, 1973. The return of democracy marks the beginning of a new countdown to the next coup d'état: on March 24, 1976, the worst dictatorship in Argentine history is installed, the bitter fruit of a plot carefully hatched for months.

Filled with raunchy laughs, this documentary compiles outrageous scenes from sex-comedies that shaped Brazil's "pornochanchada" boom of the 1970s.

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

Lissette's favorite aunt Adriana, who lives in Australia, is arrested in 2007 while visiting her family in Chile and accused of having worked for dictator Pinochet's notorious secret police, the DINA, and of having participated in the commission of state crimes. When Adriana denies these accusations, Lissette begins to investigate her story in order to film a documentary about her.

In 1944 Crimean Tatars has suffered a long road in exile. It was accompanied by famine, illness and loss. In the first years of exile, almost half of deported Crimean Tatars died. But those, who survived, dreamed of only one thing - to return to Crimea. The documentary 1944 tells about the tragedy of all Crimean Tatars through several separate life stories. They are cherished by each Crimean Tatar family and must be remembered by all generations to come.

The city of Madrid as it appears in the Spanish films of the 1950s. A small tribute to all those who filmed and portrayed Madrid despite the dictatorship, censorship and the critical situation of industry and society.

It’s the last dictatorship of Europe, caught in a Soviet time-warp, where the secret police is still called the KGB and the president rules by fear. Disappearances, political assassinations, waves of repression and mass arrests are all regular occurances. But while half of Belarus moves closer to Russia, the other half is trying to resist…

Five Argentinian women, with missing relatives from the military dictatorship that ruled the country, explain their emotions and feelings about all that happened.

In this special Clarkson, Hammond and May don’t just buy three knackered old lorries and drive miles through the beautiful landscapes of Burma. Oh dear no. They actually have to use their lorries to do something useful. They have to build a real, use able bridge over the River Kwai. On their way to the river they almost bring down Burma’s power supply, encounter the world’s least relaxing truck stop, race around the streets of a deserted capital, saddle up a trio of unhelpful horses and attend a completely deranged party.

August 29, 1979, Talavera Bruce Penal Institute, Bangu, Rio de Janeiro. After serving eight years in prison, Inês Etienne Romeu, the only survivor of the "House of Death" in Petrópolis and the first political prisoner sentenced to life in prison in Brazil, left prison benefiting from Amnesty. Norma Bengell filmed this moment: from the prison door to her home with her family, Inês was welcomed by family, friends and members of the Brazilian Amnesty Committee, in what marked the first act of the historic denunciation that Inês would carry out against her tormentors and the Military Regime.

Street art, creativity and revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The story opens on the politically charged Thailand/Burma border at the first school teaching street art as a form of non-violent struggle. The film follows two young girls (Romi & Yi-Yi) who have escaped 50 years of civil war in Burma to pursue an arts education in Thailand. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the girls use spray paint and stencils to create images in public spaces to let people know the truth behind Burma's transition toward "artificial democracy." Eighty-two hundred miles away, artist Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and in support of the students' struggle in Burma. As these stories are inter-cut, the film connects these seemingly unrelated characters around the concept of using art as a weapon for change.

Moving to Mars charts the epic journey made by two Burmese families from a vast refugee camp on the Thai/Burma border to their new homes in the UK. At times hilarious, at times emotional, their travels provide a fascinating and unique insight not only into the effects of migration, but also into one of the most important current political crises - Burma.

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.

The story of the University of Brasília, since it was only a project in Darcy Ribeiro's head until the fateful events in August 1968 when its campus was invaded by the police, during the military dictatorship, thus putting an end to its independence.