In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress.
Social & External
The people behind it
Pierre Blanchar
Boleslas Vorowski
Charles Dullin
Baron von Kempelen
Édith Jéhanne
Sophie Novinska
Camille Bert
Maj. Nicolaieff
Pierre Batcheff
Prince Serge Oblomoff
Marcelle Charles Dullin
Wanda
Armand Bernard
Roubenko
Alexiane
Olga
Pierre Hot
King Stanislas
Jaime Devesa
Prince Orloff
A young man prefers to play chess rather than taking a swim. Only by moonlight does he go for a swim alone. Or so he thinks.
The plot revolves around three men waiting to be deported in a prison. To escape the monotony, they form chess pieces from their bread rations, with which they then play against each other. Grünstein, a Polish Jew, proves to be a real talent, because although he is a beginner, he manages to defeat even the experienced player Lodeck, a German sailor, with his "Grünstein Variant".
Every Sunday, lonely bachelor and refined judge Mladen goes to play chess with his friend, sculptor Fedji. Slowly, he engages in a love affair with Neda, Fedia's wife, and almost invisibly, a love triangle forms. Chess board is the central part of the film, as moves on the board reflect emotions of the characters.
In 1945 Germany, following the end of World War II, Leopold Kessler, an American of German descent, is hired by his uncle as a sleeping car conductor on the Zentropa train line. Leopold's wish is to be neutral to the ongoing purges of loyalists by Allied forces and do what he can to help a hurting country, but ultimately finds himself being used by both sides.
A young chess prodigy is drawn into a dangerous underground circuit where every move carries life-or-death consequences.
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
After two American prisoners are killed by guards in the act of escaping from a German POW camp in World War II, barracks black marketeer J.J. Sefton is suspected of being an informer.
Inner city kids are given new direction when they are convinced to join the school chess team.
Edgar finds himself in the middle of a cafe robbery, but little by little he discovers that there is more to it than meets the eye.
Set in an alternate WWI reality where a senseless war rages on, two soldiers on opposite sides of the conflict play a joyful game of chess. A heroic carrier pigeon delivers the soldiers' chess moves over the battlefield as the fighting escalates. Neither soldier knows his opponent as the game and the war builds to its climatic final move. Whoever wins the game, one thing is for certain: there are no winners in war.
Short TV film upon the story of Ludwik Niemojski of the same title, which was a part of his "Incredible Stories". It tells about Bartolomeo, brilliant chess player, who had ruined his private life because of his passion for chess.
A modern adaptation of the classic children's story 'Alice through the Looking Glass', which continued on from the popular 'Alice in Wonderland' story. This time Alice is played by the mother, who falls asleep while reading the the bedtime story to her daughter. Walking through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself in Chessland, a magical and fun world. There she meets the Red and White Queens, as well as many other amusing friends on her journey across the chessboard countryside onto become a crowned queen.
Amidst a strong typhoon in 1978, during the martial law era in the Philippines, college friends and protesters, Luis and Angelica, find shelter in an abandoned house after a rally dispersal. With police forces lingering outside, the raging storm, and a single candle lighting their small refuge, they find an old, dusty chessboard.
Death and violence anger twelve year old drug courier Fresh, who sets his rival employers against each other.
One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.
A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.
During the Cold War, the World Chess Championship clashed complete opposites - personal and political.
Based upon the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, a chess grandmaster travels to Italy in the 1920s to play in a tournament and falls in love.
Hoping to entrap Maria von Gall, who runs a courageous underground railroad for Jews in France, the Nazis kidnap her son Thomas, a brilliant 11-year-old chess master. An exchange arrangement goes awry and he sees her die in a hail of bullets; but he is rescued by his American father, whom he has never met before, and who plans to flee with him to Spain. However, Queen Maria had solemnly entrusted her little pawn Thomas with a precious secret and a terrifying mission, and it was time for him to move. A pawn may become an important piece by slowly, quietly advancing all the way through the enemy's ranks. Or a pawn may die trying. Retreat is what a pawn can never do.
Based on a true story from 1998, five Latino and Black teenagers from the toughest underserved ghetto in Miami fight their way into the National Chess Championship under the guidance of their unconventional but inspirational teacher.
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their own, Roderigues, perish under enemy fire. The men try to rebuff another series of Nazi attacks, but what they really need is a change in the weather. Without clear skies, they'll never get the air support they need.
Japan, 1944. Trained for intelligence work, Hiroo Onoda, 22 years old, discovers a philosophy contrary to the official line: no suicide; stay alive whatever happens; the mission is more important than anything else. Sent to Lubang, a small island in the Philippines where the Americans are about to land, this role will be to wage a guerrilla war until the return of the Japanese troops. The Empire will surrender soon after; Onoda, 10,000 days later.
A conflict develops between a troubled Vietnam veteran and the sister he lives with when she becomes involved romantically with the army buddy who reminds him of the tragic battle they both survived.
Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.
A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to become the double of Hussein's sadistic son.
Regent Horthy is the leader of Hungary and a German ally, but his favorable standing with Hitler changes as the war comes to an end. Forced to cede Hungary’s power or else witness the execution of his son, Regent Horthy gives up control of his country to the Nazis, who quickly move Hungarians to ghettos and death camps, with no hope in sight. But the despair changes when a young man named Elek emerges. Separated from his family during the relocations and aided by the woman he loves , Elek defies the enemy by becoming one of them. In a race against time, disguised as a Nazi Officer he embarks on a mission to save his family and thousands of his countrymen.
Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.
On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being sent to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closet just before the police entered their apartment. Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.
In a war-ridden country, a woman watches over her husband, comatose from a bullet in the neck and abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.
A group of teenage cadets sheltered from war at the Virginia Military Institute must confront the horrors of an adult world when they are called upon to defend the Shenandoah Valley.
Directed by Philippe de Broca, the film recounts a bloody episode of the French Revolution. 1793, the Terror . In Vendée and in Bretagne, the chouans are revolting against the young Republic and fight for the monarchy restauration. The civil war divides also the family of the Count Savinien de Kerfadec, a liberal and generous noble and a flying machines inventor.
Manuel Artiguez, a famous bandit during the Spanish civil war, has lived in French exile for 20 years. When his mother is dying he considers visiting her secretly in his Spanish home town. But his biggest enemy, the Spanish police officer Vinolas, prepared a trap at the hospital as a chance to finally catch Artiguez.
Italian partisans help a professor sent by the OSS to find an atomic scientist held by Nazis.
Bahar, the commanding officer of the Daughters of the Sun, a battalion made up entirely of Kurdish female soldiers, is on the cusp of liberating their town, which has been overrun by ISIS extremists.
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
Based on the true story of Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war captured in Britain to escape back to Germany during the Second World War.
A war criminal in hiding forms a relationship with his only connection to the outside world - his maid.
