Social & External
The people behind it
Mao Zedong
Tchang Kaï-chek
A chronicle of the events that led to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Words of Captain Scott uses readings of the diaries and letters of Captain Scott, his companions, and those of his Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen - to tell the story of their epic South Pole expedition in their own words.
It has been forty years since the Sanmen Gorge project, a great dam high across the Yellow River at Sanmen Gorge, was completed. It's construction has had a large impact on the environment and the people. Among these are conflicts with local farmers, resettlement and life in exile of villagers, flooding and economical development.
Chain-smoking artists, poets and playwrights were among the colourful array of intellectuals living in the ‘Slovo House’ in 1920s Ukraine. The communist paradise was built under Stalin's approval, but it quickly became a prison. The brutal Soviet regime spied on the inhabitants, destroying their eccentric way of life and sealing their fate. This fascinating film explores the extraordinary story of the building and its residents.
The Concorde remains a legend of the sky. In both looks and performance, it was incomparable, and the technology behind it was nothing less than revolutionary. Learn all about this magnificent craft that was able to fly at over 1300 mph, linking Paris and London to New York in under 4 hours. A unique flying machine, it remains the only supersonic commercial aircraft in the history of aviation.
Romantic art was a response to the social upheavals of the 19th century, as shown by works by its emblematic painters Friedrich, Venetsianov and Delacroix.
Shot by Methodist missionaries, this is an incredibly charming record of small-town life in an unidentified location in China. We see a bustling wharf town with canal-side dwellings, distinctive school buildings, and a hospital where newly graduated nurses pose for a group portrait. The relaxed smiles of Chinese and Europeans are captured in intimate close-ups, suggesting a tight-knit community.
A fascinating compilation of scenes showing diversity and disparity in 1940s China. The ancient Forbidden City and Great Wall are followed by Shanghai’s metropolitan skyline; primitive farming methods are juxtaposed with mechanised factories; children in rags are contrasted with models wearing the latest fashions; Nationalist commanders and Communist leaders vie for support.
Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln from his departure from Kentucky until his election as President of the United States.
In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.
In the 19th century, China held the monopoly on tea, which was dear and fashionable in the West, and the British Empire exchanged poppies, produced in its Indian colonies and transformed into opium, for Chinese tea. Inundated by the drugs, China was forced to open up its market, and the British consolidated their commercial dominance. In 1839, the Middle Empire introduced prohibition. The Opium War was declared… Great Britain emerged as the winner, but the warning was heeded: it could no longer depend on Chinese tea. The only alternative possible was to produce its own tea. The East India Company therefore entrusted one man with finding the secrets of the precious beverage. His mission was to develop the first plantations in Britain’s Indian colonies. This latter-day James Bond was called Robert Fortune – a botanist. After overcoming innumerable ordeals in the heart of imperial China, he brought back the plants and techniques that gave rise to Darjeeling tea.
The mother died under the executioner's axe; the daughter rose to become England's greatest monarch -- the brilliant and cunning Queen Elizabeth I. Jean Simmons portrays young Bess in this rich tapestry of a film that traces the tumultuous, danger-fraught years from Elizabeth's birth to her unexpected ascension to the throne at a mere 25. Charles Laughton reprises his Academy Award®-winning* role as her formidable father Henry VIII. Deborah Kerr plays her last stepmother (and Henry's last of six wives), gentle Catherine Parr. And Simmons' then real-life husband, Stewart Granger, adds heroics as Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour. In a resplendent world of adventure, romance and court intrigue, Young Bess reigns.
The rags to riches story of Sophie Tucker, an iconic superstar who ruled the worlds of vaudeville, Broadway, radio, television, and Hollywood throughout the 20th century. Before Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Bette Midler, Marilyn Monroe, and Mae West, Sophie Tucker was the first woman to infatuate her audiences with a bold, bawdy and brassy style unlike any other. Using all of "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas" 400-plus recently rediscovered personal scrapbooks, authors Susan and Lloyd Ecker take you on their seven-year journey retracing Tucker's sixty-year career in show business.`
Long live the strike! Lucie Baud, one of the pioneers of the women's movement, went with creativity, fighting spirit and the power of singing against the weapons of male-dominated capitalist society in nineteenth-century France. The film, based on true events, describes the ambitious fight of a silk moth. She stood up for the rights of the female working class to end maltreatment and oppression once and for all. For the revolution in women's rights, she even put her family back and fought to the end for their beliefs.
He's devoted his career to uncovering stories the powerful want buried. From My Lai to Abu Ghraib, dig into the life's work of journalist Seymour Hersh.
Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
Oliver Stone charts the history of the United States from the Second World War to the present.
The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.
A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.
Filmed over 14 months with unprecedented access into the inner circle of the man and the sport, this is the first official and fully authorised film of one of the most celebrated figures in football. For the first time ever, the world gets vividly candid and un-paralleled, behind-closed-doors access to the footballer, father, family-man and friend in this moving & fascinating documentary. Through in-depth conversations, state of the art football footage and never before seen archival footage, the film gives an astonishing insight into the sporting and personal life of triple Ballon D'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo at the peak of his career. From the makers of ‘Senna’ and ‘Amy’, Ronaldo takes audiences on an intimate and revealing journey of what it’s like to live as an iconic athlete in the eye of the storm.
After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.
Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
In 1972, a seemingly typical shoestring budget pornographic film was made in a Florida hotel: "Deep Throat," starring Linda Lovelace. This film would surpass the wildest expectation of everyone involved to become one of the most successful independent films of all time. It caught the public imagination which met the spirit of the times, even as the self-appointed guardians of public morality struggled to suppress it, and created, for a brief moment, a possible future where sexuality in film had a bold artistic potential. This film covers the story of the making of this controversial film, its stunning success, its hysterical opposition along with its dark side of mob influence and allegations of the on set mistreatment of the film's star.
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).
An introspective insight into the life and artistic journey of William Friedkin, an extraordinary and offbeat director of cult films such as The French Connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, Cruising, To Live and Die in L.A. and Killer Joe. For the first time Friedkin opens up, guiding the audience on a fascinating journey through the themes and the stories that have influenced his life and his artistic career.
Forty years after the release of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ the best-selling album of all-time, director Nelson George takes fans back in time to the making of a pop masterpiece, featuring never-before-seen footage and candid interviews.
The remarkable story of Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical status he has since attained, is the subject of Senna, a documentary feature that spans the racing legend's years as an F1 driver, from his opening season in 1984 to his untimely death a decade later.
An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.
A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"
