U.S. nuclear tests in space, and the development of the military intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Social & External
Narrator
Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded OSS. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.
Tensions between the USSR and the United States were high in 1959, with the seemingly constant threat of nuclear war. Then some unlikely ambassadors stepped forward to clear all that away: the Harlem Globetrotters. From Harlem With Love is the story of how a group of barnstorming basketball players traveled to the heart of the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War and bridged a cultural gap many thought would stand forever.
With the Doomsday Clock the closest it's ever been to midnight, Jane Corbin investigates the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe. She visits Los Alamos, home to the United States’ nuclear weapons development facility and the historic home of Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project. In Scotland, she reveals the strategy behind Britain’s nuclear deterrent, and speaks to campaigners in Suffolk fighting against US weapons they fear will be based on UK soil. Jane also discovers how many of the global agreements and safeguards that have constrained the spread of nuclear weapons since the 1970s are breaking down. This is a story told by the scientists, investigators and diplomats who set the clock and have fought to ensure that the ultimate deterrent has not been used in over 70 years.
At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.
How the Soviet Union was able to copy the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, and the influence of the resulting Tupolev TU-4 on the Cold War.
When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.
A Texas congressman sets a series of events in motion when he conspires with a CIA operative to aid Afghan mujahideen rebels fighting the Soviets.
13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.
19 years after the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan, the Olympic Games of 1964 took place in Tokyo. In the midst of the cold war, the games are supposed to become a symbol for a peaceful world. Especially the divided Germany is expected to prove this: By order of the IOC, both German states must participate in Tokyo with a joint team despite deep ideological rifts. The fact that athletes from both German states still had to compete against each other in order to form a joint team for the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck and in Tokyo is all but forgotten. The film tells the story of the East-West German team of 1964 for the first time and is simultaneously a current document about the relation of sports and politics in international relations.
Deals with the establishment of the Italian republic and Italy’s foreign affairs, particularly how Italy regained national sovereignty and appreciation from the USA and Western Europe after the Second World War. It explains in what way Italy benefits from integration into a Western alliance system (NATO, Council of Europe, European Coal and Steel Community) during the Cold War.
This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short tells the story of how a Mauser pistol used on the battlefield by Germans during WWII makes its way into the hands of an American gangster.
A remarkable examination of the forces behind the Civil Rights Movement in 1960’s America. Drawing parallels between successful communist insurrections in China, Cuba, and Algeria; “Anarchy USA” attempts to convince its audience that revolutionary communism was using the noble fight for civil rights to foment racial tension and overthrow the US government. A treasure trove of rare archival footage from America’s most traumatic period of social upheaval. Featuring Ahmed Ben Bally, Julia Brown, Charles De Gaulle, Martin Luther King.
Documentary about the Cold War.
The film documents the conversion of young Greek Military Police (ESA) recruits into torturers and touches on the subject of the power of the institution to compel otherwise moral human beings to torture. The documentary examines the processes and methods of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.
Deng Xiaoping's economic and political opening in China. Margaret Thatcher's extreme economic measures in the United Kingdom. Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland. Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The nuclear accident at the Harrisburg power plant and the birth of ecological activism. The year 1979, the beginning of the future.
Made at the height of 'cold war' paranoia, this drama-documentary shows the work of the UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation, who's duties included the issuing of public warnings of any nuclear missile strike and the subsequent fallout.
President Mikhail Gorbachev recounts the end of the Cold War and the reduction of nuclear arms.
Gorbachev believed that it was impossible to achieve a successful economy until the tensions of the Soviet Union continued with the Western countries, and especially the US, so that their high priority was to tame down, establish relations and negotiate with the Americans.
"McCarthy" chronicles the rise and fall of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who came to power after a stunning victory in an election no one thought he could win. Once in office, he declared that there was a vast conspiracy threatening America — emanating not from a rival superpower, but from within. Free of restraint or oversight, he conducted a crusade against those he accused of being enemies of the state, a chilling campaign marked by groundless accusations, bullying intimidation, grandiose showmanship and cruel victimization. With lawyer Roy Cohn at his side, he belittled critics, spinning a web of lies and distortions while spreading fear and confusion. After years in the headlines, he was brought down by his own excesses and overreach. But his name lives on linked to the modern-day witch hunt we call “McCarthyism.”
In the documentary Last To Know political prisoners, sent to jail for openly opposing the East German regime that existed until the German reunification in 1990, talk about their times of trial and their lives today. Neither they, nor their families have come to terms with what happened.
English gunsmith Jonathon Tibbs travels to the American West in the 1880s to sell firearms to the locals. He inadvertently acquires a reputation of quickness on the draw due to his wrist mounted Derringer style weapon. Soon gaining the post of sheriff, he endeavours to clean up the town using what skills he has—and by multilateral diplomacy.
'Oxygen for the Ears: Living Jazz' is a story of the trials and triumphs of jazz in America. Every jazz tune has a starting point - a simple note - from which the music starts its journey and rises. 'Oxygen for the Ears' portrays Washington D.C. as such a departure point for its documentary story, 'Living Jazz'.
Ji-eun, a member of North Korea's dance troupe and the daughter of the North Korean leader, escapes to the South after one of their perfomances. Eager to explore the liberal life in Seoul, Ji-eun searches for a new life of freedom in South Korea. She soon comes across Joon-ho, a leader of a local rock band. Their relationship then takes unexpected turns as they become closer to each other. Meanwhile, the intelligence agency in South Korea learns of a conspiracy being orchestrated by the American CIA to disrupt the peace on the Korean peninsula; the CIA plots to secretly kidnap Ji-eun. Secret forces from the North and South reluctantly agree to work together to prevent a possible war between their two countries.
In the middle of a broadcast about Typhoon Yolanda's initial impact, reporter Jiggy Manicad was faced with the reality that he no longer had communication with his station. They were, for all intents and purposes, stranded in Tacloban. With little option, and his crew started the six hour walk to Alto, where the closest broadcast antenna was to be found. Letting the world know what was happening to was a priority, but they were driven by the need to let their families and friends know they were all still alive. Along the way, they encountered residents and victims of the massive typhoon, and with each step it became increasingly clear just how devastating this storm was. This was a storm that was going to change lives.
"This piece, with the generic title Film, is a series of short videos built around one protocol: a snippet of news from a newspaper of the day, is rolled up and then placed on a black-inked surface. On making contact with the liquid, the roll opens and of Its own accord frees itself of the gesture that fashioned it. As it comes alive in this way, the sliver of paper reveals Its hitherto unexposed content; this unpredictable kinematics is evidence of the constant impermanence of news. As well as exploring a certain archaeology of cinema, the mechanism references the passage of time: the ink, whether it is poured or printed, is the ink of ongoing human history." –Ismaïl Bahri
This documentary about the life and work of filmmaker Jean Painlevé was originally presented in eight parts on French television. It was edited to remove duplicated material from its original length of 240 minutes.
A Dutch family on their last full day of their camping holiday in France. On the moment that nobody wants to join father Aad on the traditional hiking tour, everybody experiences their own adventure.
Ava, an award-winning chef at a big-city restaurant, has lost her spark. Her boss sends her out to find herself to save her menu and her job. She returns home and finds little to inspire her, but when she reunites with her childhood friend Logan, Ava has to get her head out of the clouds and her foot out of her mouth to rediscover her passion for food.
As they grew older, Cristina and Lola were silenced. They obeyed and kept silent for a long time, until today. The protagonists of this docufiction short film raise their voices to bring us closer to the intersex life stories and share our reflections on bodies, identities and desire. A liberating opportunity not only for them, but for everyone.
Where does a garden go when it has nowhere to go to? A tale about wandering and exile.
In search of a simpler life, a young couple returns home to Alabama where they set out to eat the way their grandparents did – locally and seasonally. But as they navigate the agro-industrial gastronomical complex, they soon realize that nearly everything about the food system has changed since farmers once populated their family histories. A thoughtful and often funny essay on community, the South and sustainability, “Eating Alabama” is a story about why food matters.
Mexican feature film
An eerie, apocalyptic look at our planet thousands of years in the future. All life is extinct. Various remnants of our cities are still standing. Amidst all of this are two alien visitors who roam the planet, studying it, collecting samples, recording data. Something cataclysmic must have happened to render the planet lifeless, and soon the aliens discover the cause – a gigantic crater the size of Texas. During the survey, a faint S.O.S signal is detected by the aliens, and they follow it to a massive underground chamber containing hundreds of pods. Within each pod is a human fetus, in perfect hibernation. Apparently, knowing our planet would be rendered lifeless, we created the chamber with the hope that one day alien visitors would discover it. In the end, the aliens harvest the pods to their ships…and return to their planet to give human existence a re-birth.
An unfinished film by veteran b-movie director Oliver Drake. He took his first (and last) directorial foray into horror with this film.
SEEKING WELLNESS is comprised of a series of four vignettes exploring ideas related to victimization, recovery and empathy.
A giant monster attacks the city and only the Sonic Warriors can save it.
