This film details how the domestic and foreign economic elite, by creating despotic rule under the guise of Liberalism, use and control socialist and capitalist revolutions.
Social & External
Self
1968, The Socialist Republic of Romania. Women catch up on the latest tendencies in beachwear, the young hippies of Hamburg are harshly criticized by Romanian students, while Nicolae Ceaușescu reads the famous defiance speech against the intervention of the Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia. Floating solemnly over all this is The Internationale, sung on a stadium by a crowd of pioneers dressed in white shirts and red ties. A certainty for each probability: the documentary is at the same time a history lesson and an ideological warning sign, the director’s endeavour permanently draws our attention to the functions of the propaganda film, yet without tarnishing the fascination that dwells in the core of the images, that of the figures that wave at us from a past buried in commonplaces and political parti pris.
An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.
At the peak of Perestroika, in 1987, in the village of Gorki, where Lenin spent his last years, after a long construction, the last and most grandiose museum of the Leader was opened. Soon after the opening, the ideology changed, and the flow of pilgrims gradually dried up. Despite this, the museum still works and the management is looking for ways to attract visitors. Faithful to the Lenin keepers of the museum as they can resist the onset of commercialization. The film tells about the modern life of this amazing museum-reserve and its employees.
A film about the dramatic and extraordinary fate of the lonely man who confronted the meat grinder of the communist regime. Georgy Konstantinov, 19 years old, blew up Stalin's monument in Sofia and death passed him by only because the dictator died two days later. He miraculously survived 10 years in prison and psychiatric wards and managed to escape to France. His State Security file numbers more than 40,000 pages. Even today, he does not cease to expose the crimes of the regime with the strength of truth and of his character.
In 2010 David Crowley, an Iraq veteran, aspiring filmmaker and charismatic up-and-coming voice in fringe politics, began production on his film Gray State. Set in a dystopian near-future where civil liberties are trampled by an unrestrained federal government, the film’s crowd funded trailer was enthusiastically received by the burgeoning online community of libertarians, Tea Party activists and members of the nascent alt-right. In January of 2015, Crowley was found dead with his family in their suburban Minnesota home. Their shocking deaths quickly become a cause célèbre for conspiracy theorists who speculate that Crowley was assassinated by a shadowy government concerned about a film and filmmaker that was getting too close to the truth about their aims.
Jesus Was a Commie presents modern society with questions and leads the audience on a dialectical journey. The film challenges the viewer to seek their own answers and personal truths.
The impact of Marx on the 20th century has been all-pervasive and world-wide. This program looks at the man, at the roots of his philosophy, at the causes and explanations of his philosophical development, and at its most direct outcome: the failed Soviet Union.
A research-based essay film, but also a very personal perspective on the history of socialist Yugoslavia, its dramatic end, and its recent transformation into a few democratic nation states.
Four lucid grandmothers tell their story forgotten by history: the militancy and resistance of the young women of the leftist youth against the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.
Meet Andrew Lindy: a man with a camera and sex on his mind. Andrew is a New Yorker who travels the world to capture beauty for various freelance jobs. Andrew chases beauty but he longs for a connection. On an assignment for ELLE magazine, Andrew travels to Cuba and brings his camera and appetite for women with him. This is a look at the lack of sexual taboo in Cuba, as well as the financial difficulties that lead to prostitution in some Cubans, for the purpose of survival.
This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.
A portrait of the leading female Bolshevik (and later Worker’s Opposition) revolutionary leader Alexandra Kollontai using her own words.
On June 20th, 1971, thousands of Spanish Republicans from all around Europe meet up in Montreuil, France to take part in an event initiated by the French and the Spanish Communist Parties, to protest against Franco's dictatorship.
How did the end of the Soviet Union change the way of thinking, the way of behaviour of militant French Communists ? For the first time and during several months meetings of a Communist Party cell in one of Paris' industrial suburbs were filmed by André Van In. Set against these meetings, the militants are filmed discussing their commitments, their dreams, their mistakes. Beyond questions about power or the political machinery, they share their faith in militancy and their hopes for a fairer society.
Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson's phrase in an ironic context in this anti-war documentary, filmed and released while the Vietnam War was still under way, juxtaposing interviews with military figures like U.S. Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland with shocking scenes of violence and brutality.
The homeless, underground residents at a post-communist train station and their intimate confessions. A film not about misery, but the lust for life and color even at the depths of human despair.
