Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.
Social & External
The people behind it
Corinna Waldbauer
Self - Narrator (voice)
Stanisław Ciosek
Self - Politician
Barbara Labuda
Agnieszka Holland
Self - Filmmaker
Jacek Petrycki
Self - Cameraman
Michał Bukojemski
Basil Kerski
Self - Journalist
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Self - Politician (archive footage)
Pope John Paul II
Self (archive footage)
Anna Walentynowicz
Self - Political Activist (archive footage)
The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?
Since the outbreak of the global corona pandemic, the number of anti-Semitic content on the Internet and social media has also been increasing. Researchers see a connection between online radicalization and anti-Semitic violence – and also attacks. "Jud Süß 2.0" documents the visual roots of this new anti-Semitism.
This feature documentary tells the stories of 5 asylum seekers who flee their native countries to escape homophobic violence. They face hurdles integrating into Canada, fear deportation and anxiously await a decision that will change their lives forever.
A documentary of Janesville trying to recover from the closing of the GM automobile plant, in the midst of very divisive and historic political infighting between Republican's and Democrats in the state of Wisconsin.
The contrast between the majestic statues of Easter Island and the desolation of their surroundings is stark. For decades Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as the islanders call it, has been seen as a warning from history for the planet as a whole - willfully expend natural resources and the collapse of civilization is inevitable.
After losing sight in 1983, John Hull began keeping an audio diary, a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness. Following on from the Emmy Award-winning short film of the same name, Notes on Blindness is an ambitious and groundbreaking work, both affecting and innovative.
Grow Vasu is a biographical documentary on the life of comrade Ayinoor Vasu aka Grow Vasu, a leader of the working class, as well as a champion of Muslim, Dalit, and marginalized communities and human rights movements. At 94 years young, he was jailed for questioning the authority, yet, Vasu continues his fight against oppression, for justice, and for the revolution. The film follows a narrative style divided into ten chapters consists of his personal-political up and downs.
Migrating is seldom an easy solution. It is rather a journey, that begins with a journey. After more than eight years of campaigning, the immigrant cleaners outsourced at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London continue to demand being brought in-house. Limpiadores charts the history of their and others’ campaigns – from winning the London Living Wage to the deportation of nine colleagues, and the day-to-day invisible labour of cleaners on our campus.
East-Germany, 1990. The first summer after Germany's reunification and Olli is eager to explore this new freedom. But for someone who has never left his small village in East Germany, he has high expectations. On top of that, he is not the brightest candle on the cake. So when he's suddenly convinced that the glorious US is just a stone throw away, across the lake, his sister Peggy knows not to stop her brother but rather see where this adventure might lead them. And to Peggy's surprise New York's subway is closer than she thought.
East-Berlin, 1980. Two sisters, one professional fleeing assistant and one soldier. And an escape that could go either way...
After 20 years seeking Cleopatra's tomb, archaeologist K. Martinez's search shifts to an underwater Mediterranean site. She's joined by Titanic finder Bob Ballard, Egyptian Navy and dive teams to explore the location.
Following the disappointing sales of Kate Bush's fourth album, The Dreaming in 1982, she told the press, I finished my last album, did the promotion, then found myself in a kind of limbo. In the summer of 1983, she built her own 48-track studio in the grounds of her family home, which she could use at any time she liked, without being concerned about the cost Kate Bush began recording demos for Hounds of Love in January 1984. After five months, she began overdubbing and mixing the album in a process that took a year. The album was produced as two suites - side one being Hounds of Love and side two a seven-track concept piece, The Ninth Wave. The Hounds Of Love remains not just a masterpiece for the cognoscenti, but a truly classic album, one of the finest of the decade, and for many, among the best of all time. This documentary film puts the record under the microscope.
Three months of riots and street fighting. Three months of marches and demonstrations, but the anger of Algerias Kabyle population has not diminished. This rank and file mouvement mistrusts political parties, and presents a real threat to the Algerian government. Berber-speaking, Kabylian native, director Samia Chala followed Mohand, one of the young people who initiated those riots, through his village of Avizar, 40 kilometers from Tizi Ouzou, to get the inside story. Because of her background and intimate knowledge of the region, Samia was allowed to film without any police escort, and this produced a rare document.
On 16 July 1212, a Crusader army made up of Castilians, Aragonese and Navarrese (but also French, English and Germans) confronted the army of the Almohad Caliph an-Nasir at the foot of the Sierra Morena mountain range. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, as the battle is known, is considered the most important battle of the Middle Ages on the Iberian Peninsula and is a key event in the history of Spain. More than 800 years later, a group of archaeologists and specialists have begun an archaeological study of the battlefield. Is everything that has been said about the battle true? What secrets does the terrain hide? And, above all, what can we learn today about events that took place hundreds of years ago and that pitted tens of thousands of people against each other in the south of our country?
The sarcastic account of the assassination of five Spanish politicians between 1870 and 1973 is mixed with the narration of five short stories by Edgar Allan Poe illustrated by five skillful pencil artists. A documentary, a video essay, a collage, a provocative experiment where various pop culture figures and icons perform unexpected cameos. The macabre joke of a jester. Never more.
Examines the legacy, cultural impact, and body of work of American R&B/funk/jazz/soul/disco band Earth, Wind & Fire, and will feature exclusive access to the band’s archives of visual, audio, and written material, as well as the support of the estate of Maurice White and the band.
The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.
For the 20th anniversary of "Titanic," James Cameron reopens the file on the disaster.
An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).
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.
This Oscar-winning documentary recounts the harrowing stories of five Hungarian Jews who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and Hitler's reign.
“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...
Journey into the extraordinary world of "The Witcher" — from casting the roles to Jaskier's catchy song — in this behind-the-scenes look at the series.
Learn the incredible behind-the-scenes story of how the original Star Wars movie was brought to the big screen in this fascinating documentary hosted by C-3PO and R2-D2 which includes interviews with George Lucas and appearances by Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.
An ambitious and wide-ranging documentary exploring Andre’s upbringing in France, his celebrated career in WWE, and his forays in the entertainment world.
Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.
A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the war.
A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.
In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…
A tribute to Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci (1926-90), presented by American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.
Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?
Produced and presented as evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Hermann Göring and twenty other Nazi leaders, this film consists primarily of dead and surviving prisoners and of facilities used to kill and torture during the World War II.
Roddy McDowall takes you, film by film, from production meetings to make-up sessions, then right onto the movie set to see the actual filming of the science fiction masterpiece. The most comprehensive history of Planet of the Apes ever created, this fascinating 127-minute documentary explores one of the most imaginative and influential series in movie history.
Oskar Gröning, known as the "Accountant of Auschwitz," was charged with the murder of 300,000 Jews. When he took the stand in 2015, at the age of 94, his trial made headlines worldwide.
This documentary follows superstar Bret Hart during his last year in the WWF. The film documents the tensions that resulted in The Montreal Screwjob, one of the most controversial events in the history of professional wrestling, in which Vince McMahon, Shawn Micheals, and others, legitimately conspired behind the scenes to go against the script and remove Bret Hart as champion.
In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.