A look at the Jewish community in Rădăuți, Romania, from 1974 to 1976.
Social & External
Narrator (voice)
Rabbi
Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.
In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.
The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.
A documentary that exposes the shocking truths behind industrial food production and food wastage, focusing on fishing, livestock and crop farming. A must-see for anyone interested in the true cost of the food on their plate.
A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.
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.
Tucson, Arizona, September 1996. At the request of his son Martin, George Goldsmith tells him of his past in Nazi Germany as a member of a family of Jewish musicians and the strange history of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, a Jewish organization sponsored by Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels.
A Roma beggar on his knees raises many extreme emotions: guilt, rage, sympathy and frustration. Most people just walk on by, but there is always someone willing to help. In this film, the director follows the confrontations between the Roma beggars from Romania and Finnish people, and is forced to question, over and over again, her own ideas about helping.
In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.
Awake Zion explores the connections between Rasta, Reggae and Judaism, through one woman's beat-laden adventure into the meaning of identity. All the way back to the alleged sultry affair between the Jewish King Solomon and the African Queen of Sheba, Jewish influence is evident in the spiritual history of Ethiopia - turning up subtly in Rastafarian lifestyle and then, inevitably, in reggae. Unravelling the story of this unlikely kinship, Awake Zion unites Jewish and Jamaican musicians, scholars, and historians in a celebration roots and culture - traveling from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where Caribbean and Jewish cultures share a history of adversity - to Jamaica, the birthplace of reggae - and ultimately to Israel, where a sizzling reggae scene thrives today. Awake Zion examines the preconceptions of what it means to be Jewish, what it means to be Rasta, what it means to be white or black - and, most importantly, the universal search for what it means to be "home".
Procreation is the social duty of all fertile women, was the political thinking during the 1960s and 1970s in Romania. In 1966, Ceaucescu issued Decree 770, in which he forbade abortion for all women unless they were over forty or were already taking care of four children. All forms of contraception were totally banned. The New Romanian Man was born. By 1969, the country had a million babies more than the previous average. Romanian society was rapidly changing. By using very interesting archival footage and excerpts from old fiction films and by interviewing famous personalities from that time – gynecologists or mothers who were part of the new society - the director revives this period of tremendous oppression of personal freedom. Many deaths were caused by the mere fact that women, including wives of secret Romanian agents, famous TV presenters, and actresses, had to undergo illegal abortions. Many women were jailed for having them.
Jewish people - and a few Gentiles - muse on what it means to be Jewish in 1960s Britain. The challenges of maintaining faith and culture outside Israel, and in a society where ‘Jewish’ and ‘English’ are seen as mutually exclusive identities are perceptively explored in this astute documentary. Some secular Jews are keen to distance themselves from traditional Judaism and especially Zionism (one defines himself simply as a Marxist). Gentiles are on hand to cheerfully perpetuate some of the old stereotypes, and we’re treated to colourful snapshots of the Jewish community in London: the rag trade, a kosher butcher and restaurant.
The three-hour-long documentary covers 25 years in the life of Nicolae Ceaușescu and was made using 1,000 hours of original footage from the National Archives of Romania.
They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.
Slovakia, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. The family of the young Jewish Martin Friedmann gathers to celebrate his bar mitzvah and make a solemn promise that they will all meet again a year later around the same table; but the storms of war and anti-Semitic fanaticism will lead each of them down very different paths.
The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.
Untamed Romania provides insight into the stunning natural wonders of Romania, with the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube Delta, and Transylvania as its major areas of interest.
The fascinating portrait of Ion Bârlàdeanu. The touching and inspiring story of a man who literally lived in the gutter for 20 years - and in the meantime managed to create paintings and collages which are now exhibited alongside works by Andy Warhol or Marcel Duchamp.
Set in early 19th century Wallachia, Romania, a policeman, Costandin, is hired by a nobleman to find a Gypsy slave who has run away from his estate after having an affair with his wife.
An offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe.
Documentary film on the making of Mike Flanagan's Absentia. Interviews with cast and crew and behind-the-scenes.
Old Mother Riley loses her laundry job and then battles her ex-boss in a parliamentary election.
Prince From Another Planet takes its title from a New York Times headline that accompanied its rave review of the King of Rock 'n' Roll's four sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden (80,000 tickets sold), the weekend of Friday through Sunday, June 9-11, 1972.
Almost Elvis is a searing documentary that chronicles and attempts to explain the cult of personality that is the Elvis impersonator. Filmmakers tail a handful of Elvis impersonators from around the country who are all vying to win the 1999 Elvis World Championship in -- where else? -- Memphis, Tennessee.
After the death of Mr. Abduscan, Gonçal seeks revenge, with all his strength to finish off the Anthropomorphs, but they won't make it easy for them.
The Yakimanka Center for Contemporary Art is one of the most important institutions of contemporary art in the 90s in Moscow. It was here that the first open platform for all forms of self-expression was created. New artists, gallery owners and curators appeared here, the main events of the artistic life of the last decade of the twentieth century took place.
Mexican feature film
The documentary director's reminiscences of his past protagonists, themes and inspirations as well as meetings with old friends and colleagues.
A plague ravages Buenos Aires. Those affected by it are executed on the spot; those who are healthy should report to the authorities. Escaping both from the authorities and from the disease, seven survivors head south.
The year is 2000 and investors are going crazy about a new mobile phone company called Riot Entertainment. Many high profile companies, like Nokia, invest millions on this unknown firm. Two years later, when all the money has been spent and the company is bankrupt, the fun is over. What happened?
Based on the previous 'Final Chapter', world history has now been modified and reconstructed. Although Kudo was able to release himself from the curse caused by demon soldiers, he now has no money. Despite losing the memory of the previous world, Kudo, Ichikawa and Tashiro continue to work together in producing a horror documentary.
