Historic Russian battles to repel invaders serve as prelude to the story of events that redrew the map of Eastern Europe and parts of Asia in the 20th century. Following the turmoil of the Bolshevik Revolution, Communist Russia faces the venom of Nazi aggression. 1940's film footage reveals the harsh reality of total war, as the Red Army and Soviet civilians alike confront a brutal and tenacious enemy. The following decades are darkened by tensions between the USSR and foreign powers, and violent measures taken to silence voices of dissent. Finally, the Soviet people's yearning for a freer society leads to accelerating reforms and the ultimate dissolution of the USSR.
Narrator
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
16 Apr 1996
With breathless pace, Hélène Chatelain ("the woman" in "La Jetée") reconstructs the life of Nestor Makhno from his writings, Soviet propaganda films, reactions of workers today and the memory he has left in the hearts & minds of his people in Gouliaïpolié, in the east of the Ukraine.
25 Nov 2020
Green lights dance across a star-filled sky, and snowflakes sparkle on the trees. It is little wonder Lapland is famous as a realm of elves and flying reindeer, the magical home of Santa Claus. This northernmost region of mainland Europe, however, is a real place, with real animals such as reindeer, Great Gray owls, wolverines, eagles, wolves, musk oxen and Brown bears who live out their lives in the tundra and forest.
01 Dec 2009
Eldar Ryazanov reads his poetry. An introspective movie on his multifaceted work.
13 Mar 2007
On March 9, 1953, Joseph Stalin was buried in Moscow in front of a million people. His funeral is that of a demi-God. Ultimate paradox for one of the greatest criminals in History who brought misfortune to his people while arousing collective admiration.
14 Apr 2021
Three decades after the nuclear explosion, almost everything has been said about this ecological and sanitary disaster that made Pripiat a part of History. How did the greatest industrial disaster change the course of History, disrupt global geopolitics and, directly or indirectly, redistribute the balances and power relations of the twentieth century? The world will never be the same again. By retracing the incredible battle waged by the Soviet Union against radiation, this film proposes to retrace and enlighten an extraordinary story, while exploring the historical stakes in the medium and long-term…
02 Jan 1979
The final oral exam in history and social studies at one of Warsaw's high schools. The film illustrates the theatre of social life in Soviet Poland where one says different things on the stage and another behind the scenes.
08 Jan 2020
How in 1959, during the heat of the Cold War, the government of the United States decided to create a secret military base located in the far north of Greenland: Camp Century, almost a real town with roads and houses, a nuclear plant to provide power and silos to house missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.
01 Jan 2013
A documentary about Kim Philby, a British member of MI6 who was in reality a spy and defected to the U.S.S.R.
15 Mar 2018
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.
17 Apr 2024
The village of Yahidne in northern Ukraine is coming back to life. Dogs are running around. Gardens and crops are green again. People support one another and families have reunited. In a movement of solidarity, local youth help rebuild what was devastated a year ago when Russian troops occupied the village imprisoning the villagers in the school's basement for a month. The villagers' attitudes alternate between their desire to move forward an remembering the horrors of the past. A heartwarming tribute to resilience and unity.
08 Mar 1977
Film cameras cruise the Soviet Union's mighty Volga River, providing a view of the Russian people along its 2300-mile length, including looks at the fishing industry, a rural village, a manufacturing town and the wedding of two factory workers.
01 Sep 1990
A film about the sociopolitical condition of the Soviet society at the end of the eighties.
01 Jan 2003
Emmy Awards nominee for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research: Multi-faceted portrait of the man who succeeded Lenin as the head of the Soviet Union. With a captivating blend of period documents, newly-released information, newsreel and archival footage and interviews with experts, the program examines his rise to power, deconstructs the cult of personality that helped him maintain an iron grip over his vast empire, and analyzes the policies he introduced, including the deadly expansion of the notorious gulags where he banished so many of his countrymen to certain death.
29 Jun 2022
No overview found
22 Oct 2016
The film tells about the birth of a new wave in the USSR under a strict political regime and about the era of "perestroika", when musicians received freedom of expression.
26 Aug 2011
January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.
01 Jan 1961
Documentary recounting the story of the Cuban Revolution and its impact on the young people of Cuba.
07 Nov 1918
A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.
02 Aug 2022
A look inside the Russian assault on Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, told by displaced families, civilians caught in the fight and first responders.
18 Jun 2002
The 1972 Olympic men's basketball final, in which Team USA suffered their first ever loss in Games competition, was one of the most controversial events in the history of both the Olympics and basketball.