01 Feb 1991
The story of Estelle Ishigo, one of the few Caucasians interned with Japanese Americans during World War II. The wife of a Japanese American, Ishigo refused to be separated from her husband and was interned along with him. Based on the personal papers of Estelle Ishigo and her novel Lone Heart Mountain.
30 Sep 1943
The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.
10 Oct 1943
The fourth of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series of seven propaganda films, which made the case for fighting and winning the Second World War. It was released in 1943 and concentrated on the German bombardment of the United Kingdom in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion.
17 Oct 2012
Alan Turing is the genius British mathematician who was instrumental in breaking the German naval Enigma Code during World War II, arguably saving millions of lives. Turing's achievements went unrecognised during his lifetime. Instead he ended up being treated as a common criminal, for being homosexual at a time when homosexual acts were a crime. In 1952, he was convicted of 'gross indecency' with another man and was forced to undergo so-called 'organo-therapy' - chemical castration. Two years later, he killed himself with cyanide, aged just 41. Alan Turing was driven to a terrible despair and early death by the nation he'd done so much to save.
05 Oct 2024
No overview found
12 Oct 2014
MY ITALIAN SECRET tells a heroic story that was all but lost to history, until now. The film recounts how WWII bicycling idol Gino Bartali, physician Giovanni Borromeo and other Italians worked with Jewish leaders and high-ranking officials of the Catholic Church, risking their lives by defying the Nazis to save thousands of Italy’s Jews.
16 Nov 2008
National Geographic looks in some detail at 6 of the many close brushes with death Adolph Hitler had at the hands of assassins. The potential for the plots to succeed are examined as is the unpleasant fate of the would be assassins.
16 May 2021
Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.
29 Oct 2023
No overview found
18 Mar 2007
Jeremy Clarkson tells the story of what’s been called ‘the original Mission Impossible’ – the audacious Commando raid on the German occupied dry dock at St. Nazaire in France on March 28th 1942. Operation Chariot, as the raid was codenamed, had a simple aim – to destroy the dry dock and thus deny the German battleship Tirpitz a safe haven on the Atlantic coast of France. There were many who thought the mission too risky, but the Chief of Combined Operations, Louis Mountbatten, pushed forward. This programme explores the story around March 26th 1942, when Commandos in Cornwall boarded their floating bomb and set off to see if the element of surprise really could overcome all the odds.
13 May 1975
Hailwood, Agostini, Sheene
17 Nov 2016
The development of professional soccer worldwide owes a great debt to the soccer – or "football" – that is played on the streets of France.
09 Jun 2000
Surrealist master Luis Buñuel is a towering figure in the world of cinema history, directing such groundbreaking works as Un Chien Andalou, Exterminating Angels, and That Obscure Object of Desire, yet his personal life was clouded in myth and paradox. Though sexually diffident, he frequently worked in the erotic drama genre; though personally quite conservative, his films are florid, flamboyant, and utterly bizarre.
06 Jun 2014
The Normandy landings of 6 June 1944 were pivotal to the outcome of WW2. We learn when Churchill and Roosevelt first proposed the operation and how preparations started—finishing with the key events of D-Day and the far-reaching effects of its outcome.
12 Oct 2023
No overview found
01 Jan 1999
The historical documentary Hitler Youth explores Adolf Hitler's maniacal construction of the titular organization - one comprised of young Aryan men who would rule the world by fear, intimidation and violence. Via a compendium of terrifying archival footage, the program documents the establishment of the Hitler Youth, its escalation from a membership of 13,000 to 10,000,000 within fifteen years, and the death of the organization following Hitler's suicide in 1945.
14 Jun 2017
The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.
18 Sep 2024
The past drags itself into the present day, taking us back to the era of the Dominican Republic's greatest dictator, while we explore the traces of Nazism in the corners of the island. This short documentary borders on a dark and little-known aspect of Dominican history, taking the viewer on a subversive journey through time and memory.
16 May 2021
In the summer of 1963, François Mitterrand was going through a deep existential crisis. His political career was at a standstill and, after 19 years of marriage, the couple had grown apart. It was at this point that François Mitterrand met the woman who was to give new meaning to his life. Anne Pingeot, aged 19, was to become the companion of a lifetime, a woman who would be with him throughout his rise to power and who would remain by his side until his last breath. For the first time, Anne Pingeot has agreed to allow the fragments of this passionate love story — hundreds of letters and a diary — to be shown on television, before being donated to the National Library.
01 Dec 2006
Most people don't think about singing when they think about revolutions. But song was the weapon of choice when, between 1986 and 1991, Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. During those years, hundreds of thousands gathered in public to sing forbidden patriotic songs and to rally for independence. "The young people, without any political party, and without any politicians, just came together ... not only tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands ... to gather and to sing and to give this nation a new spirit," remarks Mart Laar, a Singing Revolution leader featured in the film and the first post-Soviet Prime Minister of Estonia. "This was the idea of the Singing Revolution." James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty's "The Singing Revolution" tells the moving story of how the Estonian people peacefully regained their freedom--and helped topple an empire along the way.