Two Forces

Docudrama about the Soviet occupation of a Finnish village in the fall before the Winter War.

Príbehy z Kališťa

German Concentration Camps Factual Survey

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

Antarctic Dream

In this spectacular real-life adventure, a small team of Argentinean mariners sets sail for Antarctica in a custom-built sailboat. But to get there they and their vessel will have to brave the treacherous Drake Passage, one of the most dangerous bodies of water on Earth.

People of Russia

This FitzPatrick Miniature visits the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the largest geographically unbroken political unit in the world, covering one-sixth of the world's land mass.

Den Norske Motstand

The Blue Hills

A documentary on the volunteer Estonian Army's defense against the Soviet Army in 1944 with an emphasis on its last stand in the region known as the Blue Hills of Estonia.

Return to Guam

Return to Guam is a 1944 short propaganda film produced by the US Navy about the taking and recapture of the island of Guam. The film starts when a convoy of ships nearing the island sees strange lights flashing from the island in Morse code "information". After cautiously investigating the signal, they find that it was made by a white man, George Tweed, the last survivor of the original garrison at Guam. Tweed relates his harrowing story of how he survived in the bush for 31 months with the help of the natives, Chamorros.

Oorlog in Westerbork

The film shows the period just after the liberation of camp Westerbork and the Netherlands. The remaining Jews were ordered to guard new prisoners: NSB members and other collaborators. Several of those 'wrong' Dutchmen had been partly responsible for the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. This documentary is about those first four months in camp Westerbork, when almost a hundred prisoners suspected of collaboration died.

Bread and a Blanket

On December 13 of 1943 the Nazi occupation army in Greece executed all the male population of the town of Kalavryta while burning it to the ground. Three men who witnessed these events as kids remember.

Reunification in the Ice: The Story of the Last GDR Antarctic Explorers

In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.

Nazi Death Marches

Faced with the relentless and unstoppable advance of the Soviet Red Army, from the spring of 1944 until the capitulation of the Third Reich in May 1945, the Nazis evacuated the labor, concentration and extermination camps, factories of pain and death which, during years of nightmare, they had established in the occupied eastern territories. Forced to travel enormous distances, thousands of people died along the way from hunger, thirst and exhaustion.

Paris on the Seine

A history of the bridges of Paris, through modern views and historical engravings.

The True Story of the Bridge on the River Kwai

Made famous by the 1957 Hollywood movie, the bridges of the River Kwai emblematize one of the most misunderstood events in history. Contrary to the romanticized film version, the structures represent a period of terror, desperation, and death for over 16,000 POWs and 100,00 local slaves. The Thailand - Burma Railway was the vision of the Japanese Imperial Army: a 250-mile track cut through dense jungle that would connect Bangkok and Rangoon. To accomplish this nearly impossible feat, the fanatical and ruthless Japanese engineers used POWs and local slaves as manpower. Candid interviews with men who lived through the atrocity - including Dutch, Australian, British, and American POWs - illuminate the violence and horror of their three-and-a-half-year internment. From Britain's surrender of Singapore the enduring force of friendship, The True Story Of The Bridge On The River Kwai narrates a moving and unforgettable account of a period in history that must be remembered.

John Ford: The Man Who Invented America

Over a 50-year career and more than a hundred movies, filmmaker John Ford (1894-1973) forged the legend of the Far West. By giving a face to the underprivileged, from humble cowboys to persecuted minorities, he revealed like no one else the great social divisions that existed and still exist in the United States. More than four decades after his death, what remains of his legacy and humanistic values in the memory of those who love his work?

Undermining the Nazis: Paris' Secret Tunnels

Two men show extraordinary courage by secretly mapping Paris' underground during the 1940 German occupation.