Once again, director Yulia Solnsteva directs a movie that her late husband Alexandre Dovchenko scripted but did not live long enough to shoot. In this wartime drama, the emphasis is on the heroics of both the civilians and the soldiers during times of severe stress in World War II. At the core of the action is one man in particular, whose sacrifices and heroics speak for a much larger group.
During Japan's Warring States period three young Tokugawa vassals head their separate ways after Takeda Shingen's forces overran their castle. When they next meet they have all joined opposing sides.
A man tries to raise his two sons and two daughters under some of the most adverse conditions known to man. The father operates a horse-drawn cart, but in a city that is modernizing after the destruction of the Korean War, automobiles are making carts obsolete. The children are experiencing difficulties as well. The eldest son has flunked the bar exam twice and is not hopeful of passing it a third time to become a lawyer. The eldest daughter is mute and married to an abusive husband. The younger daughter tries to pose as a rich university student to move up in life. The youngest son has a penchant for petty theft.
In his experimental short film "Brutalität in Stein" (Brutality in Stone), Alexander Kluge demonstrates how Nazi architecture used dimensions of inhuman and super-human scale to bolster the regime's politics of the same kind. Shots of huge neo-classical architectural structures from the Nazi period are confronted with equally anti-human national-socialist language as a voice-over.
The film shows how Italy's historic national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi (embodied by Renzo Ricci) leads a military campaign known as Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 and conquers Sicily and Naples. When the Bourbon monarchy has left Southern Italy, he supports Victor Emmanuel II of Italy who achieves a lasting unification under the aegis the House of Savoy. Roberto Rossellini has said he was prouder of this film than of any other film he ever made.
A combat unit under Capt. Tombol's command undertakes a perilous final patrol amidst heightened tensions, despite an imminent Korean War treaty. Tragically, Tombol steps on a "Bouncing Betty" landmine.
In 1944, in a small village in Calvados, just as the Allies landed, a British plane was shot down. The wounded pilot seeks help. All the villagers, who speak only of resistance, refuse to help, for fear of reprisals. Only the mayor, Dr. Leproux, takes him in and nurses him back to health, then entrusts him to the Resistance. But the Germans get wind of the story and arrest Leproux. He is saved by Major Frantz. But the budding friendship between these two men "doesn't stop the drums", and the war is on.
After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his dear wife and his old life, Kaji faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his fellow men sneak behind enemy lines.
1942 Wounded, bleeding, but defiant Sevastopol is subjected to continuous bombing and artillery shelling. It was at this time that, by Hitler's personal order, a giant experimental cannon was delivered to the Bakhchisarai area. An experienced scout Kozhukhar is instructed to contact a group of young underground fighters in Alupka through the partisans and use them to locate the artillery installation. Classified weapons are carefully guarded. The patriots decide to take an exceptionally bold step: at night, they descend along a steep cliff to Bakhchisarai and take the "tongue"...
During the raging war between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, the swordsman Mohei (whose family has been completely decimated) is recruited by Toyotomi to overcome the seat of power, Osaka Castle. Mohei's daredevil skills will be put to severe tests.
During the Allied retreat on Dunkirk in May 1940, 99 captured English soldiers and officers were shot by an SS unit in a French village. The only survivor of the massacre Albert Pooley stakes health and life to find the murderer of his comrades. The television film shows the international solidarity of ordinary people, who are brought together by the memory of a terrible war crime and make this crime atone for. Based on a factual report by Cyril Jolly.
This docu-fiction recounts the difficulties overcome by an ALN detachment whose perilous mission is to transport weapons and ammunition from Tunisia across the Algerian Sahara during the Algerian liberation war (1954-1962) against the French army of occupation.
Dimitris and Maria postpone their wedding, as the declaration of war will separate them. Dimitris will fight on the front lines and later join the Resistance. The deputy leader of his resistance organization is fatally wounded in a sabotage operation against the Germans. The revelation that he is Maria's father, who had been searching for her for many years, brings pain to the already troubled couple. But the war will end and the two young people will finally have the chance to live happily together.
Olga, who was taken to the West by Hitler's invaders, works as a switchman at a railway station. Echelons with prisoners of war - convicts - pass by her every day. Olga gets acquainted with the machinist Fyodor and with his help organizes the escape of her camp mates. But the plan fails, and the escapees are shot. Fyodor, who miraculously survived, gets to the homeland. And after the war, chance again brings him together with Olga, when the hero with severe burns after an accident falls into the hospital...