On September 4, 1984, democracy movement leader Kim Jong Tae is arrested and taken to an infamous interrogation facility in Namyeong-dong. For the next 22 days, he would be cruelly and continuously tortured in all manners by interrogators intent on forcing him to confess to communist collaboration.
Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation. A man is wrongly accused of collaboration. Desperate to save his dignity, he faces an impossible moral choice.
Most people think that World War II started on September 1st, 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, and then spread to Asia on September 7th 1941, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. However, World War II actually started ten years earlier, when Manchuria was invaded by a now-forgotten Japanese general: Kanji Ishiwara. This is the little known truth about the most famous war in history.
In 1981, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a spiritual leader from India, and thousands of his disciples, set out to build a new city, a utopian community in the desert -- Rajneeshpuram -- on what had been the Big Muddy Ranch in Eastern Oregon. Thousands of people from around the world gathered here to celebrate life and transform the landscape. But by 1986, they were gone.
The epic story of the life of a volcano, capable of both causing the extinction of all things and helping the evolution of species, over 60 million years.
On November 17, 2012, Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard joined the Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra for a performance of Arthur Honegger’s oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake (Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher) at the L'Auditori de Barcelona in Spain, broadcast live on Medici.tv. By Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher (1938) is an imposing oratorio. The libretto is a highly original creation by French poet and playwright Paul Claudel, who dramatises the last moments of the martyr's life. Originally written for actress Ida Rubinstein, the oratorio is written as a flashback in which Joan recalls her life, just before she dies. Honegger creates visually evocative ambiances and fills the orchestra with new sounds (saxophones, ondes Martenot). The initial prologue to the piece was added in 1944 as a symbol of the resistance during the Nazi occupation of France: again, Joan goes beyond her own story.
Geneva, Switzerland 1935. The first European Basketball Championship is about to take place. Basketball is still an unknown sport in Europe, and the national teams are meeting for the first time. Each wants the honour of being the first champion. Meanwhile in Latvia, coach Baumanis is convinced that he can assemble a team and take it to Geneva. He quickly learns however, that triumph and defeat are also part of the game. Coach Baumanis faces many difficulties, as well as unexpected help from those closest to him.
In 1924, a young police commissioner is relocated to a small island near Sicily. Adaptation of Carlo Lucarelli's novel of the same name, directed by Lucarelli himself in his directorial debut, which went unreleased after its lukewarm premiere at the Rome Film Festival.
This short movie tells the story of Maria Bricca, a young lady who led a group of Brandenburg and Sabaudian soldiers through a secret passageway, allowing them to conquer back the castle of Pianezza on 5 September 1706 together with all the supplies the French kept there. The Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, and hi cousin, Prince Eugene, could thus face the enemies and force and make them surrender.
"Rhinoceros" (Rinoceronte) involves the fascinating figure of Alessandro de Medici (played by Justin Randolph Thompson) as he makes a passionate appeal to rally the good people of Florence. Shot in the Villa la Pietra in Florence, in black and white video, and spoken in Italian, the film resembles a televised broadcast in the last days of Muammar Gaddafi. This short film sets the stage for Everson's upcoming feature, "Rhino" that will examine the parallel worlds of politics and performance in sixteenth century Italy and twentieth century Hollywood, through the personages of de Medici and the actress Gail Fisher (Mannix).
The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.
The truth is way stranger than fiction,” muses one interviewee in this unbelievable true account of an incredible war time saga. As the Second World War was coming to a close, the US Office of Strategic Services trained and parachuted two Jewish refugees and a German deserter deep into Nazi occupied Austria. Through vivid first-person accounts, re-enactments, archival footage and learned commentary, the film reveals how their efforts disrupted a vital supply route between Germany and the Italian front to bring about the surrender of Innsbruck to Allied Forces. Their unbelievable adventure has a finale that beats any Hollywood movie hands down — but a story so powerful that it became the basis for Quentin Tarantino’s mega hit.
In the film Battle for Ukraine Andrei Konchalovsky, the famous Russian director, analyzes how Ukraine, a former part of the Soviet Empire and present big European country, struggles to escape from the close embrace of the former big brother, Russia, and not to become one of the American satellites. This extensive study lasted for almost three years. Many Ukrainian, Russian and American historians, politicians and journalists took part in this study, as well as the ex-President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski, the ex-President of Slovakia Rudolf Schuster, the ex-President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, the ex-Prime Minister of Russia Viktor Chernomyrdin, and the businessman Boris Berezovsky.