A story of an actor named Oleg whose wife has been seduced by his neighbor. As he is thoroughly convinced of her infidelity, he would like to poison her. An old man named Prokhorov helps him to get rid of his wife by lecturing about famous deaths caused by poisoning. It is from Prokhorov we learn that many famous and not so famous like Cesare Borgia and Caligula were killed as they were poisoned.
The film is a 125-minute, black-and-white biography of French priest and diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), who served for 50 years under five different French regimes: the Absolute Monarchy, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Constitutional Monarchy. Its title comes from one of the main historical nicknames for Talleyrand, that he shares with demon king Asmodeus and English poet Lord Byron.
Based on Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman, this is the story of the romantic adventures of Christians and Muslims during the battle for the Holy Land in the time of King Richard the Lionheart.
By the start of World War II, Paul Robeson had given up his lucrative mainstream work to participate in more socially progressive film and stage productions. Robeson committed his support to Paul Strand and Leo Hurwitz’s political semidocumentary Native Land. With Robeson’s narration and songs, this beautifully shot and edited film exposes violations of Americans’ civil liberties and is a call to action for exploited workers around the country. Scarcely shown since its debut, Native Land represents Robeson’s shift from narrative cinema to the leftist documentaries that would define the final chapter of his controversial film career.
At a young age, Nitaroh is stricken with an illness that leaves him blind. He inherits the shamisen guitar once used by his mother and is taught its basics by a blind travelling shamisen player. In time with the help of friends old and new, he walks the paths that leads to his ultimate fate - that of founder of the Tsugaru style of shamisen play.
Depicts Romania during World War II, focusing on the Royal Coup that toppled Ion Antonescu, the Axis-allied Conducător and authoritarian Prime Minister. Focused around the August 23rd 1944 coup against Marshal Antonescu, the movie also tackles other topics from the same era such as the Iron Guard rebellion and the execution of political leaders by communists.
The real story behind the hunt for Theodore J. Kaczynski, later known as the Unabomber, a terrorist who sent several bombs through the mail, alarming authorities and society. The movie follows a postal inspector who tracks down the suspect; a obstinate detective; and Kaczynski's brother, who suspected of Ted after the publishing of his manifesto explaining the reasons for the bombings.
This film is based on the classic novel of the same name by writer Ivan Franko, one of the most famous figures of Ukrainian literature. It is set during the 1200s and the invasion of the medieval Ukrainian-Russian state of Rus' by Chengis Khan's Golden Horde. Due to its having been produced during the Soviet era, the story's aspect of class-conflict between the "heroic" peasantry and the "decadent" noble particularly emphasized here.
Aboard a giant slave ship in an abandoned Citroën factory, the history of the West Indies is traced through several centuries of French oppression. The ship becomes a stage for the people to tell stories via song and dance—from their enslavement to their displacement in Metropolitan France.
As a painter in the court of King Carlos IV, Goya has attained wealth and reputation. He believes in King and Church, yet he is also a Spaniard who dearly loves his people. This contradiction presents him with a dilemma.
The film about the Holodomor famine in Ukraine, based on the novel 'The Yellow Prince' by Vasyl Barka. The film is told through the lives of the Katrannyk family of six. It relies more on images than on words shot in black-and-white.
Chronicle of the repression that a foreign company exerts on the miners of a small nitrate town in Chile, whose workers decide to claim their most essential rights. A reflection of the historic union struggles in the northern Chile that ended with terrible repressive acts.
At the time between the World Wars, Japan is involved in empire-building throughout East and Southeast Asia. After a brief career as a low-level military adventurer, Iheiji sets up chains of brothels throughout Asia. As Japan's power in the region grows, so does Iheiji's prosperity and patriotism.
The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" (Inna Tchourikova) has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel (depicted Viktor Rakov as an adult, Sacha Chichonok as a boy). After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers.
January 1649: Since the death of his father, the young Louis XIV must undergo the hard apprenticeship of royal power. He must face the intrigues of the great ones of the kingdom who lead La Fronde, the agreements and the betrayals of those close to him. He is helped in this by his mother Anne of Austria and by the Cardinal Mazarin.