The film follows Mrinal Sen in his early days around the time of India’s independence, where he is a struggling idealist with an all-consuming hunger for cinema but unable to feed himself or his young wife, to 1950s Calcutta, where (alongside Satyajit Ray) he helped start the Indian New Wave cinema movement.
In the 16th century, Ferdinand Magellan, a young and ambitious Portuguese navigator, rebels against the power of the King of Portugal, who doesn’t support his dream of discovering the world, and persuades the Spanish monarchy to fund his bold expedition to the fabled lands of the East.
After the Hungarian army was annihilated by the Mongols at the battle of Mohi, only the castle of Esztergom stood in the Mongolians' way of invading the rest of Europe. Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, reaches the walls of Esztergom with his invincible troops. The castle's defenders, led by Eusebius, the canon of Esztergom, and a Spanish mercenary, Captain Simon, are preparing for the final battle. The sudden arrival of Cardinal Cesareani, the Papal Legate, coinciding with the Mongol Lunar New Year celebrations and the mystical practices of Eusebius, combine to offer the defenders a small glimmer of hope.
Eastern Ukraine, May 2014. Part of the historic Donbas region falls to pro-Russian separatists. Young journalist Stanislav Aseyev reports for several Ukrainian media outlets from Donetsk, his hometown. In May 2017, he is kidnapped and spends 962 days in detention, mainly in a former cultural center, converted into a prison, called Izolyatsia —or Isolation.
Among the ”Red Guards“ of China’s Cultural Revolution were foreign children, the sons and daughters of both European and American ex-pats who left their home countries to help build Mao’s China. Eventually, Chinese society turned against them and they were persecuted as foreign spies. Some served time in prison, others were sent to labor camps.
Ardal O’Hanlon explores a 1930s quest to find the first Irish men and women using archaeology, answering his deepest questions about what it means to be Irish.
Six Jewish women, from different countries and different backgrounds, found themselves deported to the notorious concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, during the Holocaust. This film attempts to chronicle that experience through those same female eyes. While subject to the same physical hardships as men, these women do not dwell on that. Instead, they speak of camp families and faith, uplifting one another while trying to remain human. It was this path of spiritual resistance that, while not responsible for their direct survival, led to their ability to survive with healthy minds and spirits despite the constant barrage of their surroundings. Swimming in Auschwitz gives us a perspective of the camp, its surroundings and the Holocaust that we need to understand and remember, so that we never forget.
Professor Bettany Hughes takes viewers on a beautiful, bespoke journey across this dramatic country, presenting the definitive countdown of her top ten treasures of Ancient Egypt.
The documentary is a cavalcade of King Haakon VII's life from his arrival in Christiania in the autumn of 1905 until May 17, 1952, the year he turned 80.
Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace is the name of a three-part British documentary series shown in October 2005 on BBC Two about the attempts to settle the Israeli–Palestinian conflict after the 2000 Camp David Summit. The series was produced by Norma Percy, who had produced The Death of Yugoslavia before. Like her previous series, Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace relies extensively on in-depth interviews with key players involved in this issue, such as Ehud Barak, Bill Clinton, and Colin Powell.
Reading Gaol, England, 1896. Prisoner C33, starving and thin, unable to wash properly, is a brilliant writer, husband and father of two, once the most beloved artist in Victorian London. His real name is Oscar Wilde.
Paris, 1954. The story of the meeting, known thanks to the fortuitous discovery of a forgotten notebook, full of notes and photographs, between a white British aristocrat, Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, writer and jazz patron, and a talented black pianist, Thelonious Monk, one of the best bebop jazz musicians of all time; a prodigious union of wills that overcame the most extreme prejudices of the very conservative US society.
No one really knows the exact details of Special Action 1005. How many people were killed by the Nazis in the rear of the Eastern Front between 1942 and 1944? There were at least tens of thousands. This is the story of how the criminals covered up the traces of their clumsy and savage crimes.
The story of the transformational Maximilien Robespierre is of a man fueled by a burning passion for revolutionary ideals that eventually engulfed him in their flames.
After fighting on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, a man goes into exile in France while his family waits for his return in a Catalan village.