This pseudo-newsreel uses special effects to illustrate the fire caused by the San Francisco earthquake. A miniature model of downtown San Francisco is set ablaze and filmed.
Set in 1896, "Tjoet Nja' Dhien" celebrates one of Indonesia's great heroes who fought for independence from the Dutch. The pious Muslim people of Aceh, a city that had flourished since ancient times as a trade port, enter into a fierce war with the Dutch. Tjoet Nja' Dhien, the widow of a rebel leader operating in Aceh in Sumatra, assumes the leadership when her husband Teuku Uma is killed in an ambush. Dhien's charismatic presence and power of survival motivate the locals to join and later continue their opposition to the Dutch. Despite personal obstacles, she remained in the thick of the struggle for ten years.
Angry at his wife and defeated in battle, the king of Judea is taken prisoner. After being spared by the Romans, King Herod comes to believe he's been a victim of court plotting.
This Australian crime drama chronicles the life of notorious, keen witted, acid tongued 1920s Melbourne gangster Squizzy Taylor. Wormy and diminutive, yet cunning and determined small-time hoodlum Squizzy Taylor rises to prominence and popularity in Melbourne, Australia in the 1920's. Squizzy romances brash moll Dolly and works for bookie Henry Stokes before branching out on his own while being hounded by the police and courted by the press the whole time.
The history of Brazilian popular music in the 20th Century, focusing specially on the life and works of intriguing singer Mário Reis, a loner who, with his special way of singing - whispering and softly saying the words - in a time when singers with potent voices ruled, was in a way a forerunner of Bossa Nova style.
Little Ida's mother is working for the Germans during WW2, and she is also having a relationship with a German SS-officer. Ida is experiencing the problems of having a mother who is involved with the enemy, without being old enough to understand what is actually going on.
This is a David and Goliath story of one veterinarian's battle to protect her patients (tigers, lions and even house cats) from big corporations, with their big corporate money, that will shamelessly do anything to animals to increase their bottom line. She starts a grassroots movement that is fueled by passion, but appears to be losing the battle. Then, unexpectedly, she realizes that the corporations accidentally left her a giant loophole. In a scramble to take advantage of this unforeseen gift, she leads the crusade passing legislation protecting animals from de-clawing in seven cities in just six weeks.
Returning from Mecca, Darwis changes his name to Ahmad Dahlan as he is disturbed by the trend of Islamic laws in his society; that borders on heresy, Syrik (polytheism), and Bid’ah (wrong innovation). Using a compass, he proves that the direction of Qibla (that points to Mecca), in the Great Mosque of Kauman is wrong. The discovery angers every Kyai (Islamic experts), especially the head of the Great Mosque of Kauman, Kyai Penghulu Cholil Kamaludiningrat. Dahlan, who studied in Mecca for five years, is seen as a rebel upstart. Since the proposal of changing the direction of Qibla is rejected, Dahlan starts a movement calling for the change. On his first sermon as a preacher, Dahlan criticizes the habits of residents in his village in Yogyakarta: "In a prayer, only a sincere and patient heart is needed, it requires no Kyais, money, let alone offerings". As a result, Dahlan gets a hostile reception.
The film is set in 1905, in a time of feverish revolutionary underground activity in Poland partitioned between three neighbours. All the characters are committed anarchists. The bomb maker puts an invention together to place it at the disposal of young inexperienced terrorists fighting against Tsarist oppression. The story follows the passing of this bomb from anarchist to anarchist as several attempts are made on the life of Tsarist governor general, until, at the end, it is effectively and harmlessly defused by a bomb expert. The presence of the bomb has a destroying effect on all of the Polish revolutionaries, they either die or breakdown.
Ten families read letters from their loved ones killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in this powerful and moving HBO documentary by Oscar and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Bill Couturie (Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam). Photos of the soldiers in military and civilian life are shown as family members read the final correspondence received from Iraq and share their thoughts and memories about the fallen troops and the realities of war.
Set in the Middle East in 1919, a group of European Jews planning on settling in the Sinai Desert are attacked by Bedouin tribesmen. As they fight for their lives they realize that they are beginning a struggle for a new Jewish nation. This film chronicles the beginning of the modern Jewish struggle for a homeland.
The Fight for Life was documentary filmmaker Pare Lorentz' first "dramatic" film, utilizing the talents of several top New York stage actors. A tribute to the Chicago Maternity Center and its efforts to provide the best possible care for destitute mothers, the film is based on the book of the same name by Paul de Kruif. Myron McCormick plays the largest role as a dedicated intern, while others in the cast include such theatrical heavywrights as Will Geer, Dudley Digges and Dorothy Adams. The film's many vignettes range from the tragic (a mother dying in childbirth in the opening scene) to the exultant (another mother rescued from the brink of death in a disease-ridden tenement). Filmed in Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, Fight for Life is a worthwhile effort, though Lorentz seems more comfortable with the "actuality" scenes than with the dramatized passages.