Leon Trotsky is considered one of the most controversial revolutionary figures of his time. Was he a practical revolutionary or a naive idealist? On the practical side, he was the mastermind behind the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, and was totally ruthless during the ensuing Civil War. As an idealist, he was committed to the pursuit of international revolution, but created many political enemies. After Lenin's death, Trotsky lost in a power struggle with Stalin, and later was expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union, eventually finding refuge in Mexico. In 1940, Stalin ordered his assassination, and Trotsky died after being struck in the head with an ice-pick. History records that Trotsky was a master theoretician, a skillful propagandist and a brilliant orator.
Leon Trotsky is considered one of the most controversial revolutionary figures of his time. Was he a practical revolutionary or a naive idealist? On the practical side, he was the mastermind behind the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, and was totally ruthless during the ensuing Civil War. As an idealist, he was committed to the pursuit of international revolution, but created many political enemies. After Lenin's death, Trotsky lost in a power struggle with Stalin, and later was expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union, eventually finding refuge in Mexico. In 1940, Stalin ordered his assassination, and Trotsky died after being struck in the head with an ice-pick. History records that Trotsky was a master theoretician, a skillful propagandist and a brilliant orator.
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The enigma of the personality cult is revealed in the grand spectacle of Stalin’s funeral. The film is based on unique archive footage, shot in the USSR on March 5 - 9, 1953, when the country mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.
An account of the life and work of Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-86) in his own words: his memories, his vision of art and his reflections on the fate of the artist and the meaning of human existence; through extremely rare audio recordings that allow a complete understanding of his inner life and the mysterious world existing behind his complex cinematic imagery.
India’s first underwater war film tries to decode the mystery behind the sinking of Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi during the Indo-Pak war of 1971.
A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.
When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.
Accio and Manrico are siblings from a working-class family in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, and loved by all, while younger Accio is sulky, hot-headed, and treats life as a battleground — much to his parents' chagrin. After the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite, but his flimsy beliefs are put to test when he falls for Manrico's like-minded girlfriend.
A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving through a series of jobs and romances that gradually shape his future.
March 1965. In the heat of the Cold War, the USA and the USSR are competing for supremacy in space. What both superpowers aim for in this race, is to be the first to have a man walk in outer space. To accomplish that, no price is too high and no risk is too great. Now it’s up to the unlikely duo of a seasoned war veteran and a hot-headed test-pilot to fulfill this mission. Two men in a tiny spaceship, without proper testing, facing the complete unknown. They were supposed to do what no man has done before—and no man imagined what would happen next.
A history of the French Revolution beginning from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. Part one spans the event until August 10, 1792 (when the King Louis XVI lost all authority and was imprisoned). Part two carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794.
Torn by personal guilt, Italian General Umberto Nobile reminisces about his 1928 failed Arctic expedition aboard the airship Italia.
In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.
September of 1944, a few days before Finland went out of the Second World War. A chained to a rock Finnish sniper-kamikadze Veikko managed to set himself free. Ivan, a captain of the Soviet Army, arrested by the Front Secret Police 'Smersh', has a narrow escape. They are soldiers of the two enemy armies. A Lapp woman Anni gives a shelter to both of them at her farm. For Anni they are not enemies, but just men.
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.
The story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be executed under Franco's Fascist State in 1974.
Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Long Dark Night" follows the life of the fictional character Iva Kolar: his experiences as a Croatian University student, his role as a Partisan fighting Hitler's troops during W.W. II, his involvement in his nation's post-war government, and his eventual downfall.
The actor Gøril Mauseth goes on a 11.000 kilometer travel with the Trans-Siberian to play Anna Karenina in a new language in Leo Tolstoj's Russia, discovering the language, and the reasons Tolstoj wrote what he wrote, changing her forever.
Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. A legend says that she returned to Earth as a ghost and still roams the streets of Moscow alongside her free-drifting descendants. While shooting this film, the directors little by little realised that they knew the street dogs only as part of our human world; they have never looked at humans as a part of the dogs’ world.