
Filmmaker Lech Kowalski explores his belief that struggle is "the epitome of living" in this documentary which compares the wildly different life experiences of himself and his mother. Kowalski's mother came of age in Poland during the early stages of World War II, and after failed attempts to outrun both Nazi and Russian forces she and her family were sent to a Soviet concentration camp, where inmates were tortured, mistreated, and starved to the point where some ate their own lice in a desperate struggle to survive. Kowalski also depicts his own self-inflicted season in hell during his years on the New York City punk rock scene as he wallowed in the sordid underbelly of drug addiction, pornography, prostitution, and streetwise decadence. On both stories, Kowalski finds a message of hope and strength in the midst of almost certain peril.

Filmmaker Lech Kowalski explores his belief that struggle is "the epitome of living" in this documentary which compares the wildly different life experiences of himself and his mother. Kowalski's mother came of age in Poland during the early stages of World War II, and after failed attempts to outrun both Nazi and Russian forces she and her family were sent to a Soviet concentration camp, where inmates were tortured, mistreated, and starved to the point where some ate their own lice in a desperate struggle to survive. Kowalski also depicts his own self-inflicted season in hell during his years on the New York City punk rock scene as he wallowed in the sordid underbelly of drug addiction, pornography, prostitution, and streetwise decadence. On both stories, Kowalski finds a message of hope and strength in the midst of almost certain peril.
2005-12-10
7
6.5When a rare Lakota Ghost Shirt falls into the black market in a small town in South Dakota, the lives of local outsiders and outcasts violently intertwine.
6.5After crash-landing on an alien planet, an asteroid miner must contend with the challenges of his new surroundings, while making his way across the harsh terrain to the only other survivor – a woman who is trapped in her escape pod.
6.3Julien, a young teacher, is wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct by a teenage girl from his class. As he faces mounting pressures from the girl’s older brother and her classmates, the situation spirals out of control. Allegations spread, the entire school is thrown into turmoil, and the teacher has to fight to clear his name.
6.3Earl Bassett's celebrity after defeating the Graboid attack against the town of Perfection has proved short-lived, until he's recruited by a Mexican oil company whose workers have found more than they bargained for under the soil.
6.0Facing eviction in a city her family can no longer afford, a woman plunges into a desperate and increasingly dangerous all-night search to raise $25,000.
5.2A woman in common, a daughter in half and a patrol car for two. Antonio and Pieraldo share many things: a less-than-brilliant career, a less-than-ideal partnership, a long-term but slightly bruised bond -- two lives apparently too quiet for two police officers that fate has cleverly wanted to intertwine. Danger was definitely not their profession... until, incredibly, they will have to face a real crime, a very intricate and risky case that, between challenges against time and twists, will change their lives forever.
6.7Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a camping site near Takumi's house offering city residents a comfortable "escape" to nature.
8.1Nina is an elderly woman who lives alone and feels distressed by the increasing violence in her neighborhood. Amidst conflicts with her neighbors, she decides to film the movement of drug traffickers from her window, hoping to assist the police. After months of recording suspicious activities, her initiative attracts the attention of a journalist, who approaches Nina and offers to support her in her mission.
6.0A couple is desperately looking to conceive a child and moves to Spain to get the help of a renowned doctor. Their plans change after they meet an apparently perfect girl that volunteers to carry on the pregnancy in their place.
6.4Seventeen-year-old Vera earns money by secretly renting out an apartment to teenagers seeking privacy, all while eavesdropping from behind a closed door. As she listens, her own desires awaken.
6.8An archeologist noticed that the texture of the relics discovered during the excavation of a glacier closely resembled a jade pendant seen in one of his dreams. He and his team then embark on an expedition into the depths of the glacier.
6.9Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.
7.6A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life with his days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. But when his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctant Wolverine.
5.9Roughly chronological, from 3/96 to 11/96, with a coda in spring of 1997: inside compounds of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist sect led by Shoko Asahara. (Members confessed to a murderous sarin attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995.) We see what they eat, where they sleep, and how they respond to media scrutiny, on-going trials, the shrinking of their fortunes, and the criticism of society. Central focus is placed on Hiroshi Araki, a young man who finds himself elevated to chief spokesman for Aum after its leaders are arrested. Araki faces extreme hostility from the Japanese public, who find it hard to believe that most followers of the cult had no idea of the attacks and even harder to understand why these followers remain devoted to the religion, if not the violence.
5.9Inspired by events in A.D. 60, Boudica follows the eponymous Celtic warrior who rules the Iceni people alongside her husband Prasutagus. When he dies at the hands of Roman soldiers, Boudica’s kingdom is left without a male heir and the Romans seize her land and property. Driven to the edge of madness and determined to avenge her husband’s death, Boudica rallies the various tribes from the region and wages an epic war against the mighty Roman empire.
7.5Gromit’s concern that Wallace is becoming too dependent on his inventions proves justified, when Wallace invents a “smart” gnome that seems to develop a mind of its own. When it emerges that a vengeful figure from the past might be masterminding things, it falls to Gromit to battle sinister forces and save his master… or Wallace may never be able to invent again!
7.4When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
6.4When the most wanted man in America surfaces in a small Kentucky town, his violent history -- and a blood-thirsty mob seeking vengeance and a king’s ransom -- soon follow. As brothers face off against one another and bullets tear the town to shreds, this lightning-fast gunslinger makes his enemies pay the ultimate price for their greed.
6.3During the eve of the 6th of January, a record-breaking snowstorm sweeps across Spain. In the midst of its chaos, a group of robbers seizes the opportunity to hijack an armoured van. A few meters away is Leo, a finished policeman who has nothing to lose. With the unexpected aid of a young woman, he will try to stop the band from running away with their loot.
7.3The documentary tells two very different human fates in the 1920s Soviet Union. Nikolai Vavilov was a botanical genius, Trofim Lyssenko was an agronomist who made great promises and fake inventions. Each of them tried to solve the country's nutritional problem, but only one succeeded.
9.0“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.
7.6Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred on the night of April 26, 1986, its causes and consequences are examined. In addition, a report on efforts to strengthen the structures covering the core of the nuclear plant in order to better protect the population and the environment is offered.
0.0In 1829 the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt attempted a russian-siberian expedition. Humboldt travelled to obtain a clear view of nature, people and life in this immense country. 2019 naturalists and humanists attempted a transdisciplinary expedition on the trails of Humboldt. To capture the events various cameras were taken along. A non-chronological narration.
0.0President Mikhail Gorbachev recounts the end of the Cold War and the reduction of nuclear arms.
6.0The Moscow Case is a 52 minute documentary with never-before-seen footage of Michael Jackson in Moscow during the "Dangerous" tour. This film tells the behind the scenes story of Jackson's ill fated concert in September 1993. It includes unique archival footage showing Michael close up and personal while meeting fans and playing with orphan children.
0.0Early documentary about the Moscow metro: the early project, the development and the people working on it.
0.02019 marks the 30th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Rich Hall examines the relationship between the West and the USSR in his inimitable fashion.
5.8St. Petersburg, Russia, December 30th, 1916. Grigori Rasputin is assassinated. The story of the humble peasant who became the most influential adviser to czarina Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of the last czar, Nicholas II Romanov.
3.0Wes Hurley's autobiographical tale of growing up gay in Soviet Union Russia, only to escape with his mother, a mail order bride, to Seattle to face a whole new oppression in his new Christian fundamentalist American dad.
1.0At the peak of Perestroika, in 1987, in the village of Gorki, where Lenin spent his last years, after a long construction, the last and most grandiose museum of the Leader was opened. Soon after the opening, the ideology changed, and the flow of pilgrims gradually dried up. Despite this, the museum still works and the management is looking for ways to attract visitors. Faithful to the Lenin keepers of the museum as they can resist the onset of commercialization. The film tells about the modern life of this amazing museum-reserve and its employees.
0.0Imagine one of the most remote wildernesses in the world. Granddaughter Masha and Vladimir, the protagonists of this story from Central Siberia try the impossible to keep their nomadic traditions alive.
7.8A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
6.2In 2021, an extreme heatwave gave rise to huge wildfires in the vast subarctic forests of Sakha, a northeastern republic in Siberia. The village of Shologon lies in this taiga landscape, shrouded in orange smoke and black ash. The forest is burning and the flames are approaching fast.
Showing Sergei Parajanov at the end of his life, the film depicts the suffering of a genius against the backdrop of general anxiety and carelessness.
7.0How in 1959, during the heat of the Cold War, the government of the United States decided to create a secret military base located in the far north of Greenland: Camp Century, almost a real town with roads and houses, a nuclear plant to provide power and silos to house missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.
4.0Really strange documentary of Wheeler Dixon production quality on the Tunguska Event and the possibility of it happening again causing an apocalypse (basically a meteor scare film) sprinkled with UFO conspiracy kooks, and other 'professionals', riddled with stock footage of all kinds, freaky moog music and sound fx, a Dr. Who rip-off end theme, Victor Buono as Homer the Archivist, a philosophical history recorder in a space ship with a HAL 9000 type talking computer named Ino, there's also another space ship with Egyptian looking aliens girls with pasties and see-thru blouses.
0.0Russia is grappling with a critical issue: they have become the country with the most at large serial killers in the world particularly concentrated in Rostov, the same city that witnessed Andrei Chikatilo's infamous killing spree. In response, law enforcement has turned to Dr. Alexander Bukhanovsky, a prominent psychiatrist and criminal profiler, who is implementing radical measures to understand the root causes of this phenomenon and develop effective solutions. Within Dr. Bukhanovsky's clinic, we encounter three of his young patients: Edward and Igor, whose families express deep concerns about their disturbing fantasies, and 'Mischa', who has perpetrated acts of torture and sexual assault. Dr. Bukhanovsky's approach is groundbreaking, offering treatment to potential serial offenders. However, critics argue that by keeping individuals like 'Mischa' anonymous, he may inadvertently shield them from public awareness and accountability, prompting debate over the ethics of his methods.
6.0Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.
0.0Documentary movie about testing of the largest nuclear weapon in history, the Tsar Bomba. Declassified and made available to the public in 2020.