Congratulations, Comrade Student!(1956)

The Wall(en)

Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.

The Brainwashing of My Dad(en)

A filmmaker examines the rise of right-wing media through the lens of her father, whose immersion in it radicalized him and rocked the foundation of their family. She discovers this political phenomenon recurring in living rooms everywhere, and reveals the consequences conservative media has had on families and a nation.

Waco, the Big Lie(en)

Waco, the Big Lie is a 1993 American documentary film directed by Linda Thompson that presents video-based analysis regarding the Waco siege. The first film made about the Waco siege, Waco, the Big Lie gained significant notoriety when it was viewed during the trial of American domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh. As part of the defense, McVeigh's lawyers showed Waco, the Big Lie to the jury.

Anniversary of the Revolution(ru)

A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.

The GDR Complex(de)

In 1987 GDR citizen Mario Röllig was arrested in Hungary for attempting to flee the GDR. Nowadays he gives talks about his experiences. This portrait shows just how subjective and riddled with taboos attempts to interpret GDR history can be.

Land Without Bread(es)

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Railway Station(pl)

Warsaw's Central Railway Station. 'Someone has fallen asleep, someone's waiting for somebody else. Maybe they'll come, maybe they won't. The film is about people looking for something.

In Battle Against the Enemy of the World: German Volunteers in Spain(de)

Nazi propaganda film about the Condor Legion, a unit of German "volunteers" who fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of eventual dictator Francisco Franco against the elected government of Spain.

Bwana Kitoko(fr)

Bwana Kitoko (swa. 'handsome young man') is a 1955 Belgian documentary directed by André Cauvin. It shows the official visit of king Baudouin of Belgium to the Congo and Ruanda-Urundi.

Propaganda: Engineering Consent(fr)

How can the masses be controlled? Apparently, the American publicist Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995), a pioneer in the field of propaganda and public relations, knew the answer to such a key question. The amazing story of the master of manipulation and the creation of the engineering of consent; a frightening true story about advertising, lies and charlatans.

Animated Soviet Propaganda(ru)

A landmark four disc Box Set - Unearthed from Moscow's legendary Soyuzmultfilm Studios, the 41 films in ANIMATED SOVIET PROPAGANDA span sixty years of Soviet history (1924 - 1984), and have never been available before in the U.S.

Here Be Dragons(en)

Filmmaker Mark Cousins goes to Albania for five days, and films what he sees. He discovers that the movie prints in the country's film archive are decaying. In investigating this, Cousins begins to encounter bigger questions about the history and memory of a place. Perhaps a country whose 20th Century, dominated by its authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha, was so traumatic, should allow its film heritage to fade away? Perhaps a national forgetting should be welcomed? Influenced by the films of Chris Marker, Cousins' film broadens to consider the architecture of dictators and the great icon paintings of Onufri. In the past, when cartographers knew little about a country, they wrote on it Here be Dragons. Albania was, for decades, one of the least well know countries in the world. Cousins' road movie meditation takes the advice of Goethe: "If you would understand the poet, you must go to the poet's land."

Julius Fučík(cs)

Nanking(ja)

Propaganda documentary about the fall of Nanking. Considered for a long time as a lost film, it was discovered in Beijing, China, in the year 1995.

A Hero's Death(de)

It was the biggest escape in the history of the Berlin Wall: in one historic night of October 1964, 57 East-Berliners try their luck through a tunnel into West Berlin. Just before the last few reach the other side, the East German border guards notice the escape and open fire. Remarkably, all the refugees and their escape agents make it out of the tunnel unscathed, but one border guard is dead: 21-year-old officer Egon Schultz.

The Lovers and the Despot(en)

Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita(fr)

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

Beyond the Line of Duty(en)

This short film in support of the war effort focuses on the training and missions of Army Air Corps Captain Hewitt T. Wheless just after the U.S. entry into World War II.

In einer chinesischen Stadt(de)

After the capture of Shanghai, Japanese soldiers make a trip to Suzhou.

Soviet Tajikistan: International Youth Day(ru)

Events that took place in the capital of the Tajik SSR, the city of Dushanbe in 1929.