
Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.



Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)
Self (voice) (archive footage)
Self (archive footage)

Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.
2019-05-19
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8.2Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
8.3Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
7.6When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
6.8The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of the industry in forming this professional honorary organization. Two years later the Academy began bestowing awards, which were nicknamed "Oscar," and quickly came to represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement.
6.0Occupied France; Lebrac leads a play war between two rival kid gangs, but a girl he likes, who's Jewish, is in danger of being discovered by local Nazi sympathisers. Lebrac and the village must now respond to the reality of what's happening.
7.7Produced and presented as evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Hermann Göring and twenty other Nazi leaders, this film consists primarily of dead and surviving prisoners and of facilities used to kill and torture during the World War II.
7.0Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.
7.2On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation--and a defining moment in the history of the civil-rights movement. Spike Lee re-examines the full story of the bombing, including a revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace.
7.1An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).
6.4In 1997, Louis Theroux made a documentary about the world of male porn performers in Los Angeles. 15 years later, he returns to find a business struggling with the deluge of free porn on the internet. Louis revisits some of the original programme's contributors as well as meeting the latest crop of porn performers dreaming of porn stardom.
7.8A documentary on the making of the three Godfather films, with interviews and recollections from the film makers and cast. This feature also includes the original screen tests of some of the actors for "The Godfather" film, and some candid moments on the set of "The Godfather: Part III."
6.9The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.
6.5Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.
7.3Over a period of two years, Mark Cowen and his crew travelled to thirty U.S. states and ten European cities, to interview the veterans of Easy Company. The stories told by the veterans themselves, create a history of the Second World War from the point of view of this heroic company of men, made famous in the mini-series Band of Brothers.
7.7In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.
6.8A behind-the-scenes documentary about the Clinton for President campaign, focusing on the adventures of spin doctors James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.
7.8The story lives forever in this feature-length documentary that charts the making of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
5.9When a high-ranking war planner is captured and held in a German prisoner of war camp, a team of specialists take on the dangerous mission of trying to break him out. Trouble is, he doesn't want to be rescued.
7.2Louis Theroux travels to California to meet the man dubbed "the most dangerous racist in America"; Tom Metzger. Louis meets him, his family and his publicity manager as well as following him to skinhead rallies and on a visit to Mexico.
8.6The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
0.0A documentary about twin sisters whose beliefs have taken them on different paths. Filmmaker Zohra begins filming her twin sister Sanaa in their apartment in Brussels. When Sanaa silently turns to Islam, the religion the two sisters partially grew up with, Zohra becomes more and more consumed by capturing her sister. The inevitable transformation leads to a need to understand each other anew.
7.3Kindness, creativity, inclusivity, and a touch of magic makes the world a brighter place. Explore the story and impact of Canadian entertainer Ernie Coombs and his iconic series, Mr. Dressup, which enriched the lives of five generations.
6.4A team of special forces head into Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in an attempt to dismantle the Taliban.
7.1Set in the halls of Austen Middle School, a newly single middle-school teacher is covertly set up with a divorced dad after his daughter – one of her students – begins a matchmaking business for a school project she assigned her class.
7.7For 18-year-old Finnish–Kosovan Fatu, a simple visit to the grocery store feels as nerve-racking as a lunar expedition: for the first time in his life, he’s wearing makeup in public. Luckily his best friend Rai, a young woman on the spectrum of autism, is there to ferociously support him through the voyage.
Made for German TV documentary about the early craze of Hong Kong Martial Arts Cinema. While critical on the subject and not too well informed, it nevertheless offers some interesting insights into the Hong Kong film industry of that days.
0.0The peaceful passage of daily life in the Pacific Ocean is upended in a flash on March 1, 1954, with the first American nuclear test at Bikini Atoll. The far-reaching fallout forever changes the lives of the ocean’s cheerful inhabitants.
7.2Computer-generated imagery and other visualization techniques reveal how it would look if all the water was removed from RMS Titanic's final resting place.
8.1A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
8.010th Anniversary documentary about Royal Blood's 2014 eponymous debut album, presenting an intimate glimpse into the creative process and the journey behind their work, friendship and brotherhood.
Made famous by the 1957 Hollywood movie, the bridges of the River Kwai emblematize one of the most misunderstood events in history. Contrary to the romanticized film version, the structures represent a period of terror, desperation, and death for over 16,000 POWs and 100,00 local slaves. The Thailand - Burma Railway was the vision of the Japanese Imperial Army: a 250-mile track cut through dense jungle that would connect Bangkok and Rangoon. To accomplish this nearly impossible feat, the fanatical and ruthless Japanese engineers used POWs and local slaves as manpower. Candid interviews with men who lived through the atrocity - including Dutch, Australian, British, and American POWs - illuminate the violence and horror of their three-and-a-half-year internment. From Britain's surrender of Singapore the enduring force of friendship, The True Story Of The Bridge On The River Kwai narrates a moving and unforgettable account of a period in history that must be remembered.
6.1Follows the serendipitous meeting of two young girls on the Venice Boardwalk, who, though worlds apart in lifestyle, embark on unexpected and lifelong friendship. CC is an aspiring singer trying to make it in Los Angeles. Hillary is the daughter of a prominent civil rights lawyer who struggles to find her own destiny. Their friendship—even with its ups and downs—sustains them for decades.
6.6What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
8.0A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.
7.2This shows physicist Stephen Hawking's life as he deals with the ALS that renders him immobile and unable to speak without the use of a computer. Hawking's friends, family, classmates, and peers are interviewed not only about his theories but the man himself.
6.6The story follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, a diminutive creative who resides in a place called Middle-Earth before he is compelled to go on a quest to find a treasure buried deep in the heart of the Lonely Mountain.
6.2Nazi troops massacre 30,000 Jews over a three-day period in September 1941. Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine.
7.0They raised children, baked cakes... and built world-class fighter planes. Sixty years ago, thousands of women from Thunder Bay and the Prairies donned trousers, packed lunch pails and took up rivet guns to participate in the greatest industrial war effort in Canadian history. Like many other factories across the country from 1939 to 1945, the shop floor at Fort William's Canadian Car and Foundry was transformed from an all-male workforce to one with forty percent female workers.
A low budget, comedic documentary following a young man trying to take a deeper look into water, its purpose, and how we, as a society have chosen to use it.