
A year ago, on 29 December 2019, prisoners were exchanged with the self-proclaimed ‘LPR’ and ‘DPR’. Among the Ukrainians who returned home were journalist Stanislav Aseyev, tanker Bohdan Pantiushenko, and human rights activist Andriy Yarovoi. Four months earlier, on 7 September, Crimeans Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko were released from Russian colonies. We spoke to the former prisoners about their first year of freedom.


A year ago, on 29 December 2019, prisoners were exchanged with the self-proclaimed ‘LPR’ and ‘DPR’. Among the Ukrainians who returned home were journalist Stanislav Aseyev, tanker Bohdan Pantiushenko, and human rights activist Andriy Yarovoi. Four months earlier, on 7 September, Crimeans Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko were released from Russian colonies. We spoke to the former prisoners about their first year of freedom.
2020-12-29
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Film about former political prisoners | Sentsov, Kolchenko, Asieiev, Yarovyi, Pantiushenko
8.0As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.
8.2Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.
7.2Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.
6.8Director James Toback takes an unflinching, uncompromising look at the life of Mike Tyson--almost solely from the perspective of the man himself. TYSON alternates between the controversial boxer addressing the camera and shots of the champion's fights to create an arresting picture of the man.
7.2Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.
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".
6.9Follows the largest prison uprising in US history, conducting dozens of new interviews with inmates, journalists, and other witnesses.
6.9In this genre-bending tale, Errol Morris explores the mysterious death of a U.S. scientist entangled in a secret Cold War program known as MK-Ultra.
7.0Acclaimed for his unfiltered reporting and deadpan humor, Andrew Callaghan brings his gonzo style reporting to the undercurrents that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot. As one of the best-known and hardest working journalists of his generation, the 25-year-old ventures on a wild RV journey through America to take the pulse of a divided nation.
7.9Over 93 days in Ukraine, what started as peaceful student demonstrations became a violent revolution and full-fledged civil rights movement.
6.7The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.
6.4The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.
7.4The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
6.9An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
7.5With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.
7.4From a prolific career in film and television, Anton Yelchin left an indelible legacy as an actor. Through his journals and other writings, his photography, the original music he wrote, and interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues, this film looks not just at Anton's impressive career, but at a broader portrait of the man.
6.6Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
7.3An ambitious and wide-ranging documentary exploring Andre’s upbringing in France, his celebrated career in WWE, and his forays in the entertainment world.
6.5A journey inside the world of real life caped crusaders. From all over America, these self-proclaimed crime fighters, don masks, homemade costumes and elaborate utility belts in an attempt to bring justice to evildoers everywhere.
8.2A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
8.3Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
8.0During the Continuation War, there were dozens of POW camps in Finland. About the third of 70,000 prisoners died during the first year of war. Most of the archives of the camps were destroyed and the majority of the war crimes were never revealed.
8.4In 2022, Mantas Kvedaravičius went back to Ukraine, Mariupol, at the heart of the war, to be with the people he had met and filmed in 2015. Following his death, his producers and collaborators have put all their strength into continuing transmitting his work, his vision and his films. Also a PhD in anthropology, Mantas Kvedaravičius wished to testify as a filmmaker as far as possible from the agitation of the media and the politicians. With huge force and sensitivity, Mariupolis 2 depicts life as it continues amidst the bombing and reveals images that convey both tragedy and hope.
0.0During World War II there were nearly 2,500 Allied prisoners held in Sandakan POW camp in British North Borneo. Along with the ravages of war and the struggle to survive abject conditions, only six of these POW's were found alive when the war finally ended. In the years that followed, the horror stories of human depravity and the atrocities committed by the Japanese at Sandakan POW camp would come to light, considered by many as one of the most devastating chapters of the Pacific War.
6.2Anastasia Trofimova, a Russian-Canadian filmmaker, gains unprecedented access to follow a Russian Army battalion in Ukraine. Without any official clearance or permits, she earns the trust of foot soldiers and embeds herself over the span of a year with one battalion as it makes its way across Eastern Ukraine. What she discovers is far from the propaganda and labels pushed by the East or West: an army in disarray, soldiers disillusioned and often struggling to understand what they are fighting for.
0.0Deep in a forest by the Baltic Sea, a group of Ukrainian families come together to start the healing process with the help of golden retrievers and palamino horses at an animal therapy retreat. In the safety of the forest, the children’s memories of being illegally deported to Russia and their families’ struggles to rescue them are unraveled with the help of skilled and sensitive counsellors. The joy and humour the children discover during their time in the forest make it easy to forget that their stories are the reason the International Criminal Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin. Nearly 20,000 abducted children remain in Russian institutions.
7.9A chronicle of the civil uprising against the regime of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych that took place in Kyiv in the winter of 2013/14. The film follows the progress of the revolution: from peaceful rallies, half a million strong in the Maidan square, to the bloody street battles between protesters and riot police.
7.5Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki's shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.
6.7Pulitzer Prize-winning conflict photojournalist Lynsey Addario reflects on a career working in some of the world's most dangerous war zones, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A profile of Putin, exploring his complicated relationship with Ukraine. Why does this neighbouring nation threaten his power and identity?
8.0Five young Ukrainians discuss life following the Maidan Revolution of 2014. Not all fought in the Russian-Ukrainian war, but it, regardless, shattered their life plans. Representing 'Generation Maidan', they face the question of how to cope with experiences of violence, how to go on. A local theatre director produces Hamlet, wherein they can use Shakespeare’s tragic character as a mirror and face their traumas onstage. For them, 'to be or not to be' is not simply text but an existential dilemma with no clear answer.
6.8Live footage from concentration camps after the liberation, and the complex transport and lodging of masses of prisoners of war and other deported people back to their home countries, at the end of World War II. A 45min 35mm print also exists (shown at Cinémathèque française in 2023).
0.0This documentary follows two long-lost Ukrainian friends, Arsalan and Nastya, as they reconnect in Germany after russia's full-scale invasion against Ukraine. Arsalan, an actor now in Frankfurt after time in a refugee camp, and Nastya, journalist and producer who stayed in Kyiv, reflect on the divergent paths their lives have taken due to the war. Through their conversations and therapy sessions, the film explores themes of displacement, identity, and the emotional impact of war on youth.
6.8The story of U.S. fighter pilots shot down over North Vietnam who became POWs for up to 8 and a half years.
0.0A look inside the Russian assault on Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, told by displaced families, civilians caught in the fight and first responders.
7.5Three decades after German-American pilot Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, he returns to the places where he was held prisoner during the early years of the Vietnam War. Accompanied by director Werner Herzog, Dengler describes in unusually candid detail his captivity, the friendships he made, and his daring escape. Not willing to stop there, Herzog even persuades his subject to re-enact certain tortures, with the help of some willing local villagers.
8.0The story of war, love and death that was documented by the immediate participants of events. Off screen and later on it are the two - a boy and a girl. He volunteered for the front; she went to the place just after the battle. He got into Ilovaysk cauldron, lost his closest brother-soldiers. She, while travelling along the ruined towns, strives to understand the essence of war and love. Both tell openly one another about their feelings during the war, escaping the cauldron, a try to live together after, and a common trip to the frontline.
7.4As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment stages for the war. Facing the ethical dilemma of working in a system defined by propaganda and violence, a brave teacher goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his own school.
10.0This lesson in political revelation focuses on the shooting down of the Malaysian passenger jet MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. A meticulous, investigative exposé that lays bare the mechanisms of Russian warfare.
7.4The film looks at people transformed by a democratic revolution, who give up their normal lives to fight a Russian invasion, in a war which has killed 10,000 and displaced 1.9 million Ukrainians.