5.9Tension mounts between a quadraplegic man and his wife as she prepares a bath for him.
7.5Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
5.9At the end of September 1941, Soviet artillery troops in besieged Leningrad realize that pretty soon they will fire their last shot, and after that the defense of the city will be doomed. The film is based on a true event: a small group of fearless soldiers transported a large supply of gunpowder through enemy lines to Leningrad.
5.8Statesman and poet Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee's eloquence and vision shaped India's destiny. A look at his remarkable life as he led his country through a challenging period of change and development as the 10th Prime Minister of India.
6.5The deconstruction of the Avatar scenes and sets
6.4Nogreh is a young Afghani woman living with her father and her sister-in-law, Leylomah, whose husband, Akhtar, is missing. Beyond the issue of Akhtar, Leylomah is most concerned with how to feed her baby. She cannot provide milk for her baby as her own hunger is preventing her from lactating. Nogreh, however, aspires toward a life in a western styled democracy. Although the Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan, traditional forces are still active in the country. Nogreh often displays signs of rebellion, such as wearing a pair of white pumps instead of the traditional slipper beneath her burqa. But mostly, Nogreh wants to be educated. Without her father's knowledge, Nogreh is attending a secular girls school. Ultimately, she wants to become President of Afghanistan. With the help of a Pakistani refugee who likes her as a woman, Nogreh tries to understand exactly what forces led to current world leaders being elected, those forces which she wants to emulate.
7.7With input from actor and writer Jan Hlobil, director and cinematographer Rene Smaal presents a film in the true surrealist tradition, in the sense that only 'found' elements were used, and that it defies interpretation based on ordinary cause-and-effect time sequence.
7.0Capturing Avatar is a feature length behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Avatar. It uses footage from the film's development, as well as stock footage from as far back as the production of Titanic in 1995. Also included are numerous interviews with cast, artists, and other crew members. The documentary was released as a bonus feature on the extended collector's edition of Avatar.
7.1The wealthy and impulsive Rollo Treadway decides to propose to his beautiful socialite neighbor, Betsy O'Brien. Although Betsy turns Rollo down, he still opts to go on the cruise that he intended as their honeymoon. When circumstances find both Rollo and Betsy on the wrong ship, they end up having adventures on the high seas.
6.4The Making-of James Cameron's Avatar. It shows interesting parts of the work on the set.
6.9While Yeung Kam Wing is trying to remove all connections between the mob and him, his actions are being carefully observed by Lau Kin Ming, who bears a personal grudge against him.
7.7Two Soviet humans previously unknown to each other are transported to the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-da galaxy due to a chance encounter with an alien teleportation device. They must come to grips with a language barrier and Plukian social norms (not to mention the laws of space and time) if they ever hope to return to Earth.
6.9When Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.
5.7Once known for his intellectual prowess, a retired professor (Anupam Kher) begins experiencing memory gaps and periods of forgetfulness. But while he tries to laugh it off, it soon becomes clear that the symptoms are a sign of a more serious illness, prompting his grown daughter (Urmila Matondkar) to move in as his caretaker. Meanwhile, as his mind regresses, he recalls a traumatic childhood memory involving the death of Mahatma Gandhi.
6.9In a Tokyo love hotel district, a woman is found dead in a derelict apartment. As police investigate, a romance novelist's wife lives a life that seems simply a daily repetition without romance. To break away from the loveless monotony, she follows her desires and becomes a nude model enacting sex in front of a camera. Soon, she meets a mentor and begins selling her body to strangers, while at home, she hides behind the façade that she's still the doting wife she's supposed to be.
6.2A documentary about unemployed people who bought fruit and vegetables at moderate prices at the wholesale market and sold these in the streets of Frankfurt. Since they had no permits they were constantly with their bulky carts on the run from the police. One part of the film was shot at the fairgrounds in front of the wholesale market. Newspaper and lottery ticket vendors, propagandists offering their ware for a few pfennigs, all convey the mood of a time when need made people inventive.
5.7Destruction and betrayal take center stage in the latest installment of the New Fist of the North Star series. When Kenshiro returns to find the city in ruins and its citizens tormented, his pain is compounded when he is betrayed and imprisoned by Tobi. As Tobi prepares a brutal assault on Seiji, Kenshiro must summon all of his strength to break free and take put a halt to his former friend's destructive scheme.
6.4A dramatisation of the workers' protests in June 1976 in Radom, seen from the perspective of the local Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party.
7.8Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.
0.0Long before Columbus, the Maya established one of the most highly developed civilizations of their time in the jungles of Mexico and Central America. Yet this advanced society of priests, astronomers, artisans, and farmers suddenly and mysteriously collapsed more than a thousand years ago. Accompany archaeologists to Copan, Dos Pilas, and other spectacular Classic Maya ruins as they unearth artifacts and huge temples of incredible beauty. Recently deciphered hieroglyphics and other new discoveries offer astounding clues to the lives of these ancient people. You'll hear the startling story of one kingdom's downfall and its final desperate hours of violent warfare. Through spine-tingling recreations, witness ancient rituals reenacted on sites where they originally occured. And meet the enduring Maya who still maintain many of their ancestor's traditions. You'll hear the voices of a magnificent civilization as you uncover LOST KINGDOMS OF THE MAYA.
8.0For over 1,000 years, chariots were indispensable weapons in ancient China. The art of chariot driving and special warfare were used there for longer than anywhere else. Their contribution to the unification of the Chinese empire is undisputed. New archaeological discoveries reveal how the Chinese developed and perfected this sophisticated weapon. In the Bronze Age, over 3,000 years ago, chariots and other war equipment arrived in China from Central Asia via the Hexi Corridor. In addition to trade and new alliances, their spread was mainly due to the Zhou dynasty's incessant military campaigns against rebellious vassal states and the constant attacks by the mobile cavalries of its northern neighbors. Manned with spearmen or archers, the chariots were a decisive weapon in battle.
5.4A Korean writer travels to Vietnam to do research for her story about a cursed portrait of a Vietnamese girl named Muoi.
0.0In the 19th century, China held the monopoly on tea, which was dear and fashionable in the West, and the British Empire exchanged poppies, produced in its Indian colonies and transformed into opium, for Chinese tea. Inundated by the drugs, China was forced to open up its market, and the British consolidated their commercial dominance. In 1839, the Middle Empire introduced prohibition. The Opium War was declared… Great Britain emerged as the winner, but the warning was heeded: it could no longer depend on Chinese tea. The only alternative possible was to produce its own tea. The East India Company therefore entrusted one man with finding the secrets of the precious beverage. His mission was to develop the first plantations in Britain’s Indian colonies. This latter-day James Bond was called Robert Fortune – a botanist. After overcoming innumerable ordeals in the heart of imperial China, he brought back the plants and techniques that gave rise to Darjeeling tea.
9.0Archaeologist Raksha Dave and historian Dan Snow return to Pompeii to gain special access to a variety of new excavations, including two never-before-seen discoveries.
7.1During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.
6.8In 1950s Havana, a romance blooms between two young revolutionaries whose clandestine printing press publishes pamphlets meant to stir up rebellion against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. As their popularity grows, so, too, does their revolutionary zeal and their desire to mobilize other urban guerilla units.
6.9The true story of William Wilberforce and his courageous quest to end the British slave trade. Along the way, Wilberforce meets intense opposition, but his minister urges him to see the cause through.
This short-form documentary focuses on the true story of Alfons Heck, who as an impressionable 10-year-old boy became a high-ranking member of the Hitler youth movement during World War II. The story is told in his own words. This film originally aired as part of the "America Undercover" series on HBO.
7.0In this hour-long documentary, Oxford academic Janina Ramirez tours the country in search of Anglo-Saxon art treasures. Her basic thesis - and it is a plausible one - is that we should not look upon their era as a "dark age" as compared, for example, to Roman times, but rather celebrate it as an age in which creativity flowered, especially in terms of artistic design as well as symbolism. She shows plenty of good examples, ranging from the Franks Casket to the Staffordshire Hoard, and the Lindisfarne Gospels.
0.0Isaac Albéniz was a child prodigy, and the victim of a tyrannical father. He flees from his house, to America. He returns to his country years later, where he achieves international fame and the attention of many women.
6.1The real-life story of Gisella Perl, a Jewish Hungarian doctor imprisoned in the notorious Auschwitz death camp of World War II.
6.1Salem, Massachusetts. A small town—with no clear governing body—became embroiled in a scandal that forever stands as one of the darkest chapters in American history. For those accused of witchcraft by their neighbors and friends, there was little chance of clearing their names; the mass paranoia that ravaged through the community took the lives of 19 innocent men and women.
6.7The story of the Avro Arrow, the world's fastest fighter plane built in 1950's Canada, and how the project was dropped due to political pressure from the United States.
7.0Following the death of Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), one city in each of the six republics and two autonomous regions of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had the honour to be named after the long-serving president. Having been chosen due to leftist ideas, proletarian character, industrialisation, urbanisation and modernity, they were often privileged. Now located across seven countries, not one of these cities is still named after Tito. We learn the stories of these cities from their residents who look back at the period under Tito’s name. Many of these stories are tragic since the majority of cities have been touched by war.
7.8A testament to NASA's Apollo program of the 1960s and '70s. Composed of actual NASA footage of the missions and astronaut interviews, the documentary offers the viewpoint of the individuals who braved the remarkable journey to the moon and back.
6.8The story of Hitler’s final hours told by people who were there. This special features exclusive forgotten interviews, believed lost for 65 years, with members of Hitler’s inner circle who were trapped with him in his bunker as the Russians fought to take Berlin. These unique interviews from figures such as the leader of the Hitler Youth Artur Axmann and Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge, have never before been seen outside Germany. Using rarely seen archive footage and dramatic reconstruction, this special tells the story of Adolf Hitler’s final days in his Berlin bunker.