Life Will Smile

De Bevrijding van Den Haag(nl)

A Hole In The Head(cs)

A pig farm in Lety, South Bohemia would make an ideal monument to collaboration and indifference, says writer and journalist Markus Pape. Most of those appearing in this documentary filmed in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Germany and Croatia have personal experience of the indifference to the genocide of the Roma. Many of them experienced the Holocaust as children, and their distorted memories have earned them distrust and ridicule. Continuing racism and anti-Roma sentiment is illustrated among other matters by how contemporary society looks after the locations where the murders occurred. However, this documentary film essay focuses mainly on the survivors, who share with viewers their indelible traumas, their "hole in the head".

Night and Fog(fr)

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

An Island Invaded(en)

Five Guamanians interviewed in the early 2000s recall the Japanese bombing of Guam on 7 December 1941, and the years of food shortages, abuses, and other hardships that followed. They describe their childhood lives before, during, and after the island's occupation by Japanese soldiers.

St. Louis(de)

Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.

Horizon(ar)

From the turtles of the Farasan Islands to the ibex that dot the Asir Mountains, this documentary captures Saudi Arabia's diverse wildlife and scenery.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story(en)

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

De Gaulle, l'homme à abattre(fr)

Nazi Town, USA(en)

In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a “Pro-American Rally.” Images of George Washington hung next to swastikas and speakers railed against the “Jewish controlled media” and called for a return to a racially “pure” America. The keynote speaker was Fritz Kuhn, head of the German American Bund. Nazi Town, USA tells the largely unknown story of the Bund, which had scores of chapters in suburbs and big cities across the country and represented what many believe was a real threat of fascist subversion in the United States. The Bund held joint rallies with the Ku Klux Klan and ran dozens of summer camps for children centered around Nazi ideology and imagery. Its melding of patriotic values with virulent anti-Semitism raised thorny issues that we continue to wrestle with today.

The Girl Who Wore Freedom(en)

Discover the untold stories of D-Day from the men, women and children who lived through German occupation and Allied liberation of Normandy, France. Powerful and deeply personal, THE GIRL WHO WORE FREEDOM tells the stories of an America that lived its values, instilling pride in a country that's in danger of becoming a relic of the past.

Region of Heroes(uk)

Film reconstruction of five real stories about the heroic deeds of the residents of Kyiv region during the Russian occupation. A story about those who heroically and selflessly saved tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives.

The Astronauts of Feuerbach(de)

Soon enough humankind will ascend to space. Who can join that mission? Who has to stay behind? In some places it has already started. Men and machine taking flight, leaving for the unknown future. For the endless void. That’s where they meet. The People using machines to clean machines and the people sheltered inside those machines. Destined to collide, never to engage. Welcome to Europes biggest car wash.

The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It(en)

A documentary focusing on American conscientious objectors during WWII.

Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky(en)

Documentary on the making of the film featuring interviews with distributor Julian Schlossberg and actor Joyce Van Patten.

Something to Say(en)

Bryan Charles Kimes has a lot to say, but the power of language escapes him. Lost in a public-school system that does not suit his needs, his parents fight to help him find his voice.

Cameramen at War(en)

A tribute to the cameramen of the newsreel companies and the service film units, in the form of a compilation of film of the cameramen themselves, their training and some of their most dramatic film.

The Forger(en)

Adolfo Kaminsky started saving lives when chance and necessity made him a master forger. As a teenager, he became a member of the French Resistance and used his talent to save the lives of thousands of Jews. The Forger is a well-crafted origin story of a real-life superhero.

France 1939: One Last Summer(fr)

Gustave Folcher, a French farmer, wrote in his 1939 diary that the summer had been long and hot. He was not alone. Many other anonymous French men and women wrote of the beauty and warmth of those summer months and how threats of war were far from their minds. Through home movies, diaries and letters, One Last Summer describes the final weeks of peace in France and the mix of blindness, denial and prophetic clear-sightedness of those facing the war that was about to unfold.

Eastwood & Co.: Making 'Unforgiven'(en)

Behind the scenes of Unforgiven (1992)

Becoming Ruby(en)

Follow Ruby Chopstix, Canada’s first drag artist-in-residence, as they navigate the complexity of being an underrepresented drag performer while creating a special showcase to create space for other queer BIPOC performers.