Barbed Wire and Mandolins

From Island to Island(zh)

During World War II, Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. This documentary explores the experiences of Taiwanese soldiers, doctors, and overseas residents in Southeast Asia during that time. Using cross-generational memory dialogues, family letters, diaries, and videos, the film addresses the complexities of Taiwan's historical memory and diverse identities during that period.

The Ugliest Car(pl)

The youngest protagonist of the documentary is Wartburg, an automobile over 50 years of age. The car is still on the road, driven by Bogdan, a 70-year-old who is taking his mother to visit the German factory where she was forced to work during WWII. In this road movie which takes place between Majdanpek and Germany, the trip becomes a journey into the past, retracing memories from the war and revealing a unique relationship between an old son and his elderly mother.

Churchill: When Britain Said No(en)

Documentary which examines the reasons why Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party lost the General Election of 1945, after Churchill had just led the country to victory in the World War II.

Trump's America - Power, Change, Resistance(de)

With his ultra-conservative policies, US President Donald Trump is disrupting the global order as well as US institutions and society. Filmed less than one year after the start of his second mandate, this documentary analyses the concrete impact of his policies on the American people.

The Case of the Wrong Man(pt)

The documentary tells the story of Júlio César, a young Afro-Brazilian who was executed by the Police in the 1980s in Porto Alegre. The crime became notorious when the press published photos of Julius being put alive in the police car and arriving 37 minutes later shot and dead at the hospital.

The Best of Enemies(en)

Centers on the unlikely relationship between Ann Atwater, an outspoken civil rights activist, and C.P. Ellis, a local Ku Klux Klan leader who reluctantly co-chaired a community summit, battling over the desegregation of schools in Durham, North Carolina during the racially-charged summer of 1971. The incredible events that unfolded would change Durham and the lives of Atwater and Ellis forever.

Thanks Girls and Goodbye(en)

Documentary using archival footage, newsreels and contemporary interviews with women of the WW2 Australian Women's Land Army.

The Nightingale(en)

The lives of two French sisters are torn apart by the onset of World War II.

Burma War Record(ja)

This film records the Japanese military's efforts to capture the Burma Road,one of the major supply lines to China, from the British beginning in December 1941. The film ends with the fall of Mandalay in May 1942.

Peter Eisenman: Building Germany's Holocaust Memorial(en)

This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.

Cake Bakers & Trouble Makers: Lucy Worsley's 100 Years of the WI(en)

Documentary to mark the WI's centenary. Lucy Worsley goes beyond the stereotypes of jam and Jerusalem to reveal the surprisingly radical side of this Great British institution.

The Baltic Tragedy(en)

Special care has been taken by International Historic Films to assemble this monumental documentary, which tells the story of what is left for a people after its land has been ravaged by war. Situated between the powerful antagonists Germany and the Soviet Union, the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia bore witness to some of the most ferocious land battles of the Second World War.

FDR: A Presidency Revealed(en)

For twelve years he stood as America's 32nd President, a man who overcame the ravages of polio to pull America through the Great Depression and WWII. From his legendary Fireside Chats to his sweeping New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt revolutionized the American way of life. FDR: A Presidency Revealed examines one of history's most compelling figures. Inspired by his cousin Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt rose to the nation's highest office during the depths of one of its darkest periods. A man of few words, he brought a nation together through his revolutionary Fireside Chats. He introduced vast reforms like Social Security and work relief for the unemployed. At the same time, his administration hid a dark underbelly teeming with covert maneuvers, spy rings, and powerful enemies.

Francisco Boix: A Photographer in Hell(es)

In 1939, just finished the Spanish Civil War, Spanish republican photographer Francesc Boix escapes from Spain; but is captured by the Nazis in 1940 and imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp, in Austria, a year later. There, he works as a prisoner in the SS Photographic Service, hiding, between 1943 and 1945, around 20,000 negatives that later will be presented as evidence during several trials conducted against Nazi war criminals after World War II.

The Smuggler and Her Charges(fr)

A captivating and personal detective story that uncovers the truth behind the childhood of Michaël Prazan's father, who escaped from Nazi-occupied France in 1942 thanks to the efforts of a female smuggler with mysterious motivations.

Erna, Helmut and the Nazis(de)

Germany, 1929. Helmut Machemer and Erna Schwalbe fall madly in love and marry in 1932. Everything indicates that a bright future awaits them; but then, in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rise to power and their lives are suddenly put in danger because of Erna's Jewish ancestry.

As If They Were Angels(en)

The little known story of one of the worst non-combat disasters in the history of the US Navy, …AS IF THEY WERE ANGELS is a story of courage, heart, sacrifice and the heroism of miners & fishermen of 2 small towns, who risked their lives to save nearly 200 American sailors, shipwrecked on the rugged cliffs of Newfoundland. Narrated by Peter Coyote, it’s a deeply layered tale of navigation errors, courts martial mistakes, a steep loss of life, and resonates today as if the very telling of its deep humanity offers a lifeline for our fractured times.

Quando i tedeschi non sapevano nuotare(it)

Letters(en)

LETTERS, a dramatic historical fiction written by Mrs. Evelyn Merritt in 2010, tells the story of U.S. soldiers and their loved ones through their correspondence beginning with the Civil War and ending with the War in Iraq. Sahuarita High School students adapted the Readers’ Theatre play into a movie, reasoning the student actors would be kept safe from Covid-19 by filming them individually, and afterward the footage could be reassembled into a screenplay following the original dialogue.

Letters from Europe(it)

"Letters from Europe" brings to light the words of men and women who gave their lives resisting the Nazi and fascist conquest from 1939 to '45 across the European continent. The moving goodbyes penned by a few of those sentenced to death are sometimes true spiritual testaments that explore the meaning of civic responsibility, human existence, fraternity, and life and death. Their words, which the film mingles with footage of the present day, can perhaps restore meaning to a humanist ideal and to the ever-changing idea of a united Europe.