In the back of history - The lost villages of Masuria

Des traîtres dans la Résistance(fr)

In May 1943, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the new head of the Reich Central Security Office, gave Hitler a report describing in detail the organization of the French Resistance. Indeed, during the Second World War, most of the Resistance networks had been infiltrated by traitors, the "V Man" (trusted men) in the service of the occupier. The Germans had established treason as a system and recruiting Frenchmen ready to inform on them was one of their priorities. It was these Frenchmen, whose number is estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000, who dealt terrible blows to the Resistance.

Filmmakers for the Prosecution(fr)

In 1945, two young American soldiers, brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg, are commissioned to collect filmed and recorded evidence of the horrors committed by the infamous Third Reich in order to prove Nazi war crimes during the Nuremberg trials (1945-46). The story of the making of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, a paramount historic documentary, released in 1948.

Vratislav Effenberger or Black Shark Hunting(cs)

German Concentration Camps Factual Survey(en)

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

Esperanto(eo)

This film, directed by Dominique GAUTIER, takes the viewer on a worldwide excursion into the history and structure of the Esperanto language, introducing its present-day speakers. The words of these users of the language are reflective of a variety of activities and viewpoints, and in the film they are interwoven so as to reveal bit by bit how the utopia of its initiator, Ludwig ZAMENHOF, is concretised every day.

Iwo Jima: 36 Days of Hell(en)

A documentary on the famous World War II battle, using only on-ground footage from Marines and interviews with veterans.

Auf der Oder(de)

Documentary reports on the annual icing of the Oder in the 160-kilometer border area between the GDR and the People's Republic of Poland. Icebreakers from both countries with experienced skippers join forces to make the international waterway between Frankfurt and Szczecin navigable again. Everyone works hard as a team and even a broken-down ship cannot stop them from achieving their goal. A look back at the winter of 1947 with its flooding shows what the freezing of the river and the subsequent thaw can do if the ice floes are not drained into the Baltic Sea via Lake Dammsch in good time. The skippers from both countries have known each other for years and trust each other; the camaraderie that has developed on the Oder unites the people, they control the river in winter for the common benefit of all.

Chez Schwartz(en)

Chez Schwartz takes us inside a year in the life of Schwartz's Deli - the unique 75-year-old landmark on Montreal's historic Main. Filmed through changing seasons, from the quiet of early morning preparation to the frenetic bustle of packed lunch times and never ending line-ups, to the more relaxed ambiance late at night - Chez Schwartz is an evocative, cinematic portrait of a small spunky deli known worldwide equally for its atmosphere and smoked meat.

Night and Fog(fr)

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

Terror in the Skies(en)

A journey to the heartland of the Midwest for an in-depth look at an ongoing phenomenon: one of the most recent and popular stories has been an ongoing wave of sightings of a red-eyed, shapeless creature dubbed the Chicago Mothman.

Jean Moulin, un homme de liberté(fr)

Power and Paranoia of the Third Reich(fr)

Radical Evil(de)

Das radikal Böse is a German-Austrian documentary that attempted to explore psychological processes and individual decision latitude "normal young men" in the German Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD, which in 1941 during the Second World War as part of the Holocaust two million Jewish civilians shot dead in Eastern Europe.

Hitler's Evil Science(fr)

In 1935, German scientists dug for bones; in 1943, they murdered to get them. How the German scientific community supported Nazism, distorted history to legitimize a hideous system and was an accomplice to its unspeakable crimes. The story of the Ahnenerbe, a sinister organization created to rewrite the obscure origins of a nation.

The Rise & Fall of Penn Station(en)

In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station’s opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.

The Secret Masonic Victory of World War II(en)

Western Freemasonry and Eastern communists won WW2, leading to a secret holy war aiming for a one-world government and a single religion in a communist utopia.

When Paul Came Over The Sea(de)

An unusual friendship in an agitated political context.

A Place of Our Own(it)

Numéro zéro(fr)

A family portrait in which the director profiles his grandmother, Odette Robert. Eustache includes in the film the conditions of its production — he is seated at the table with her, pours her some whiskey, speaks with the camera operator, manipulates the clapboard at the head and tail of the reels, and even takes a phone call. Robert, who was seventy-one, speaks rapidly and tells the story of her life, starting from her early childhood in villages in the Bordeaux region of France. A shorter version of the film ("Odette Robert") was edited in 1980 to be broadcast on television on TF1. The complete film only gained exposure in 2002, when it was salvaged by Boris Eustache, Thierry Lounas, João Bénard da Costa, Jean-Marie Straub, and Pedro Costa.

Rosies of the North(en)

They 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.

The Last Survivor(en)

Shortfilm remake of the finale of "ALIEN": After her ship has been destroyed, the last survivor of the ship's crew tries to finally get some sleep. But the hideous creature has also survived the explosion. Only question ist: Who will be able to rest at last?

Star(en)

New student, Amelia, transfers to an elite high school majoring in English studies. A natural introvert, she is particularly shy and not great at making friends. It doesn't take long for her to become a bulling target. Her wit has placed her in the most advanced class, where her competitive and snarky classmates prove to be an incredible challenge. Little do they know that Amelia has a secret talent. Can she use it to overcome her unfavorable situation?

The Wereth Eleven(en)

The Wereth Eleven retraces the steps eleven black GI's from the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion took when their unit was overrun by Germans at the start of the Battle of the Bulge. Their 10-mile trek from their battery position to Wereth, Belgium would be the last journey of their lives as a local resident turned them in to an SS scouting party. Subsequently all eleven were butchered and killed in one of the least understood, as well as unknown, war crimes of WWII.

The Norseman(ru)

Managing position at Nastenka Cleaning Service, whose employees are migrant girls from Asia, comes at the Muscovite Kirillov out of the blue. The situation is complicated by the fact that Kirillov is planning to leave for Norway and expecting his bride, a typical European with a rather rigid interpretation of freedom and tolerance, to come visit. The idea that she will learn about the exploitation of "women of the East" terrifies him and makes him prevaricate in order to hide his "harem"...

Kein Science Fiction(de)

Girl Power(cs)

Girl Power is a documentary that presents female graffiti writers from fifteen cities – from Prague to Moscow, Cape Town, Sydney, Biel, Madrid, Berlin, Toulouse, Barcelona and all the way to New York. The graffiti community is predominantly a man's world, and men often share the view that graffiti – namely the illegal kind – is not for girls. And yet women have become increasingly more emancipated in recent years; there are female graffiti shows, magazines and websites. Girl Power captures the stories of ladies who have succeeded in the male graffiti world.

For bread and love(el)

An unemployed sailor gets a job at the yacht of a wealthy man, where he is tortured by his beautiful young wife and decides to leave his wife and son to leave with her.

I Am the Ripper(fr)

In this killer tale of horror, a rip-roaring teen party turns into a nightmare when a mysterious masked figure murders the guests one by one and then challenges the lone survivor to a duel... for his soul.

The Blood(ja)

Yoshinori returns after six years to his family house, where his mother Etsuko lives alone. His decision to return is sparked by the seventh anniversary of his younger brother's death. He brings along his fiancée Kanae, who is pregnant. Etsuko warmly welcomes them both, but Yoshinori can't help but think that something is strange. That night, Kanae is struck by "a sound that must not be heard", and then the hell really begins.

Fashion Scandals(fr)

A documentary on the world of fashion. Using archive material, journalist Loïc Prigent remembers the key figures and events in the wacky world of haute couture, which is not always glamorous so much as downright vicious.

Fluorescent Adolescent(en)

Set in the midst of the AIDs epidemic, Brittany is trapped in her dull life. She is emerging into a world she feels invalidates her identity, her only confidant is the voice in her head. That is until she meets Faras, who she forms a companionship with. Life can be vibrant.

Ballad for a Hoodlum(fr)

Vincent Vivant agrees to Stephan the spy's proposal: he is to cross the border with a mysterious suitcase.

My (Best Friend's) Head Exploded(en)

Lydia and Sam like to make haunted houses, imagine other worlds, and question everything, but they never thought one of their creations would be able to push itself into their comfortable, isolated existence. Now, Lydia must deal with authority, confusion, and generational violence to solve the mysteries of reality, and save her own.