The code to unlocking this feature documentary is 1949, the year the director was born, and also the year of the return of Soviet repressions to Latvia. The film tells a very personal story against the background of less visited historic events – the death of director’s father due to the KGB repressions, which is closely linked to the devious game Soviet Latvia’s KGB played against Swedish-British-American spy agencies.
Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.
On March 9, 1953, Joseph Stalin was buried in Moscow in front of a million people. His funeral is that of a demi-God. Ultimate paradox for one of the greatest criminals in History who brought misfortune to his people while arousing collective admiration.
During the 1930s anti-Semitism was rampant not only in Germany but also in America. There was a German American Bund and pro-Nazi rallies even filled Madison Square Gardens in New York City. And the US was isolationist. Until Pearl Harbor, then, everything changed. Spymasters throughout the 20th century, and particularly during times of conflict, thought it advantageous to enlist the services of celebrities who had high level and powerful "fans" in various industries, many with easy access to politicians and high ranking government officials. Hollywood, as we now know from declassified National Archive documents, aided in the mobilization for war and its people contributed as spies, combatants, propagandists, documentary and fund-raisers, entertainers, and morale-boosters. Hundreds of celebrities eagerly answered the "call to arms" and brought their talents and patriotism to the intelligence services, military and war information offices.
2,000 US soldiers board a British transport ship without any idea that the lifeboats are rusted so badly that they could never be launched. They’re issued lifebelts that need to be inflated instead of standard Naval life jackets. The following day the ship is sunk by one of the first radio-guided missiles ever used in war, killing 1157 soldiers and crew in what remains the greatest loss of life at sea due to enemy action in the history of US war. The government deflected responsibility for the large loss of life by declaring the attack classified indefinitely and ordering all survivors to remain silent.
Samuel Wilder King, a descendant of Scottish sailors and Hawaiian royalty, served as a distinguished Naval officer in both World Wars before becoming Governor of the Hawaii Territory. This short film delves into King’s fearless leadership—from navigating the high seas during WWI to fighting against the internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii during WWII—ultimately championing Hawaii's path to statehood as the 50th star on the American flag.
An account of Adolf Hitler's rise and fall, his relationship with Eva Braun and their days of leisure at the Berghof, their Bavarian residence.
One of the five-part documentary series by Belarusian writer and director Viktor Dashuk, which recounts the horrors experienced by the Belarusian people during World War II, through firsthand accounts of survivors and newsreel footage.
The story of the 1978 World Chess Championship between the Soviet Communist Party's protege, Anatoly Karpov and the traitor and Soviet defector, Viktor Korchnoi. One of those instances in life where truth is stranger than fiction.
The director’s mother, Mirka Mora, avoided Auschwitz by one day. On his father’s side many perished in the Holocaust. These facts triggered three visits to Auschwitz by Mora from 2010 to 2014 in an effort to understand and remember.
Located nearly 80 kilometres north of Berlin, Germany, the former municipality of Ravensbrück was home to a prison between 1939 and 1945 that became a concentration camp designed specifically for women. It was built by order of Heinreich Himmler, a high dignitary of the Third Reich and head of the SS. Of the more than 130,000 people who were deported there, almost 90,000 never returned. Based on witnesses, international experts and computer-generated images, the document reveals the atrocities committed in Ravensbrück.
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.
'Veterans', focuses on WW2 veterans, once fighters in the Red Army and now uprooted immigrants, fighting for their place in society. These people, who experienced the twentieth century's bloodiest war as Soviet soldiers, immigrated to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union and found themselves in a society that is totally indifferent to their glorious past. The film offers a close and compassionate look at the veterans' lives, fueled by complexity, pain, and an almost silent insult, alongside joy and self-deprecating humor. The feeling of living on borrowed time drives the veterans to embark on what may be their last adventure.