In 2007, the Taliban kidnapped 24-year-old Ajmal Naqshbandi and an Italian journalist. Naqshbandi was one of Afghanistan's best "fixers" -- someone hired by foreign journalists to facilitate, translate, and gain access for their stories.
In 2007, the Taliban kidnapped 24-year-old Ajmal Naqshbandi and an Italian journalist. Naqshbandi was one of Afghanistan's best "fixers" -- someone hired by foreign journalists to facilitate, translate, and gain access for their stories.
2010-03-12
8
Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
A story of three couples and their intertwining love stories set in 1940s Taiwan and Shanghai, centered around the 1949 sinking of Taiping.
A community is under siege as three Belmont Highschool coed students go missing with no trace of their whereabouts. The pressure is on the police to capture the culprits responsible. Scouring the school hallways in search of clues, undercover female detective Maggie Rawdon (Jessica Sonnerborn) enters Belmont High as a transfer student in an attempt to solve the hideous disappearance of the students. Maggie makes a few new friends, and gets invited to a private rave in the country. Just as the group begins to suspect that they've taken a wrong turn, however, the trap is sprung and Maggie finds out firsthand what fate has befallen the missing girls.
Workers in a factory in pre-revolutionary Russia go on strike and are met by violent suppression.
Two lifelong friends navigate complex sexual encounters and emotional entanglements, wrestling with societal norms and personal desires.
A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.
A group of old friends have a tradition of going to a public bathing house on New Year's Eve. Occasionally too much vodka and beer makes two of them unconscious. The problem is that one of them (Sasha) has to go to Leningrad but another one (Zhenya) goes. Zhenya wakes up at Leningrad airport. Believing that he is still in Moscow he takes a taxi and goes home. The street name, building and even apartment number, the way an apartment complex looks the same and the key coincide completely - just typical Soviet-type 'economy' architecture. Imagine the surprise of Nadya when she enters her apartment and finds a man without trousers in her bed. What's more - Nadya's fiancé also finds him there...
To his chagrin, young Marcel Pagnol and his family move back to their home in Marseilles, France, far from their pastoral holiday cottage in the hills. Determined, Marcel makes the long voyage back to the cottage on foot and lands himself in trouble. One day Marcel's father discovers a shortcut to the cottage, but it requires trespassing. Despite their trepidations, Marcel and his family begin using the secret trail to reach their cottage.
A burned-out New York police detective teams up with a college psychoanalyst to track down a vicious serial killer randomly stalking and killing various young women around the city.
Ichiro Miki is a child living in the industrial district of Kawasaki, where his parents' constant struggle to make ends meet often leaves the schoolboy alone. Constantly teased by a bully nicknamed Gabara, his only friends are toy consultant Shinpei and fellow classmate Sachiko. Ichiro turns to escapist dreams of Monster Island where he befriends the equally bullied Minilla.
An alcoholic writer is visited by an incarnation of his cancer.
An inside look at Italy's modern-day crime families, the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano. Power, money and blood: these are the "values" that the residents of the Province of Naples and Caserta have to face every day. They hardly ever have a choice and are forced to obey the rules of the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life.
Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.
In a night of killer comedy, Bill Burr hosts a showcase of his most raucous stand-up comic pals as they riff on everything from COVID to Michael Jackson.
Life at home changes when a housewife from a middle-class, conservative family in Calcutta gets a job as a salesperson. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1996.
Sergeant Cruchot and his faithful comrades have been sent to the International Congress of Gendarmerie in N.Y.
Downtrodden writer Henry and distressed goddess Wanda aren't exactly husband and wife: they're wedded to their bar stools. But, they like each other's company—and Barfly captures their giddy, gin-soaked attempts to make a go of life on the skids.
A group of people inside an underground complex which possesses high tech computers which tracks world events consider all options as nuclear war is at hand, air supplies may last only eight days and Biblical prophesy unfolds.
Cowboy and Indian's only wish was to come up with a brilliant idea for Mr Horse's birthday, but when their plan ends up in utter disaster, they'll need to travel the world and back to make things right again.
An examination of the infamous thirty-year-old cold case of Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch, the first missing child to appear on a milk carton. The film focuses on Johnny’s mother, Noreen Gosch, and her relentless quest to find the truth about what happened to her son. Along the way there have been mysterious sightings, bizarre revelations, and a confrontation with a person who claims to have helped abduct Johnny.
On December 8, 1983 a fifteen year old Jewish boy from the city of Haifa was kidnapped, murdered and sexually abused after his death. Five Arabs who worked in in the neighborhood’s supermarket were convicted and imprisoned for life and 27 years. The conviction was based only on the defendants’ confessions and reconstructions. Seventeen years after their conviction, the five defendants still claim they are innocent. "The Reconstruction" follows the police investigation and juridical process step by step. The heart of the film is the original videotaped reconstructions of the murder performed by the defendants in which they admit their guilt.
A moving portrait of Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Victor Jara (1932-73) that chronicles the life of the talented artist who was imprisoned, tortured and machine-gunned by the country's dictatorship.
Six years ago, U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan for providing sanctuary to al Qaeda terrorists. Now, these Islamist militants are back.
Documentary examining the mysterious disappearance of financial advisor Lynda Spence, who vanished without a trace in 2011 from her hometown of Glasgow. As the police launched their investigation, they began to uncover hidden multiple identities, links to suspected gangsters and property fraud which stretched from Glasgow to London. What followed was one of the longest murder trials in Scotland's history, but without a body, the case remained unsolved. Fast forward to April 2022 and police have reopened the search for Lynda, but will they finally find out what happened to her?
The friendship between Christophe de Ponfilly and Commander Massoud, a legendary figure of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet invader, goes back to the filmmaker's first film, "A Valley Against an Empire", made in 1981. Fifteen years later, weakened, isolated, betrayed by many of his own, the "Lion of Panshir" has not surrendered to his new and implacable enemies, the Taliban. While preparing his next offensive, he evokes his commitment and his fights, and bears witness to a history in which he has been one of the main actors for twenty years. At the same time, the director questions the role and power of the media, as well as his own approach as a filmmaker. Commander Massoud was killed in an attack in September 2001.
Directors Hetherington and Junger spend a year with the 2nd Battalion of the United States Army located in one of Afghanistan's most dangerous valleys. The documentary provides insight and empathy on how to win the battle through hard work, deadly gunfights and mutual friendships while the unit must push back the Taliban.
The story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, a girl who was kidnapped outside a school bus stop and found alive eighteen years later.
Danish soldiers are sent to Afghanistan in 2009 for 6 months, to help stabilize the country against the Taliban. They're stationed on Armadillo military base in Helman province. Unlike other war movies, this is the real deal – no actors.
Australian filmmaker Jordan Bryon has been living and working as a journalist and filmmaker in Afghanistan for more than six years. After the departure of US forces, he stays to document Afghan life under the male-centric Taliban leadership. With his colleague, Teddy, he heads to a Taliban stronghold in the north-west of the country, shortly after he started transitioning. If the Taliban knew he was trans, they would likely kill him. It’s a chaotic time, for the country and for Jordan, as he navigates his transformation and looks to the future.
In 1974, 12-year-old Jan Broberg is abducted from a small church-going community in Idaho by a trusted neighbour and close family friend.
Documentary shedding light on the emotional fallout of the murder of Sarah Payne, the eight-year-old girl who was kidnapped and killed in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex, in 2000. Two weeks after her disappearance, Sarah's body was found, and after a high profile police investigation, Roy Whiting was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Testimonies from friends, family, police officers, key witnesses and experts in criminology are combined with an interview with Sarah's mother, to illustrate the tragic toll the case took on those closest to the victim.
In the Issyk-Kul region of Kyrgyzstan, tradition is king. Polo's still played with a freshly killed goat and the men still marry their women the old-fashioned way: by abducting them off the street and forcing them to be their wife. Bride kidnapping is a supposedly ancient custom that's made a major comeback since the fall of Communism and now accounts for nearly half of all marriages in some parts.
The Kabul National Museum, once known as the "face of Afghanistan," was destroyed in 1993. We filmed the most important cultural treasures of the still-intact museum in 1988: ancient Greco-Roman art and antiquitied of Hellenistic civilization, as well as Buddhist sculpture that was said to have mythology--the art of Gandhara, Bamiyan, and Shotorak among them. After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, some seventy percent of the contents of the museum was destroyed, stolen, or smuggled overseas to Japan and other countries. The movement to return these items is also touched upon. The footage in this video represents that only film documentation of the Kabul Museum ever made.
After the Kyrgyzstan Independence in 1991, the ancient practice of Ala-Kachuu ("grab and run") returned. Some women escape the men that kidnap them, but many remain married because of tradition and the fear of scandal.
A documentary recounting the kidnappings of British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Vice-Premier & Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte by the FLQ on October 5, 1970 in Quebec.
Immediately after the US pullout from Afghanistan, Taliban forces occupied the Hollywood Gate complex, which is claimed to be a former CIA base in Kabul.
At the peak of her immense popularity in the 1920s, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was drawing larger crowds to her revivals than those of P.T. Barnum or Harry Houdini. This chapter of "American Experience" paints a vivid portrait of the controversial and charismatic religious figure. Credited with mainstreaming religion in American culture, Sister Aimee created one of the country's first Christian radio stations, among other accomplishments.
According to the official history of Afghanistan, ruthless destruction has always prevailed over art and creation; but there is another tale to be told, the forgotten account of a diverse and progressive country, seen through the lens of innovative filmmakers, a story that survives thanks to a few brave Afghans, a small but very passionate group that secretly fought to save a huge film archive that was constantly menaced by war and religious fanaticism.