Between the end of the Middle Ages and the late 18th century, over 50,000 Europeans were persecuted, tortured and executed on charges of witchcraft. The pogrom was triggered by the book 'Malleus Maleficarum', published in 1486. Its detailed instructions for persecuting and annihilating alleged witches triggered a mass hysteria.
Heinrich Kramer
Himself/Historian
Himself/Historian
Witch
Between the end of the Middle Ages and the late 18th century, over 50,000 Europeans were persecuted, tortured and executed on charges of witchcraft. The pogrom was triggered by the book 'Malleus Maleficarum', published in 1486. Its detailed instructions for persecuting and annihilating alleged witches triggered a mass hysteria.
2018-09-02
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In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.
Stéphane Bern tells the story of King Louis XVI, deposed by the revolution and guillotined on January 21st, 1793. He was a cultured man, passionate about the technical advances of his time, but powerless against the huge deficit in the country. He actively supported the birth of the USA. Louis XVI was the last king to live in the palace of Versailles, where he organized the first flight of a balloon, launched the legendary expedition of Jean-Francois de La Perouse and offered his wife Marie Antoinette, the beautiful setting of the Petit Trianon, as million visitors around the world continue to admire.
Grace Dalrymple Elliot is a British aristocrat trapped in Paris during the French Revolution. Determined to maintain her stiff upper lip and pampered life despite the upheaval, Grace continues her friendship with the Duke of Orléans while risking her life and liberty to protect a fugitive.
An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.
A vampire relates his epic life story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and dark hunger to an over-curious reporter.
In 1798, a feral boy is discovered outside the town of Aveyron, France. Diagnosed as mentally impaired, he is relegated to an asylum. A young doctor named Jean Itard becomes convinced that the boy has normal mental capacity, but that his development was hindered by lack of contact with society. He brings the boy home and begins an arduous attempt at education over several years.
In Qing Dynasty, Chen Xiang and Liuli became maids and friends in the imperial palace. Liuli wanted to be famous whereas Chen Xiang just wanted to live a normal life. Liuli attempted to change her life by knowing the prince, even at the cost of betraying Chen Xiang.
Short film about a young man discovering pants in a nudist world. A parable of the societal intolerance to anything different.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The familiar story of Lieutenant Bligh, whose cruelty leads to a mutiny on his ship. This version follows both the efforts of Fletcher Christian to get his men beyond the reach of British retribution, and the epic voyage of Lieutenant Bligh to get his loyalists safely to East Timor in a tiny lifeboat.
When a mysterious illness targets several children in the small town of Caroltyn, young single mom Kofi is forced to confront the past and the heartbreaking family traumas that haunt her.
British barrister Sydney Carton lives an insubstantial and unhappy life. He falls under the spell of Lucie Manette, but Lucie marries Charles Darnay. When Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned family retainer, he becomes entangled in the snares of the brutal French Revolution and is himself jailed and condemned to the guillotine. But Sydney Carton, in love with a woman he cannot have, comes up with a daring plan to save her husband.
In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.
In 1890, in one of the villages of Ukrainian Polissia, a man died under mysterious circumstances. The locals blamed his wife, a young healer, and banished her from the village. When affliction came to the village, people believed they had been cursed by the castaway woman. They discovered she was living in the forest, found her and burned her alive as a witch. But before doing it, they sent a priest to have a final conversation with her.
London, 1761. St. Mary's of Bethlehem, a sinister madhouse, is visited by wealthy people who enjoy watching the patients confined there as if they were caged animals. Nell Bowen, one of the visitors, is horrified by the deplorable living conditions of the unfortunate inhabitants of this godforsaken place, better known as Bedlam.
A native of Sennwald, Anna Göldi arrived in Glarus in 1765. For seventeen years, she worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, a physician. Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi at first escaped arrest, but the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on February 9, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture, admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782 to execution by decapitation. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.
18th century English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life. He appears to be merely the effete aristocrat, but in reality is part of an underground effort to free French nobles from Robespierre's Reign of Terror.
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