Leningrad. Stimmen einer belagerten Stadt

The Future Awaits

February 2025 •French

In July 1942, during the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup of Jewish families in Paris, 13 year old Tauba Birenbaum and her parents, who are Polish Jews, find refuge in a tiny room for the next 765 days. Living conditions are tough and they fear being discovered at any moment. But while her parents sink further into despair, Tauba’s fighting spirit shines through. She finds joy in every little thing, from a piano drawn on the floor, to the views of Paris through an open window. Despite extreme circumstances, she will keep hope until the liberation of Paris, and take back control of her life.

The Dead Nation

August 2017 •Romanian

A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.

The Zone of Interest

December 2023 •English

The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.

Memoir of War

August 2017 •French

In the last days of the Nazi-occupied France, writer Marguerite Duras awaits the return of her husband, Robert Antelme, arrested for being a Resistance fighter and then deported, while she maintains a tense relationship with her ambiguous lover and a dangerous game with a French collaborationist. Even when the Liberation arrives, she must still endure the unbearable pain of waiting.

A Return to Memory

October 2024 •English

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it.

Coal

March 2025 •Dutch

CHARBON depicts how Europe was built on fossil fuels over the past 100 years. And how it was torn apart by wars that were the result of these same fossil fuels. During 3 trips to Ukraine, Italy and Iraq, filmmaker Manu Riche explains how he and his French-German family are inseparably connected to the fate of the Iraqi filmmaker and refugee Hayder Helo.

Madame Soleil, la femme qui était supposée savoir

September 2023 •French

The Law of Silence

October 2003 •French

The Law of Silence, a final-year documentary by Moïra Chappedelaine-Vautier at Femis, examines the 1963 Amnesty Law and the consequences it had on studies of the Algerian War. It brings together interviews conducted in 2002 with Henri Alleg, editor of the daily newspaper Alger Républicain from 1951 to 1955, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, historian and essayist. It also features incredible statements from General Massu and lawyers unraveling the various legal defenses of people like Jean-Marie Le Pen. Not only does Moïra have her father, René Vautier, speak, but she also includes footage he himself filmed forty years earlier. A very interesting report, which notably reminds us that the Amnesty is not a pardon but the erasure of the sentence and also of the crime itself.

Amérique, la nouvelle histoire des premiers hommes

February 2023 •French

From the far north of Canada to the southern tip of Chile, through the southern United States, central Mexico and the Brazilian Mato Grosso, new concordant but still controversial archaeological discoveries have brought a new paradigm to the archaeology of American prehistory: the appearance of the first humans on the continent could date back to nearly 30,000 years before our era, that is to say, about 15,000 years earlier than the commonly accepted and taught thesis. Although there were a few mavericks in the past who disputed the scenario according to which the first ancestors of Americans arrived on foot through the Bering Strait 16,000 years ago, they were long kept out of the scientific community.

The Letter Men

June 2022 •English

"The Letter Men" is based on the real love letters written by Gilbert Bradley to his sweetheart, Gordon Bowsher during WWII. Exchanged between 1938 and 1941, the letters were uncovered in 2017 and represent the largest known collection LGBTQ love letters from that time period. Using text from the actual letters, "The Letter Men" follows the two men as their fight to keep their love alive in the face of war and loss.

Doctor

October 1985 •Slovenian

Vladimir Kante, a high-ranking police official whom everyone refers to simply as "Doc" or "the Doctor" remains in office after the Italian occupation, but soon establishes ties with the Liberation Front. His hard work as a double agent pays off with many lives saved and a number of the enemy's plans revealed to the resistance. When the Germans march into Ljubljana (after the Italian capitulation), the Doctor continues with both his official and his secret work, but is caught by the Germans shortly before the end of the war. Will the Doctor remain loyal to his mission until the end, despite the death threats and brutal torture he is subjected to?

The Most Dangerous Man in Europe: Otto Skorzeny's After War

January 2020 •Spanish

Waffen-SS officer Otto Skorzeny (1908-75) became famous for his participation in daring military actions during World War II. In 1947 he was judged and imprisoned, but he escaped less than a year later and found a safe haven in Spain, ruled with an iron hand by General Francisco Franco. What did he do during the many years he spent there?

At the End of Nothing at All

March 2024 •French

Every morning, Marcel confides in his tape recorder. It is from his reflections on life that this film takes us into the wake of his story.

Come See the Paradise

August 1990 •English

In this drama from director Alan Parker, on-the-lam Jack McGurn flees to Los Angeles and takes a job as a projectionist at a movie theater owned by a Japanese-American man. Jack falls for the owner's daughter, Lily, but they are forced to elope to Seattle when her father forbids the relationship. The couple marry and have a daughter, but when World War II breaks out, Jack is powerless to stop his new family's forced internment.

Pioneras: Solo querían jugar

Invalid date •Spanish

Stalin's Last Plot

August 2011 •French

January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.

We Go in at Dawn

March 2020 •English

When a high-ranking war planner is captured and held in a German prisoner of war camp, a team of specialists take on the dangerous mission of trying to break him out. Trouble is, he doesn't want to be rescued.

Britannic

January 2000 •English

It was the sister ship of the infamous Titanic... and its final destiny was the same. Experience the true untold story of Britannic, a tumultuous, epic voyage of human passion, courage and betrayal aboard an ill-fated ocean liner bound for a shattering demise. With the world at war, an undercover British agent (Amanda Ryan), embarks the Britannic in search of a German spy believed to be on board to sabotage the ship. Posing as a governess, the undercover agent finds herself falling in love with the ship's chaplain (Edward Atterton). In a stunning discovery, the lovers suddenly find themselves enemies of war. And when a massive explosion deals a deathblow to the ship, their battle becomes one for their own survival. With a dynamic, international cast and a story line that hosts a chilling tale of espionage, politics and romance, Britannic brings one of history's most devastating events to riveting, new life.

The Man from the Oak Forest

April 1964 •

An ex-servant becomes a lonely Shepard, killer hidden in the mountain woods during wartime. Under disguise of a black marketeer, a woman from the town maintains steady connection between the town and mountain, and organizes a resistance movement. Shepard falls in love with her, but suspects that she possibly wants gold instead.

Howard

April 2018 •English

Though legendary lyricist Howard Ashman died far too young, his impact on Broadway, movies, and the culture at large were incalculable. Told entirely through rare archival footage and interviews with Ashman’s family, friends, associates, and longtime partner Bill Lauch, Howard is an intimate tribute to a once-in-a-generation talent and a rousing celebration of musical storytelling itself.