The Stasi: Secrets, Lies and British Spies

K-19: The Widowmaker

July 2002 •English

When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.

The Great Game: The Making of Spycraft

October 2024 •English

In 1995, former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin and ex-CIA Director William Colby collaborated in an unexpected way. They made a video game. The Great Game traces how both men rose to the tops of their fields following World War II, before falling out of favor with their respectives agencies — on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. For Kalugin, a growing discontent with the KGB’s treatment of Russians radicalized him against the institution. Meanwhile William Colby, an OSS operative and the CIA’s man on the ground in Vietnam, was fired by President Ford after testifying before Congress about controversial CIA programs like MKULTRA and CoIntelPro. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, both living on American soil, Colby and Kalugin played themselves in Spycraft, a multi-million dollar game that was among the most advanced of its time — and is now almost entirely forgotten.

How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin

September 2009 •English

In August 1962, director Leslie Woodhead made a two-minute film in Liverpool's Cavern Club with a raw and unrecorded group of rockers called the Beatles. He arranged their first live TV appearances on a local show in Manchester and watched as the Fab Four phenomenon swept the world. Twenty-five years later while making films in Russia, Woodhead became aware of how, even though they were never able to play in the Soviet Union, the Beatles' legend had soaked into the lives of a generation of kids. This film meets the Soviet Beatles generation and hears their stories about how the Fab Four changed their lives, including Putin's deputy premier Sergei Ivanov, who explains how the Beatles helped him learn English and showed him another life. (Storyville)

Falklands' Most Daring Raid

March 2012 •English

Documentary film about the then longest range bombing mission in history, which changed the outcome of the Falklands War.

The Good Shepherd

December 2006 •English

Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded OSS. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.

The Queen

September 2006 •English

The Queen is an intimate behind the scenes glimpse at the interaction between HM Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair during their struggle, following the death of Diana, to reach a compromise between what was a private tragedy for the Royal family and the public's demand for an overt display of mourning.

1968: A Year of War, Turmoil and Beyond

July 2018 •English

The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the May events in France, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Prague Spring, the Chicago riots, the Mexico Summer Olympics, the presidential election of Richard Nixon, the Apollo 8 space mission, the hippies and the Yippies, Bullitt and the living dead. Once upon a time the year 1968.

The Ministry for State Security - Everyday life at a public authority

October 2002 •German

Former heads, senior officers and the rector of the MfS law school explain how the ministry functioned. The interviewees see themselves as legitimate actors with a clear mandate and political enemy image. They provide an insight into the techniques and routines of secret service work, psychological tricks during interrogations and the management of “unofficial collaborators”. What they all have in common is that they are not aware of any moral guilt. The directors contrast their footage of prisons and archives with the statements of former Stasi employees in an attempt to expose their evasions and efforts at suppression.

Camp Century: The Hidden City Beneath the Ice

January 2020 •German

How in 1959, during the heat of the Cold War, the government of the United States decided to create a secret military base located in the far north of Greenland: Camp Century, almost a real town with roads and houses, a nuclear plant to provide power and silos to house missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.

Thirteen Days

December 2000 •English

The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962—the nuclear standoff with the USSR sparked by the discovery by the Americans of missile bases established on the Soviet-allied island of Cuba.

Spies: The Dirty Game of Espionage

January 1991 •English

You are about to enter the world of double-cross and triple-cross, of information and disinformation, of betrayal, blackmail, and murder. It is the world of international espionage with recently declassified and never before seen footage. A made-to-VHS documentary from the 1990s.

Un Jour en Royaume-Uni

January 2017 •French

The Arrow of Time

October 2017 •English

President Mikhail Gorbachev recounts the end of the Cold War and the reduction of nuclear arms.

Spy of Napoleon

September 1936 •English

Exiled French patriot helps to find the men who want to betray emperor Napoleon III by selling military secrets to the German government.

Nukes in Space

January 1999 •English

U.S. nuclear tests in space, and the development of the military intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

A Year Of British Murder

January 2019 •English

Between January 1st and 31 December 2017, 768 people died as a result of murder or manslaughter in Britain - approximately 14 people a week. This powerful and original film tells the stories of some of those cases, exploring the human cost of murder - the ordinary people whose lives are changed forever and the communities left to wrestle with the consequences. Filmed over 12 months, it follows families and friends from the immediate aftermath of the crime, through the court process, and as they try to rebuild their lives. These stories are shown alongside statistical analysis of homicide figures for Britain since the Millennium, which reveal that so far this century, the pattern of homicides has remained strikingly similar in terms of the profiles of victims and the circumstances of the killing. This urgent, unflinching and intimate film goes beyond individual incidents to ask what the patterns of murder in our time say about the state of Britain.

The Right Stuff

October 1983 •English

As the Space Race ensues, seven pilots set off on a path to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings forth momentous challenges.

Mission to Mir

October 1997 •English

This film shows how far we have come since the cold-war days of the 50s and 60s. Back then the Russians were our "enemies". And to them the Americans were their "enemies" who couldn't be trusted. Somewhere in all this a young girl in Oklahoma named Shannon set her sights on becoming one of those space explorers, even though she was told "girls can't do that." But she did.

Guten Tag, RDA !

March 2012 •French

Elton John: A Singular Man

January 2016 •English

An in-depth portrait of British composer, pianist and singer Elton John, pop star and myth of modern culture.