Swing Shift

Summer with Kuro

June 1990 •Japanese

Hiroshima, summer of 1945. A young girl named Nobuko saves a starving kitten from crows. She wants to keep the kitten, but her parents dismiss the idea. Nobuko eventually convinces them to let her keep it. She and her brother Makoto name the cat Kuro. Kuro quickly brings joy and laughter to the family. As World War II takes its toll on Japan, it becomes harder for Nobuko and her family to care for Kuro. One August morning, Kuro begins acting strangely...

Hunger for Freedom

February 2023 •Polish

The Second World War. A group of Royal Air Force officers led by William Ash (Jakub Reizer) is staying in Oflag XXI B, located in Szubin (Poland). The prisoners decide to organize a diversionary action, which is to be a daring escape through a tunnel, named after the main originator - the Asselin tunnel. They are helped in their activities by the Polish resistance movement, which includes a young photographer, Henryk Szalczyński (Michał Matela), who develops photos for forged documents.

Mother Country

April 1962 •Japanese

In 1919, a group of Japanese immigrants arrives in Hawaii. Among them Yoshio Inoue and his wife Kishimo and Sumi, a young woman ready to get married soon. With the soil that is hard to work and the subtropical climate, the immigrants have to cope with a hard life. But after years of hard work, Yoshio finds work as a teacher while his wife manages to open a small grocery store. But with the war around the corner, life becomes more and more complicated for the Japanese immigrants in a foreign country.

Za frontom

August 1973 •Slovak

The Last Sentence

December 2012 •Swedish

Renowned journalist Torgny Segerstedt declares war against Hitler as he criticizes Swedish politicians who tried to look away from the tyranny of the Nazis with the good excuse of “neutralism”. His only weapon is his pen and his life is full of gossip such as an affair with his boss’ wife, a love scandal with a secretary younger than his daughter, and the suicide of his wife. However, he continues to fight a one man battle against Hitler and the Nazi regime until his death, throwing the question “Can one person really change history?” to the audience.

Purge

September 2012 •Finnish

Aliide experienced The Great Terror under Stalin’s regime, and decades after her hometown people were deported to Siberia, she lives alone in an isolated house. One night, she finds a young woman in her yard – Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia that held her as a sex slave. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in unearthing each other’s motives and gradually their stories merge into one, revealing the tragedy of a family during the cruelest years in Estonian history.

Surrender - Hell!

July 1959 •English

Director John Barnwell's 1959 WWII drama stars Keith Andes as an American soldier in the Philippines who trains a village of headhunters to fight the Japanese. Also in the cast are Susan Cabot and Paraluman.

Seven Lost

July 2022 •English

An American troop stranded in the Italian wilderness, struggle to find their way back to safety during World War 2.

War Pigs

August 2015 •English

A rag tag unit of misfits known as the War Pigs must go behind enemy lines to exterminate Nazis by any means necessary.

The Blanket

September 2022 •Finnish

Ten-year-old Marja is sent to fetch milk for her baby brother. On the way there are things even more dangerous than the thin ice.

A Letter From Bataan

September 1942 •English

An American soldier pleads to the folks at home to conserve scarce wartime resources.

Meister des Todes

June 2015 •German

Based on explosive investigations, the thriller "Meister des Todes" ("Master of Death") tells of a German arms manufacturer and their questionable weapon exports to Mexiko.

...nebo být zabit

February 1986 •Czech

March 1945. It is already quite obvious to the Nazis that they cannot win the war. So it is time to think about the future after the war and to cover their tracks. One concentration camp must be completely cleared out and the prisoners buried in the mines. Only the mine-hunters remain - among them Ernest, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War from Vienna, and Kim, a resistance fighter from Prague. One day they decide to escape with the other prisoners, but they are betrayed and most of the escapees are shot. The pair of heroes are not alone, however, and on the way they are joined by a guard dog from the camp that Kim used to feed. In the coming days, Ernest leads young Kim through the unrelenting cold on his journey to freedom, teaching him that there is only one rule to follow in this time - kill or be killed.

The Midwife

September 2015 •Finnish

Helena has worked as a kind of midwife on the eve of the Lapland War. She wants to leave everything behind, and a suitable opportunity arises when she falls in love with a German-Finnish officer Johannes, who is leaving to German-led Titovka prison camp in the Soviet Union. Helena enlists into the camp as a nurse, where she experiences the brutality of war.

55 Socks

August 2011 •French

Based on a poem by Marie Jacobs, the animated short 55 Socks, by Oscar-winning director Co Hoedeman, pays tribute to the ingenuity of the Dutch people during a dark period of their history - the winter of hunger of 1944-45. It's the closing months of the war in occupied Holland and some women unravel a beautiful bedspread in order to knit 55 socks to barter for food. Reaching back into his childhood memories, Hoedeman has made a simple, poetic film of rare beauty.

In Love with Adolf Hitler

June 2007 •French

This film captures the affair, full of love, lust, and despair, between Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, from 1932 until their double suicide in 1945.

PITFALL

September 2017 •English

Amidst the horror and chaos of war, two enemies are forced into an unholy alliance in the battle for survival.

Come What May

November 2015 •French

In may 1940, the German troops enter France. Frightened by the progress of the enemy, the people of a small village of Pas-de-Calais decide on the recommendations of the prefecture, to give up everything to go on the road, fleeing to the coast.

Moon of Wolves

May 1987 •Spanish

This is movie is about the story of the people who keep on fighting after the Spanish Civil War were officially finished. They were republicans who took shelter among the mountains (principally the mountains in the north of Spain, between Asturias and León). These people were called "maquis" and defended the thought of a Spain free of the implacable fascism of the illicit military government of General Franco, who took the power in a bloody cruel civil war. Ramiro, Santiago and Gildo are the three main characters of the movie. Santiago and Gildo got killed and eventually Ramiro decided to escape to France, bored of being isolated by the democratic governments of other countries in Europe what kept General Franco in despite of the Republican Government, elected by the Spanish people and not by the power of guns.

Absent Without Leave

February 1993 •English

In 1942 Wellington, Daisy Edwards, 16 and pregnant, relies totally on her just-wed husband, Ed, who is little older than she. Ed is suddenly drafted into the army and is to be sent overseas to battle while Daisy is sent to her father in Auckland. When Ed's leave is cancelled at the last minute he takes the dangerous decision to go absent without leave to be with Daisy on her journey home. As a deserter, Ed is hunted, captured and imprisoned. Life inside is bad enought without the worry of what is going on outside. The film is based upon a true story.