Last to Know

Public Shelter Organization and Staff

February 1963 •English

Created in 1963 at the height of the Cold War, this Civil Defense training film uses a dramatic premise to show how emergency staff should manage and organize a large public fallout shelter during a crisis. A Shelter Manager is shown immediately taking control of the situation in the shelter, speaking calmly to those who have made it into the facility, closing the door promptly once the shelter is full, and sticking to the "shelter plan" as the situation unfolds. Some of the areas discussed in this nuclear war drama are the safety plan, regular inspections, supervised public entry into shelters, ventilation, first aid, sanitation, fire prevention, decontamination of personnel, and more. "Shelter living is different," the Manager states, "But we have a trained staff that will make your stay in this shelter livable for us all."

Operations in Public Shelters

July 1963 •English

A heavily dramatized Civil Defense film that demonstrates how a public fallout shelter is supposed to function after a nuclear attack. This scenario takes place in a fictional any town called "Middlebury". The film describes the situation in a public shelter in Middlebury following an attack on the United States.

Public Shelter Supplies: What Does The Government Supply

April 1963 •English

Training film for shelter managers. Food, water, sanitation, medical, and radiation detection systems are explained.

Information Program Within Public Shelters

May 1963 •English

This Cold War film "Information Within Public Shelters" (1953) takes place in a fallout shelter, showing how a well-trained staff that provides information to shelter occupants, can keep them busy and calm during nuclear armageddon. This film was produced as the U.S. Government began to shift from promoting privately-owned "family" fallout shelters to the concept of large, public shelters.

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)

Standard Operating Procedure

February 2008 •English

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Out of State

November 2017 •English

Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.

The Big One

September 1997 •English

The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.

Rich Hall's Red Menace

November 2019 •English

2019 marks the 30th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Rich Hall examines the relationship between the West and the USSR in his inimitable fashion.

The Red Elvis

February 2007 •German

A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.

Nukes in Space

January 1999 •English

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

The Prison Within

January 2020 •English

Survivors of violent crimes and prisoners incarcerated for murder connect to undergo astonishing transformations, liberating themselves from the debilitating constraints of trauma, and shattering preconceptions of "us and them."

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.

Berlin Geheimoperation Tunnel

January 2011 •German

Picturesque India or, In and About Calcutta

January 1913 •English

Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.

Land of White Alice

January 1960 •English

Film sponsored by Western Electric (AT&T's equipment manufacturing division), the builder of the United States Air Force's White Alice Communications System in Alaska. Introduces the people and geography of the new state as well as the Western Electric radio-relay system, which links far-flung military sites, alert stations, and missile-warning facilities. Ralph Caplan praised the film's "intrinsically dramatic and highly photogenic" portrayal of communications equipment.

Emperors of Nothing

May 2024 •French

Emperors of Nothing is an unprecedented immersion within Forest, a prison in Brussels notorious for its inhumane incarceration conditions, bearing witness to how the human spirit resists or submits to this harsh world. Deeply personal and candid moments shared with inmates and wardens alike, those who have forfeited or devoted their lives to prison, expose universal truths of what it means to be "behind bars".

1989

November 2014 •English

Anders Østergaard’s film is an investigative look at the year the Berlin Wall fell, documenting the events that took place in Hungary as a prelude to the dramatic changes in November 1989. The director recreates the events and leads the audiences deep into the politicians’ secret meeting rooms by using a mix of interviews, archive material and reconstructed scenes and dialogues.

Schabowskis Zettel - Die Nacht, als die Mauer fiel

November 2009 •German

Cain's Children

September 2014 •Hungarian

Three boys, they all committed murder. After discovering their haunting faces and disturbing stories in a banned prison documentary from 1984, the filmmaker goes out to find them and discovers untold secrets and a Hungary he has never known.