Beyond Zero: 1914-1918

The Deserter

February 1983 •Italian

In this tragic story that has an unrealized potential to tug at the emotions, a woman in mourning for her two sons lost in World War I is the only one in her village determined to financially support a war memorial. The village poor have too little money, and the richer are tight-fisted. She has given a whole 15 years of savings -- yet the good priest, for whom she works as a maid, is not enthusiastic about her action because he is worried that the memorial will not remind the villagers of past horrors and suffering but disguise the human cost of war in rhetoric. As the memorial's advocates begin to sustain the day, flashbacks show how the woman's youngest son shot his captain, deserted the army, and came to die of fever while in his mother's care. The priest helped her as much as possible, yet he feels compelled to tell the authorities that her son was a deserter.

J'accuse

April 1919 •French

The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.

Spite

November 1988 •

Jozo and Mujo are mobilized in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Reluctantly drawn into the war they make a bond of unbreakable friendship. To realize the plan to leave hated Army, Jozo are pretending to be deaf and dumb. But his firm determination comes into question when his friend's life comes into mortal peril.

Arsenal

February 1929 •Russian

A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists.

Westfront 1918

May 1930 •German

A group of German infantrymen of the First World War live out their lives in the trenches of France. They find brief entertainment and relief in a village behind the lines, but primarily terror fills their lives as the attacks on and from the French army ebb and flow. One of the men, Karl, goes home on leave only to discover the degradation forced on his family by wartime poverty. He returns to the lines in time to face an enormous attack by French tanks.

Von Richthofen and Brown

June 1971 •English

Spend time on both sides of World War I, partly with German flying ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law), aka "The Red Baron," and his colorful "flying circus" of Fokker fighter planes, during the time from his arrival at the war front to his death in combat. On the other side is Roy Brown of the Royal Air Force, sometimes credited with shooting Richthofen down.

1914, et soudain la guerre !

November 2024 •French

Quiet Flows the Don

October 1957 •Russian

Based on the novel of the same name by Mikhail Sholokhov, about the fate of people broken by the First World War, the October Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War in Russia (1917-1922), about the collapse of the foundations and ideals of the Don Cossacks of Russia at the beginning of the XX century, about the personal tragedy of the protagonist — Grigoriy Melekhov.

The Fear

August 2015 •French

Gabriel, a young soldier, is sent to the Western Front in 1914. He experiences the hell of the trenches and the devastating effects that fear has on all the troops. He comes out alive after this horrendous experience, full of rage and fire, and discovers his own humanity.

Born to Love

April 1931 •English

A pregnant American nurse living in London during WWI, believing her soldier-fiance has been killed in France, marries a wealthy aristocrat so her child will have a father.

The Peach Thief

November 1964 •Bulgarian

The wife of a Bulgarian POW camp's warden falls in love with a Serbian prisoner at the end of World War I.

Russen und Deutsche - Sieben historische Wendepunkte

February 2021 •German

Noah's Ark

November 1928 •English

The Biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood, with a parallel story of soldiers in the First World War.

My French Amore

Invalid date •English

A black comedy about a man impersonating a spy in the midst of World War I.

Duty and Sacrifice

November 1926 •English

A story about countryside in Romania a little before WW1.

Children of Dust

June 1923 •English

Young Terwilliger, an orphan boy in New York City, "adopts" Old Archer, the caretaker of Gramercy Park, after the man is arrested for beating Terwiliger for picking a flower for his dead mother. As Terwilliger grows up, he falls in love with Helen Raymond, a pretty neighborhood girl, but finds a rival for her in Harvey Livermore. When World War I breaks out both boys enlist in the army and are sent to the front lines. Complications ensue.

The Eagle and the Lion: Hitler vs Churchill

September 2017 •French

Winston Churchill, one of the most revered men of the twentieth century. Adolf Hitler, one of the most hated leaders in contemporary history. Between 1940 and 1945, these two enormously contradictory personalities faced each other in both politics and war. A clash of giants whose story begins in the trenches of the World War I and ends with the debacle of the World War II.

The Exception

June 2017 •English

Nothing is as it seems in this riveting World War 2 thriller as a wary soldier goes to investigate a mysterious German monarch at his secluded mansion, leading him into a web of deceit and a dangerous love affair with a local Jewish woman.

Mata Hari: The Naked Spy

October 2017 •English

100 years ago Mata Hari faced the firing squad as a convicted Dutch spy. It was at this moment that the legend of Mata Hari, the seductive spy, was born. Newly-discovered documents cast doubt on her guilt and reveal startling truths about her life. Mata Hari was a self-made woman whose boldness and sexuality threatened the male establishment. Most of what we've known about her until now has largely been myth. Mata Hari's challenges as an abused wife, single mother and a creative independent woman are familiar to women around the world. At the turn of the century, her struggles to attain sexual freedom, artistic expression, and liberation from the constraints of conventional society are the same ones women face today. She graced the cover of Vogue, performed all over Europe and left a coterie of smitten admirers in her wake.

14-18 Spektakel-Musical

November 2014 •Dutch