The Soviet Story

Brink of Disaster!

January 1972 •English

A student is held up in the library while a riot rages outside. As SDS protesters head to burn the library down, he has to fend them off with his baseball bat. This film opens with actual footage of civil disturbances in the 1960s, and moves on to images of historical American figures.

From Atatürk to Erdoğan: Building a Nation

October 2019 •French

Turkey's history has been shaped by two major political figures: Mustafa Kemal (1881-1934), known as Atatürk, the Father of the Turks, founder of the modern state, and the current president Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, who apparently wants Turkey to regain the political and military pre-eminence it had as an empire under the Ottoman dynasty.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

September 2005 •English

The story of journalist Edward R. Murrow's stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

Red Dawn

August 1984 •English

It is the dawn of World War III. In mid-western America, a group of teenagers band together to defend their town—and their country—from invading Soviet forces.

The Witches of Salem

April 1957 •French

Salem 1692. The young Abigail, seduced and abandoned by John Proctor, accuses John's wife of being a witch in revenge. A series of tragic trials soon befall Salem as fear and suspicion blur the lines of reality.

The Beast Is Still Alive

November 2016 •Bulgarian

A young Bulgarian girl digs into her grandfather's turbulent life in an attempt to unravel the past and find answers and explanations for the catastrophic fall of communism.

Maledictis

March 2023 •English

During the anti-communist uprisings of the late 1950s, a writer of comedic poems against socialism was constantly pursued by Securitate troops.

The Gulag Archipelago: The Book That Changed Russian History

November 2023 •French

The story of Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) and his masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, published in Paris in 1973, which forever shook the very foundations of communist ideology.

Disco and Atomic War

April 2009 •Estonian

A different history of the Cold War: how Estonians under Soviet tyranny began to feel the breeze of freedom when a group of anonymous dreamers successfully used improbable methods to capture the Finnish television signal, a window into Western popular culture, brave but harmless warriors who helped change the fate of an entire nation.

Names in Marble

November 2002 •Estonian

Despite peaceful speeches, the army of the Soviet Russian is attacking Estonia, and the country's government is declaring a mobilization for all. Henn Ahas, the son of a poor family, hesitates to go to war.

Red Scarf

March 1964 •Korean

South Korean Air Force pilots engage in perilous missions against Communist North Koreans during the Korean War.

The Liberal War

November 1974 •English

The Vietnam War during the JFK years and beyond. Made in 1972 in the filmmaker's apartment, without documentary footage of the war, metaphors are created through the animation of images and objects, and through guerrilla skits. By rejecting the authority of traditional documentary footage, the anarchist spirit of individual responsibility is established. This is history from one person's point of view, rather than a definitive proclamation.

The Truth About Communism

January 1962 •English

Ronald Reagan hosts and narrates this documentary about the Communist threat to the free world. Alexander Kerensky, the first premier of the provisional Russian Government in 1917, formally introduces the film. This documentary traces the development of the Communist movement from birth, the Lenin years, its struggle for direction, the Stalin years (featuring a response by Leon Trotsky attacking the Stalin purges) and the ascendancy of Nikita Krushchev.

Bless You, Prison

November 2002 •Romanian

Based on Nicole Valery-Grossu's European best seller autobiographic novel "Bless you, prison", the film is a true story, with real events and characters. A young intellectual woman, Nicole is arrested. There follow three months of exhausting interrogation and isolation. Alone in a cell, she undergoes a spiritual experience similar to that of the great mystics.

Portugal: Carnations Against Dictatorship

April 2024 •German

In Portugal, during the night of April 24-25, 1974, a peaceful uprising put an end to the last government of the Estado Novo, the authoritarian regime established in 1933 by dictator António de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970), paving the way for full democracy: a chronicle of the Carnation Revolution.

Po całym ciele

January 1999 •Polish

Executioners from the Security Office stand trial. Members of a secret scouting organization seek justice and compensation for persecution in 1950. In the new Polish reality, the trial "fades into the fog"...

Bardzo krótki strajk. 14-15 grudnia 1981 roku

January 2007 •Polish

The social and independence ferment triggered in the fall of 1980 by Solidarity created an opportunity for dialogue between the nation and the ruling communists. Dialogue, not force. As always, students quickly joined the "rebellion and pressure." They wanted autonomy for Polish universities and their own independent representation, as well as sovereignty, without the "leading role of the party." When these dreams were not fulfilled, at the beginning of 1981, students at the University of Łódź went on their first long strike, which ended in success, and when martial law was declared in December 1981, the same students rushed to protest in the form of an occupation strike, which ended in pacification. The film consists of statements by the protagonists and witnesses of those events, archival footage, and staged sequences.

Solidarnosc, la première brèche

September 2020 •French

China Gate

May 1957 •English

Near the end of the French phase of the Vietnam War, a group of mercenaries are recruited to travel through enemy territory to the Chinese border.

The Way Back

November 2010 •English

A small band of multicultural convicts stages a daring escape from a WWII-era Siberian gulag, and embarks on a treacherous journey across five countries in a desperate race for freedom and survival.