¿Por qué morir en Madrid?

Caleta Palace

November 2023 •Spanish

Eight foreign characters recall their exploits and fears in Malaga, a paradise city that starts a revolution on July 18th 1936, as the military coup is stopped by popular rebellion, until February 9th 1937, when Mussolini troops take Malaga and put it under the rule of Franco. Seven months that shape the stark tale of a besieged city, the first capital to be conquered in Spanish Civil War and a prelude of WW2.

Land Without Bread

December 1933 •Spanish

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Railway Station

January 1980 •Polish

Warsaw's Central Railway Station. 'Someone has fallen asleep, someone's waiting for somebody else. Maybe they'll come, maybe they won't. The film is about people looking for something.

Chronicles of Hope

June 1993 •French

In july 1936, the civil war began in Spain, and it would last three years. Since then, it has constantly been a subject for fascination and controversy. What could have pushed leftists from all over the world to fight for a cause that their governments rejected? Why did young men leave their work, their family and their country, so they could join a fight that was somehow a rehearsal for World War II? Nearly 40.000 people enlisted to defend their ideals on a foreign territory. Chronicles Of Hope doesn't intend to describe the events of the civil war in a one-tracked political mould; the human dimension is here the center of interest.

In Battle Against the Enemy of the World: German Volunteers in Spain

July 1939 •German

Nazi propaganda film about the Condor Legion, a unit of German "volunteers" who fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of eventual dictator Francisco Franco against the elected government of Spain.

Salvad la cosecha

January 1938 •Spanish

Cantata de la guerra civil

April 2021 •Spanish

The Wall

November 1962 •English

Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.

The GDR Complex

November 2016 •German

In 1987 GDR citizen Mario Röllig was arrested in Hungary for attempting to flee the GDR. Nowadays he gives talks about his experiences. This portrait shows just how subjective and riddled with taboos attempts to interpret GDR history can be.

Beyond the Line of Duty

November 1942 •English

This short film in support of the war effort focuses on the training and missions of Army Air Corps Captain Hewitt T. Wheless just after the U.S. entry into World War II.

Women at War

January 1941 •English

Documentary shows the variety of tasks assumed by British women since the outbreak of war, and thanks America for sending relief bundles to the victims of the London Blitz. Made for an American audience, the film is edited, narrated and written by three women, with no director credited.

Aquí y allí: journal d'une exilée

December 2020 •Spanish

While cleaning the apartment of Lucía, her deceased grandmother, Anna finds a notebook where she discovers the story of a secretly kept love, lived during the turbulent years of the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War.

Waco, the Big Lie

June 1993 •English

Waco, the Big Lie is a 1993 American documentary film directed by Linda Thompson that presents video-based analysis regarding the Waco siege. The first film made about the Waco siege, Waco, the Big Lie gained significant notoriety when it was viewed during the trial of American domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh. As part of the defense, McVeigh's lawyers showed Waco, the Big Lie to the jury.

Anniversary of the Revolution

November 1918 •Russian

A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.

The Brainwashing of My Dad

July 2015 •English

A filmmaker examines the rise of right-wing media through the lens of her father, whose immersion in it radicalized him and rocked the foundation of their family. She discovers this political phenomenon recurring in living rooms everywhere, and reveals the consequences conservative media has had on families and a nation.

Propaganda: Engineering Consent

May 2018 •French

How can the masses be controlled? Apparently, the American publicist Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995), a pioneer in the field of propaganda and public relations, knew the answer to such a key question. The amazing story of the master of manipulation and the creation of the engineering of consent; a frightening true story about advertising, lies and charlatans.

A Hero's Death

August 2001 •German

It was the biggest escape in the history of the Berlin Wall: in one historic night of October 1964, 57 East-Berliners try their luck through a tunnel into West Berlin. Just before the last few reach the other side, the East German border guards notice the escape and open fire. Remarkably, all the refugees and their escape agents make it out of the tunnel unscathed, but one border guard is dead: 21-year-old officer Egon Schultz.

Barefoot in the Kitchen

June 2013 •Spanish

What was the role of women in Spanish cinema from the 1930s to the present explained through fragments of different films, both fiction and non-fiction. (Followed by “Manda huevos,” 2016.)

Nanking

February 1938 •Japanese

Propaganda documentary about the fall of Nanking. Considered for a long time as a lost film, it was discovered in Beijing, China, in the year 1995.

När Franco stal Eurovision

May 2019 •Swedish

Documentary about Spain's 1968 victory in the Eurovision Song Contest and the suspicions of foul play by the Franco regime.