Commitments

The Scars

March 2019 •Basque

The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?

The Baader Meinhof Complex

September 2008 •German

'Der Baader Meinhof Komplex' depicts the political turmoil in the period from 1967 to the bloody "Deutschen Herbst" in 1977. The movie approaches the events based on Stefan Aust's standard work on the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF). The story centers on the leadership of the self named anti-fascist resistance to state violence: Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.

Leftist Extremism: Activism or Terror?

January 2019 •German

Leftist extremist groups operating in Europe have chosen violence as a political tactic: they attack the right-wing parties offices, attack the police, provoke riots in demonstrations. Although leftist violence is increasing, it receives almost no public attention. An investigation into the alleged good violence exercised in the name of a supposedly just cause.

If Not Us, Who?

March 2011 •German

In the early 60s, Bernward Vesper and fellow university student Gudrun Ensslin begin a passionate love in the stifling atmosphere of provincial West Germany. Dedicated to the power of the written word, Bernward and Gudrun found a publishing house whose first publication is, paradoxically to many, a controversial past work of Bernward's ostracized father, an infamous Nazi author. Bernward defends his father's writing ability, even if he is haunted by his father's suspicious past.

Do Útero Ao Túmulo

December 2022 •Portuguese

The Rankin File: Legacy of a Radical

May 2018 •English

A feature documentary investigation into the colourful and sometimes controversial life of Vancouver lawyer, city councillor and socialist icon Harry Rankin.

Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home

July 2006 •English

Every American who has listened to the radio knows Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The music of the folk singer/songwriter has been recorded by everyone from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to U2. Originally blowing out of the Dust Bowl in Depression-era America, he blended vernacular, rural music and populism to give voice to millions of downtrodden citizens. Guthrie's music was politically leftist, uniquely patriotic and always inspirational.

H2S

September 1969 •Italian

Young student runs away from a 1984-esque dictatorship, lives for a while with a crazy girl in a surrealistic “igloo” in snowy wilderness and then returns to lead a revolution against the oppressive system. Sci-fi tale consistent with the political climate of May 68.

Half a Life

June 1982 •French

Michel Recanati was a militant leader in the May, 1968 riots in Paris, organizing many groups to meet, discuss, and act on leftist principles both before and after the disturbances. He was imprisoned for a short while in 1973. Disillusioned after the failure of the demonstrations and the death of the only woman he had loved, his life seems to have changed from a period of hope and activism to one of bottomless despair. His friend, Romain Goupil wrote and directed this biographical documentary. Death at 30 received the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's Golden Camera Award for "Best First Feature-Length Film."

Orange Sunshine

March 2016 •English

The never-before-told story of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love – a spiritual group of surfers and hippies in Southern California that became the largest suppliers of psychedelic drugs in the world during the 1960s and early 1970s. Bonded by their dreams to fight social injustice and spread peace, this unlikely band of free-spirited idealists quickly transformed into a drug-smuggling empire and at the same time inadvertently invented the modern illegal drug trade. At the head of the Brotherhood, and the heart of this story, is the anti-capitalistic husband and wife team, who made it their mission to change the world through LSD.

The New Devil of Hellsbottom

June 1964 •Estonian

The way Saint Peter explains it to the Devil who's knocking on Heaven's door to collect his share of souls: there will be no more souls, as God has come to doubt if humans are really meant to achieve salvation. If they aren't then how can they be punished posthumous and sent to Hell? There's only one way to make sure if sinning is the human nature, or is it that they simply don't want to better themselves - Devil himself must go down to Earth, in human form, and if he can achieve salvation then so can a human being... Based on A. H. Tammsaare's classic novel of the same name.

Kindergarten

August 1984 •Russian

The movie reminiscence of the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko about the military childhood when he one reached the Siberian Winter station where he was waited by the grandmother. The way was unusually long, cold, hungry and angry.

ECCE HOMO

March 2015 •Romanian

In a godforsaken landscape, filmed in transcendental black and white, as if fallen out of time, young Ada lives alone with her ill mother. Her rather lonely existence is characterized by hard work and poverty and as her mother's condition worsens there doesn't seem to be a way out anymore. Ecce homo is a parable about being human, rich in religious symbolism, which dreamily and at the same time sombrely poses existential questions without volunteering answers.

Nights

September 2000 •Portuguese

The pain, the weakness, the silence, the despair. These are some of the feelings faced by a couple lost in drugs. Nights can be seen as the story of people who made mistakes in life, but who still continue to seek happiness. It is about the despair of hopeless lives. The characters are, from the beginning, thrown into an empty and sterile world of indifference. In this true no-man's-land, João and Teresa are confronted with their precarious existence. They are broken pillars of a love that has become silent and painful, they share everything: the house, the drugs, the emptiness and the deprivations of their lives. To make the situation even more dramatic, Teresa falls ill. João does everything to help her, betting on his love for her. He, too, an addict, knows how to ease the pain of his beloved. But unfortunately this help also requires extra money, which forces João to prostitute himself, accelerating his process of destruction and his path to a tragic end.

Bongu

June 2017 •Tamil

Three hi-tech burglars, who lose their jobs because of a business tycoon, set out to take revenge against him.

Two People Meeting

July 2016 •German

Senta and Thomas are dying to fall in love - just not with one another. Still, when two people - a hopeless romantic and a system analyst - meet, an unexpected amour fou ensues.

Brandenburg Division

September 1960 •German

The famous-notorious Division Brandenburg was (in wartime) under command of Admiral Canaris. But, the death brave division, joined by men, who where not really quite volunteering, received a command: Sulina, a harbour at black sea, where urgently needed oil is turner over, should be prevented from an attack. The plan is worked out and some more men need to volunteer, to let it become real.

Chop

June 2016 •English

On a small rural farm, an older son tries to chop wood at the insistence of his father, while his younger brother cruelly tests his fragile psyche.

Good Luck, Orlo!

September 2016 •Slovenian

A baby has died. Orlo's parents are consumed with grief. In an attempt to make them happy and his family whole again, Orlo does something unexpected.

Waldrausch

August 1962 •German