Extraordinary Commissar

A Season of Giants

November 1990 •English

At the turn of the sixteenth century, Michelangelo (Mark Frankel), Raphael (Andrea Prodan), and Leonardo Da Vinci (John Glover) create their masterpieces, while dealing with religious persecution, political turmoil, and the discovery of America.

Käthe Kollwitz – Pictures of a Life

April 1987 •German

Kathe Kollwitz was 47 years old, and already a well established artist in Germany and abroad when Peter, her youngest son, volunteered to join the German army in WWI and was killed two weeks later. This painful tragedy changed Kollwitz's life and art forever.

Taghiyev: Oil

November 2024 •Azerbaijani

A history written with tears and oil... The life story of the great philanthropist Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev.

Heinrich Heine

January 1978 •German

Walker

December 1987 •English

William Walker and his mercenary corps enter Nicaragua in the middle of the 19th century in order to install a new government by a coup d'etat.

André Chénier

February 1910 •French

The life of French poet André Chénier, precursor of the Romantic movement, who was guillotined during the Revolution aged only 31.

François Villon: The Maverick Poet

January 1987 •Romanian

The film is a novelized biography of François Villon (1431-1463), known as the Wandering Poet, who led a troubled life due to the fact that he supported the free expression of people in a coercive climate.

The Labour and Rose

December 1962 •Azerbaijani

The film is about famous Chechen ballet and folk dancer Mahmud Essembayev's life.

Francisco Boix: A Photographer in Hell

January 2000 •Spanish

In 1939, just finished the Spanish Civil War, Spanish republican photographer Francesc Boix escapes from Spain; but is captured by the Nazis in 1940 and imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp, in Austria, a year later. There, he works as a prisoner in the SS Photographic Service, hiding, between 1943 and 1945, around 20,000 negatives that later will be presented as evidence during several trials conducted against Nazi war criminals after World War II.

The Vow

July 1946 •Russian

The story of Stalin and the Soviet people.

Mary Kom

September 2014 •Hindi

A chronicle of the life of Indian boxer 'Mary Kom' who went through several hardships before audaciously accomplishing her ultimate dream.

MacArthur

July 1977 •English

The film portrays MacArthur's life from 1942, before the Battle of Bataan, to 1952, the time after he had been removed from his Korean War command by President Truman for insubordination, and is recounted in flashback as he visits West Point.

The Apprentice

October 2024 •English

A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry scion of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé—someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.

Pyotr Martynovich And The Years Of Great Life

February 1976 •Russian

A semi-documentary biography film about the life and work of Soviet film actor Pyotr Aleynikov. Includes newsreels from the 1930s, footage from films featuring Aleynikov and interviews with his closest friends and colleagues.

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler

April 2009 •English

Irena Sendler is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes saving Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, her idea is met with skepticism by fellow workers, her parish priest, and even her own mother Janina.

Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story

October 2024 •English

Father Edward J. Flanagan is a familiar name to many Americans, often for the Oscar-winning 1938 film starring Spencer Tracy about Flanagan’s groundbreaking child welfare organization. But the story extends far beyond that, to a man whose name and legacy are still well-known as far as Germany and Japan. Flanagan gained influence and admiration over the course of his life from Presidents, CEOs, celebrities and more, but none mattered more to him than that of the children for whom he tirelessly worked. A sobering reminder of this was during WWII, as Flanagan saw droves of former Boys Town citizens go off to war. In fact, so many former Boys Town boys named Flanagan as their next of kin that the American War Dads Association named him as America’s No. 1 War Dad.

Michael Collins

October 1996 •English

Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.

Au Revoir les Enfants

October 1987 •French

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.

Viva Zapata!

February 1952 •English

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish

September 2004 •English

The third of three parts, we follow Tulse Luper as he continues his adventures as a professional prisoner during the later years of the Second World War and its aftermath, the Cold War. The Tulse Luper Suitcases reconstructs the life of Tulse Luper, a professional writer and project-maker, caught up in a life of prisons. He was born in 1911 in Newport, South Wales and presumably last heard of in 1989. His life is reconstructed from the evidence of 92 suitcases found around the world—92 being the atomic number of the element Uranium. The project by Peter Greenaway includes three feature films, a TV series, 92 DVDs, CD-ROMs, and books.