Desert Victory

First Blood

October 1982 •English

When former Green Beret John Rambo is harassed by local law enforcement and arrested for vagrancy, he is forced to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.

Rome, Open City

October 1945 •Italian

In WWII-era Rome, underground resistance leader Manfredi attempts to evade the Gestapo by enlisting the help of Pina, the fiancée of a fellow member of the resistance, and Don Pietro, the priest due to oversee her marriage. But it’s not long before the Nazis and the local police find him.

Daughters of China

January 1949 •Chinese

Women play a heroic role in the Volunteer Army fighting the Japanese in the puppet state of Manchukuo.

Springtime in Budapest

April 1955 •Hungarian

At Christmas Eve in 1944 the runaway Pintér and Gozsó get through the Soviet blockade around Budapest. Pintér intends to hide in a flat abandoned by his own relatives, but he finds his relatives called the Turnovszkys, who are hiding the Jewish Jutka as well. Love unfolds between Zoltán and Jutka.

The Concert

May 1954 •

Celebrating the end of World War II and liberation of their city, a group of students is set on holding a cultural evening. They invite Ema, a reclusive piano teacher from the same building, to play for them. Ema declines, but starts reminscing back on her own life and the historical events that have seemingly overshadowed it.

Two Peasants

March 1955 •

The struggle of two Serbian peasants to choose between love of their families and love of their country.

Port Arthur

December 1936 •German

Espionage, war and romance in the Far East in 1904: Russian naval officer Boris Ranewsky marries Youki, the sister of a fanatical Japanese officer, but war is imminent.

My Life for Ireland

January 1941 •German

A Nazi propaganda movie from 1941 directed by Max W. Kimmich, covering a story of Irish heroism and martyrdom over two generations under the occupation of the British.

Uncle Krüger

January 1941 •German

An anti-British propaganda film from Nazi Germany which depicts the life of the South African politician Paul Kruger and his eventual defeat by the British during the Boer War.

The Battle of the Rails

February 1946 •French

A dramatized account of the French Resistance, this wartime film depicts how railway workers sabotaged German trains to disrupt troop movements and supply lines during the Nazi occupation. Blending documentary realism with fiction, it pays tribute to the courage and sacrifice of ordinary workers who became central to the fight for liberation.

A Generation

January 1955 •Polish

Stach is a wayward teen living in squalor on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Guided by an avuncular Communist organizer, he is introduced to the underground resistance—and to the beautiful Dorota. Soon he is engaged in dangerous efforts to fight oppression and indignity, maturing as he assumes responsibility for others’ lives. A coming-of-age story of survival and shattering loss, A Generation delivers a brutal portrait of the human cost of war.

In Which We Serve

September 1942 •English

The story of the HMS Torrin, from its construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ship’s first and only commanding officer is Captain E.V. Kinross, who trains his men not only to be loyal to him and the country, but—most importantly—to themselves.

The Blood Road

February 1955 •

Yugoslav Partizans, captured by Nazis, are sent to concentration camps in distant Norway. The local population help some Partizans survive or flee to neutral Sweden.

Forbidden Songs

January 1947 •Polish

Set during the German occupation of Warsaw during WWII, this musical tells the story of several inhabitants of the same tenement house.

The North Star

November 1943 •English

A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Later re-edited and released as "Armored Attack."

Africa - Part I - From Morocco to Kilimanjaro

June 1952 •Czech

The feature-length film by engineers J. Hanzelka and M. Zikmund captures how the two travelers prepared for their first trip around the world and in documentary footage describes their experiences from the first half of the trip through Africa. You will see for yourself what obstacles they had to overcome on the ravaged roads of Abyssinia and in what danger the fate of the expedition was during the daring passage through the Nubian desert. The film culminates with an ascent to the highest mountain in Africa, the extinct volcano Kilimanjaro, whose peak is covered in ice all year round.

Africa II – From the Equator to Table Mountain

October 1953 •Czech

The second part of the film begins with a journey in the equatorial region, where the travelers managed to capture the most typical images of the original Africa. The journey continues to the forests of the Belgian Congo, where they filmed the smallest people in the world, black dwarfs. From Central Africa, they head south through Victoria Falls and the mysterious ruins of a medieval settlement in Zimbabwe. In Johannesburg, they witness a celebration of black gold diggers. Their journey ends at the southernmost tip of Africa under Table Mountain in Cape Town. The end of the film depicts the birth of a volcano shot from close range.

From Argentina to Mexico

October 1954 •Czech

Travelers Hansel and Zikmund sail from Africa to South America. On their journey to film, they capture clouds of locusts on the plains of Argentina's Chaco, a snake farm in Butantane, skyscrapers in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, a visit to lepers in Paraguay, waterfalls in Iguazu, a daring expedition to the jungles of the Marañon river basin to hunt skull hunters. an Indian settlement in Panama and the journey ends prematurely in Mexico amidst the ruins of ancient Indian temples and pyramid.

Song of Russia

February 1944 •English

American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.

Victory of Mongolian People

March 1951 •Chinese