FR
Old guilt, forgiveness and a new love. After 20 years in the French Foreign Legion, Martin returns to his Czech hometown. As soon as he arrives, he learns that his mother has died in his absence. Martin realizes that while in the military he learned to survive in any dangerous situation, but not how to cope with the complexities of human emotions and relationships. When he meets the deputy mayor's clever daughter Sara, he falls passionately in love and happiness seems to be within reach. But then his past catches up with him ...
Feb 2020
Ireland, June 1944. The crucial decision about the right time to start Operation Overlord on D-Day comes to depend on the readings taken by Maureen Flavin, a young girl who works at a post office, used as a weather station, in Blacksod, in County Mayo, the westernmost promontory of Europe, far from the many lands devastated by the iron storms of World War II.
May 2019
Moscow, Russia, December 2016. Edward Snowden, Larry Lessig and Birgitta Jónsdóttir meet for the first time in a secret place. Apparently, Russia is interfering in the US presidential elections while it mourns the death of its ambassador to Turkey. Snowden carefully chooses his interviews, so nobody really knows something about him. As the world prepares for Christmas, they gather to discuss the only issue that matters, their common struggle: how to save democracy.
Apr 2017
The greatness, fall and renaissance of Hammer, the flagship company of British popular cinema, mainly from 1955 to 1968. Tortured women and sadistic monsters populated oppressive scenarios in provocative productions that shocked censorship and disgusted critics but fascinated the public. Movies in which horror was shown in offensive colors: dreadful stories, told without prejudices, that offered fear, blood, sex and stunning performances.
Aug 2017
From 1957 —the year in which the Soviets put the Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit— to 1969 —when American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon—, the beginnings of the space conquest were depicted in popular culture: cinema, television, comics and literature of the time contain numerous references to an imagined future.
Dec 2016
The testimony of the men who unwittingly became war photographers on the streets of their own towns in Northern Ireland, when violence erupted around them. Instead of photographing weddings and celebrities, as they expected, they produced the images that crudely show the suffering of ordinary people between 1968 and 1998, the worst years of the conflict.
Jan 2019
By the end of the seventies, disco music, considered too mainstream, was dead. But DJs and dance floors still needed new records and faster rhythms. Built on synthesizer sounds, the hi-nrg (high energy) style swept the gay clubs before hitting the charts during the eighties.
Feb 2019
An American low-budget action film celebrated an unexpected worldwide success in 1988: "Bloodsport". With its, the world of film fans and martial arts cinema discovered a new idol: Jean-Claude Van Damme. In the 1970s there was Bruce Lee, but at the end of the 1980s a Belgian won the day. Van Damme was a karate master and had unparalleled strength and flexibility. For ten years he was one of Hollywood's hottest action stars. But excessive overconfidence and drugs bring him down again. At home in Europe he becomes a laughing stock on talk shows. Only with "JCVD" does he manage to get back on his feet, playing his character with perspective and self-irony, but without ever giving up the reputation that his action films brought him and which has been a cult for several generations. The highs and lows of his eventful life are told through archive footage and contributions from people close to the popular Belgian actor.
Mar 2023
Russia, China and Iran: three former empires are determined to take their revenge and reassert their power after centuries of humiliation. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, they have never been so aligned on the international stage. Their common goal: to put an end to Western hegemony, restore their zone of influence and propose a new model of society. To achieve this, they are waging a hybrid war against the democracies: military, technological, economic, informational and ideological. Are they on the verge of joining forces to create a new world order?
May 2024
The story of a powerful political and economic dynasty, fundamental to understanding the turbulent destiny of the United States of America throughout the 20th century; of nine brothers who had truly extraordinary lives, marked by both greatness and tragedy: the story of the Kennedy family.
Jul 2023
Gerhard Richter has spent over half a century experimenting with a tremendous range of techniques and ideas, addressing historical crises and mass media representation alongside explorations of chance procedures. This first glimpse inside his studio in decades is exactly that: a thrilling document of the 79-year-old's creative process, juxtaposed with rare archival footage and intimate conversations with his critics and collaborators.
Mar 2012
With a sense of humour, this documentary questions the condition of women from the angle of the image and perception of their body, and covers the new taboos and aesthetic diktats concerning their genitals in the era of the sexual revolution and contemporary feminism.
The film tells the story of the incredible fate of pianist Clara Haskil. She was celebrated very early as a prodigy. At the tender age of five, she was sent by her family from Bucharest to Vienna, and later, under the care of her strict uncle, to Paris to continue her studies. She will suffer from chronic health issues, survive two world wars, anti-Semitism, before having to go into exile in Vevey, Switzerland. That’s where she found the proper support, in the early fifties, to begin the career she deserved for so long, world fame and undeniable recognition.
Working at the limits of what can easily be expressed, filmmaker Peter Mettler takes on the elusive subject of time, and once again turns his camera to filming the unfilmable. From the particle accelerator in Switzerland, where scientists seek to probe regions of time we cannot see, to lava flows in Hawaii which have overwhelmed all but one home on the south side of Big Island; from the disintegration of inner-city Detroit, to a Hindu funeral rite near the place of Buddha's enlightenment, Mettler explores our perception of time. He dares to dream the movie of the future while also immersing us in the wonder of the everyday. THE END OF TIME, at once personal, rigorous and visionary, Peter Mettler has crafted a film as compelling and magnificent as its subject.
Dec 2012
The pride of Napoleon's victories, the Arc de Triomphe, whose first stone was laid in 1806 at the top of the Champs-Élysées, is, along with the Eiffel Tower, one of the most visited monuments in the French capital. Wanted by an emperor, inaugurated under the reign of a king (Louis-Philippe) and sanctuarized by the Republic, this patriotic temple polarizes the passions of a whole nation. A historical portrait before "packaging", which teems with anecdotes and unsuspected details.
Sep 2021
A close look at Alexander the Great - from Macedonia to India. Alexander the Great has always enjoyed a unique status in history. To the Greeks and Romans, he was a hero, to the Arabs, he was a prophet, to Westerners, he is a myth. Alexander the Great Hellenized the ancient world and spread Greek civilisation single-handedly throughout, as far as the borders of India, by relentlessly pursuing his sworn enemy Darius the Great, King of Persia. But what remains today of the "real" Alexander? Of his life and environment? Through the many depictions of the hero and the archaeological traces of his triumphant conquest, this film portrays the legendary figure, who has always been, and continues to be, a great source of inspiration, even for artists of today.
Dec 2011
Second-hand car sales man Willenbrock has everything that he could ever wish for. He is married, has two lovers, a cottage in the German city Grünen, and a BMW. Yet one day while at his cottage he gets mugged and his life is drastically changed. Little by little the world he once felt safe in falls apart around him.
Mar 2005
The personal and professional story of Ilona Staller, known as Cicciolina, is probably unique: she left communist Hungary and moved to Italy, where she found a fertile environment for a life dedicated to scandal.
May 2017
Freed from the shackles of communism in the 1990s, Russia seemed to be entering an era of rebirth. But as is often the case in that country, history unfolded harshly. For the majority of Russians, the transition to a market system was painful and chaotic - and anything but democratic. Amid the confusion, a few shrewd and ruthless businessmen exploited the loopholes in the Soviet economy to make fast money, staving off a return to communist rule. Nicknamed the oligarchs, these men, all billionaires, manoeuvred their way into Russia's political inner circle during glasnost, are credited with Boris Yeltsin's re-election in 1996, and suspected of anointing Vladimir Putin in 1999. They're powerful men with powerful enemies, and they continue to shape Russian society. Dizzying in its detail, The Rise and Fall of the Russian Oligarchs puts modern-day Russia into perspective.
Jan 2006
In 1981, a film about the misadventures of a German U-boat crew in 1941 becomes a worldwide hit almost four decades after the end of the World War II. Millions of viewers worldwide make Das Boot the most internationally successful German film of all time. But due to disputes over the script, accidents on the set, and voices accusing the makers of glorifying the war, the project was many times on the verge of being cancelled.
Jan 2021