Jean-Luc Godard's short feature about the PLO was initially shot with Jean-Pierre Gorin in the Middle East in 1970, but when he edited the footage with Anne-Marie Mieville several years later, many of the soldiers that had been filmed were dead. Reflecting on this fact, as well as on the problems of recording history and of making political statements on film, Godard and Mieville produced a thoughtful and provocative essay on the subject.
Mexico City, 1940. Leon Trotsky (Richard Burton), the exiled founder of Russia's Communist revolution lives in constant fear of assassination. Moscow shows its control of Mexico's Communist movement by encouraging anti-Trotsky rallies, and on May 24 an attempt by armed gunmen to storm his house fails by fault of its own lack of organization. Trotsky continues to call for the overthrow of Stalin while his cheerfully long-suffering wife Natalia Sedowa (Valentia Cortese) maintains a cordial household for special guests. Trotsky's followers supplement the house's defenses, and a special security man comes down from the United States to help out. Meanwhile Gita Samuels, one of Trotsky's secretaries (Romy Schneider) has a new boyfriend, a mysterious businessman named Frank Jacson (sic) (Alain Delon). Frank is actually an agent for Stalin, waiting for the right time to pounce.
This controversial spy-romance tale by Jean-Luc Godard was banned from release in France for three years because it refers to the use of torture on both the French and Algerian sides during the Algerian struggle for independence. The story focuses on Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor), a young, disillusioned man who becomes involved in politics, yet in spite of the fact that he stands up to torture and commits murder because of this involvement, he does not have deep political beliefs. Also featured is his lover Veronica Dreyer (Anna Karina, then-wife of director Jean-Luc Godard appearing in her first film) as a motivating factor in Bruno's behavior.
In West Berlin in 1978, the computer magnate P. J. Lurz seeks to increase sales by secretly promoting terrorism. He hires August, who recruits a “third generation” of terrorists, middle-class people for whom terrorism has become a lifestyle. The film is dedicated to “Someone who is a true lover, and that is probably no one.” However, when asked about this dedication, Juliane Lorenz, the film’s editor, said that she misread Fassbinder’s notes, and what he wrote was that the film was to be dedicated to “Someone who is a true liberal...” Fassbinder, who saw the film and read the dedication on screen, never mentioned the error to Lorenz.
Another highly provocative and extremely well made documentary from the director on religion fundamentalism, intolerance, communalism and cultural amnesia. A must see, given that the judicial decision on the Ayodhya issue was given just a few hours ago, following 61staggering years of dispute, violence and loss of innocent lives.
A legendary propaganda/documentary of the Third Reich's 1934 Nuremberg Party Rally. Featuring a cast of thousands as well as, of course, Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Hess, Goering and other top party officials.
Designed by Nazis, for Nazis, and about Nazis. Triumph of the Will was filmed by the German Propaganda Ministry in 1934 and covers the events of the Sixth Nuremburg Party Congress. The original intention was to document the early days of the NSDAP, so as future generations could look back and see how the Third Reich began. In reality, Triump des Willens shows historians how the Nazi state drew in the masses through propaganda and also how Adolf Hitler had a unique and terrifying ability to entice crowds to his beliefs by the very power of his words.
This original Soviet documentary was included in the Red Army victory parade DVD as a "special feature"...and it just so happens it's three times as long as the main one. A treat indeed!
"Over 40 Byelorussian and 1st Ukrainian Army cameramen contributed footage of this remarkable documentary of the fall of Berlin, including captured German footage."
About the film:
Phil Collins' works in film, video and photography deftly dissect the political and aesthetic implications of popular visual formats, and often provide a platform for the disregarded and the overlooked. Shining a light on what is generally perceived as the losing side in the political and social upheavals of the past two decades, marxism today is an ongoing project that began by following the fortunes of former teachers of Marxism-Leninism in Communist East Germany. Collins' short film marxism today (prologue) (2010), first shown at the 6th Berlin Biennale, mixes contemporary interviews alongside archive material in which snapshots of life in the old GDR are offset with the teachers' own recollections of the time, and their contrasting experiences after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
This film memorializes the leader of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, on the occasion of his death. It narrates the story of a life which is also the story of a nation--recounting his important accomplishments in the struggle against colonialism and imperialism. The simplicity of his ascetic life of study, work, and struggle is contrasted to the pomp of his official funeral, where the film documents the immense outpouring of grief by the Vietnamese people on the death of their leader.
Workers Leaving the Factory - such was the title of the first cinema film ever shown in public. For 45 seconds, this stillexistant sequence depicts workers at the photographic products factory in Lyon owned by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière hurrying, closely packed, out of the shadows of the factory gates and into the afternoon sun. Only here, in departing, are the workers visible as a social group. But where are they going? To a meeting? To the barricades? Or simply home? These questions have preoccupied generations of documentary filmmakers.
Santiago Alvarez, founder of the Cuban film school and for years director of Noticiero ICAIC, toured various regions of the world to portray the events and significant personalities of the second half of the twentieth century. April in the Year of the Cat was a portrayal of the long struggle of the Vietnamese people for their independence in various historical periods, also covering its rich cultural tradition, in the soundtrack as well as the images. This film is itself an important witness to the final victory of the North Vietnamese Army, the U.S. withdrawal and the country's reunification after the fall of Saigon in the days of April 1975.
Born in a decade of political turmoil, La Chinoise has become a cinematic marker for the significant historical events that surrounded its creation. Five Parisian students, their political awareness aroused by Chairman Mao's Little Red Book and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, envision an overthrow of Western governmental systems - which they aim to bring about through acts of terrorism. One of Godard's most brilliant films of the 60s, its success lies in the rejection of traditional narrative techniques: it is a dialectical charade which is as disturbing as it is comical. Though criticised in its day as a political manipulation, La Chinoise has proven alarmingly prophetic and its impact on audiences during the late 60s is echoed amongst viewers today.
Translated into English as "Collapse" or "Disintegration", RASPAD is much more than a chronicle of the Chernobyl accident. In it, producer-director-coscreenwriter Mikhail Belikov aims to document a country's entire moral, social, political, and economic disintegration. There are scores of concise and telling details here, from the small (Alexander has forgotten to bring a requested packet of soil from Greece, the homeland of his father, and so he fools the old man with some backyard dirt), to the medium (Ludmilla lies to Alexander about her affair; Valerii and Lyuba have bribed an official to send a relative to an old-age home so that they can take over their small, shared apartment), to the large (government officials tell Alexander there is no danger, then head their limos to the airport for the next flight out). Belikov reserves his greatest scorn for his own profession: the media--in the aftermath of the explosion, the TV channels (seen throughout the film) continue to carry only a marathon bicycle race.
