Poland: A Nation under Stress

In the run-up to parliamentary elections in mid-October, Polish filmmaker Marcin Wierzchowski travelled across his country to gauge the atmosphere in a society that is more divided than ever.

The Ugliest Car

The youngest protagonist of the documentary is Wartburg, an automobile over 50 years of age. The car is still on the road, driven by Bogdan, a 70-year-old who is taking his mother to visit the German factory where she was forced to work during WWII. In this road movie which takes place between Majdanpek and Germany, the trip becomes a journey into the past, retracing memories from the war and revealing a unique relationship between an old son and his elderly mother.

Besa: The Promise

A documentary exploring how Albanians, including many Muslims, helped and sheltered Jewish refugees during WWII at their own risk, and trying to help the son of an Albanian baker that housed a Jewish family for a year return some Hebrew books that the family had to leave behind.

The Phoney War

September 3rd, 1939. Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany, only two days after the Wehrmacht invades Poland. This day, the sad date when the fate of the world changed forever, the Phoney War began: eight months of uncertainty, preparations, evacuations and skirmishes.

Wolves Return

Wolves divide and fascinate us. 150 years after they were driven to extinction in Central Europe, they are returning slowly but inexorably. Are they dangerous to humans? Is it possible to coexist? Using Switzerland as a point of departure, where wolves have returned in the very recent past, this documentary sheds light on the wolf situation in Austria, eastern Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, and even Minnesota, where freely roaming packs of wolves are more common sight.

Religulous

Commentator-comic Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about their faith. Traveling around the world, Maher examines the tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and raises questions about homosexuality, proof of Christ's existence, Jewish Sabbath laws, violent Muslim extremists.

Chernobyl 30 Years On: Nuclear Heritage

Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred on the night of April 26, 1986, its causes and consequences are examined. In addition, a report on efforts to strengthen the structures covering the core of the nuclear plant in order to better protect the population and the environment is offered.

Maidan

A chronicle of the civil uprising against the regime of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych that took place in Kyiv in the winter of 2013/14. The film follows the progress of the revolution: from peaceful rallies, half a million strong in the Maidan square, to the bloody street battles between protesters and riot police.

Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine

BREAKING POINT: The War for Democracy in Ukraine looks at people transformed by a democratic revolution, who give up their normal lives to fight a Russian invasion, in a war which has killed 10,000 and displaced 1.9 million Ukrainians.

The Auschwitz Trial

The biggest trial of Nazi war crimes ever: 360 witnesses in 183 days of trial - a stunning and gripping portrayal of the most terrible massacre in history.

Delta

White winter blizzard covers everything. We can rely now only on saints, on our prayers. The future has sailed away, with us left behind. Astray, we did not board the magic ship. The task at hand is simple — not to perish in the fog, not to die from the cold, not to get trapped under the ice. Not to fall in our own snares. Or are we all in one big trap anyway? Running around in a small circle, counting those who vanished.

Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport

In the nine months prior to World War II, 10.000 innocent children left behind their families, their homes, their childhood, and took the journey... to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust.

Detained

Najwa, Nawal, and Siham, three Palestinian widows, live with their 11 children in a house on Shuhada Street in Hebron. Their house lies on the border; the façade is under Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority controls the back. At the entrance to the house is a military post; on the roof the Israeli army has placed a watch point over Palestinian Hebron. The three women, trapped in the middle and constantly surrounded by Israeli soldiers, carry on their difficult lives in a perverse situation: the occupation becomes a routine, the absurd becomes a given. This is the story of an occupation that extends to the staircase and the roof of the house, where it encounters poverty, loneliness, pain, but also the small joys of everyday life. This is an internal prison, the external one is the ongoing occupation.

The Deal

Stop-motion animation on the arranging of marriages in 1950/60s set in the Eastern-Polish borderland. The script is based on a part of Mikołaj Smyk's diary, the director's grandfather. The biographical objects used in the animation, such as an authentic headscarf, Polish and Russian books, the copy of Mikołaj Smyk's diary and photographs help situate the story in its original environment.

1979: Big Bang of the Present

Deng Xiaoping's economic and political opening in China. Margaret Thatcher's extreme economic measures in the United Kingdom. Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland. Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The nuclear accident at the Harrisburg power plant and the birth of ecological activism. The year 1979, the beginning of the future.

Promises

Documentarians Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg traveled to Israel to interview Palestinian and Israeli kids ages 11 to 13, assembling their views on living in a society afflicted with violence, separatism and religious and political extremism. This 2002 Oscar nominee for Best Feature Documentary culminates in an astonishing day in which two Israeli children meet Palestinian youngsters at a refugee camp.

Letters from Wolf Street

A street in downtown Warsaw transforms into a kaleidoscopic portrait of Polish society. Behind the viewfinder is an Indian immigrant, who seeks to overcome the boundaries between himself and an anxiety-ridden country.

JA

Jacob, an elderly man living in a luxurious villa near Geneva called Rosebud, has just changed his name for the third time and become a Swiss citizen. His granddaughter comes to visit to make a portrait of him. As she searches for a way to bring his story to life, Jacob abandons the project…

The Number on Great-Grandpa's Arm

When ten-year-old Elliott asks his 90-year-old great-grandfather, Jack, about the number tattooed on his arm, he sparks an intimate conversation about Jack’s life that spans happy memories of childhood in Poland, the loss of his family, surviving Auschwitz and finding a new life in America.

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