History

Set in the Cold War era of the 1950's, Relations between the United States and Russia are tense. Senator Joseph McCarthy has many Americans convinced that the Communists have infiltrated society. Paranoia runs rampant, as decent Americans lose their jobs on suspicion alone. Floyd Woods served as one of the FBl's top Special Agents until he was accused of having Communist sympathies. Floyd lost his job despite lack of evidence to support these claims. He now works as a small time insurance investigator, who's flown into the small town of Sherrill, NY to investigate a life insurance claim, only to find himself distracted by the locals' odd behavior.

The year is 1575 in feudal Japan. Oda Nobunaga's (Kippei Shiina) forces defeat Takeda Katsuyori, when Nagashino Castle was besieged during the Battle of Nagashino. The next year Oda Nobunada decides to build a lavish new castle symbolizing his unification of various factions. The castle named Azuchi Castle will be built near water and high enough to be seen from the capital city of Kyoto. Director Mitsutoshi Tanaka's adaptation of Kenichi Yamamoto's novel of the same name received the 33rd Japan Academy Film Prize for Excellent Art Direction.

Brooklyn-born Ruth Gruber became the youngest PhD in the world before going on to become an international foreign correspondent and photojournalist at age 24. She defied tradition in an extraordinary career that spanned several decades. The first journalist to enter the Soviet Arctic in 1935, Ruth also traveled to Alaska as a member of the Roosevelt administration in 1942, escorted Holocaust refugees to America in 1944, covered the Nuremberg trials in 1946, and documented the Haganah ship 'Exodus' in 1947. Her relationships with world leaders gave her unique access and insight. This documentary interweaves verite scenes with archival footage.

TAJOMARU is the famous 'bandit' of the forest from RASHOMON. Whoever kills Tajomaru inherits his name, status and sword. A royal brother leaves his kingdom to protect the princess he loves, only to find a series of harrowing adventures along the way which lead him back to where he came from, and then disinheriting his past to become the bandit TAJOMARU.

'Backstory' investigates the highly skilled art of 'Rear Projection', a widely used tool in film making in the mid 20th century employed in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo or Marnie. In 'Backstory' Lewis invites the Hansard family, which has been instrumental in the provision and development of Rear Projection for hundreds of Hollywood productions over several decades, to tell their own story of the heyday of the techniques and their decline and disappearance as the they are replaced by new technologies and new tastes in visibility.

In 1964, Yuwali was 17 when her first contact with white men was filmed. Her group of twenty women and children were the last aboriginal mob living traditionally, without any knowledge of modern Australia, in the Great Sandy Desert. Now 62 she tells the story behind this extraordinary footage.

The evolution of the depiction of the various Native American peoples in cinema, from the silent era to the present day: how their image on the screen has changed the way to understand their history and culture.

Italy, 1968. Aspiring actor Nicola enrolls in the police to pay for his studies, ending up undercover among college students protesting the government, the Vietnam War and the values of their parents' generation. However, he complicates his mission by falling for Laura, a bourgeois girl dreaming of a better world.

Berlin 36 is a 2009 German film telling the fate of Jewish athlete Gretel Bergmann in the 1936 Summer Olympics. She was replaced by the Nazi regime by an athlete later discovered to be a man. The film is based on a true story and was released in Germany on September 10, 2009. Reporters at Der Spiegel challenged the historical basis for many of the events in the film, pointing to arrest records and medical examinations indicating German authorities did not learn Dora Ratjen was male until 1938.

Nicolaus Copernicus, the son of a Toruń merchant, is a bright and curious child. When he is ten years old, the Dutch astrologer Paul van de Volder predicts a great future for him, which develops in the boy an interest in the stars. Paul van de Volder reappears in Nikolai's life when he is already a student at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. A battle for the student's soul begins between the charlatan astrologer and Wojciech of Brudzew and other university professors. Astrology fights with astronomy. From the doubts and questions that hound Nicholas, a discovery is born that will change the world.

A visionary Slavic queen and her faithful allies draw on everything in their power to overthrow the queen's despotic husband.

The beautiful and dangerous lesbian slave trader Druscilla practices all the customs of Ancient Rome - everything in Excess. But even excess can have its limits and the punishments can be very severe if she crosses the line and risks falling out of favor.

In August 1962, director Leslie Woodhead made a two-minute film in Liverpool's Cavern Club with a raw and unrecorded group of rockers called the Beatles. He arranged their first live TV appearances on a local show in Manchester and watched as the Fab Four phenomenon swept the world. Twenty-five years later while making films in Russia, Woodhead became aware of how, even though they were never able to play in the Soviet Union, the Beatles' legend had soaked into the lives of a generation of kids. This film meets the Soviet Beatles generation and hears their stories about how the Fab Four changed their lives, including Putin's deputy premier Sergei Ivanov, who explains how the Beatles helped him learn English and showed him another life. (Storyville)

Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).

The film "Birzhan Sal" tells about the dramatic life story of the legendary folk singer and composer Birzhan Kozhagulov.

It's 1949 and Tiananmen Square is a mess. Overgrown with weeds and thoroughly dilapidated it looks like hell, but it's where Chairman Mao wants to hold the Founding Ceremony for the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. And so TIAN AN MEN recounts the heroism, the struggle and the sacrifices of a People's Liberation Army unit as they...clean up and re-decorate the Tiananmen Gate? (Description by Subway Cinema)

The action takes place in a small Ural village beginning the War. The protagonist returns to his native place several years after the war and finds out that he is considered missed in action. The story about people whose quiet life was ruined by the War. The film reveals the tragedy of the whole nation.

In an attempt to unravel a mystery, a team of internationally renowned climbers and explorers join forces with archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians to climb into unexplored cave complexes that humans had not entered for hundreds if not thousands of years. What they find inside will rock the Himalayan world and re-write the history of this remote and mystical region.

In September 1909 a small group of determined girls gatecrashed a Boy Scout Rally and asked for 'something for the girls'. That simple action inspired a movement that now boasts ten million members in 145 countries. In this film we look back at the extraordinary story of guiding past and present, with the help of some amazing archive footage and interviews with famous former Brownies and Guides, including Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Dame Kelly Holmes, Kate Silverton and Shappi Khorsandi.