Saved by Language

Can a language save your life? Yes it can, even an ancient one from the 15th century. Saved by Language tells the story of Moris Albahari, a Sephardic Jew from Sarajevo (born 1930), who spoke Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, his mother tongue, to survive the Holocaust. Moris used Ladino to communicate with an Italian Colonel who helped him escape to a Partizan refuge after he ran away from the train taking Yugoslavian Jews to Nazi death camps. By speaking in Ladino to a Spanish-speaking US pilot in 1944 he was able to survive and lead the pilot, along with his American and British colleagues, to a safe Partizan airport.

The Antifascists

A low-intensity war is being fought on the streets of Europe and the aim is on fascism. This critically acclaimed documentary takes us behind the masks of the militants called antifascists. In 2013 a group of armed nazis attacks a peaceful demonstration in Stockholm where several people are injured. In Greece the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn becomes the third largest in the election and in Malmö the activist Showan Shattak and his friends are attacked by a group of nazis with knives and he ends up in a coma. In this portrait of the antifascists in Greece and Sweden we get to meet key figures that explain their view on their radical politics but also to question the level their own violence and militancy.

Partizani

Nikšić, Montenegro, September the 9th, 1943. Few moments after the dawn, the artilleryman Sante Pelosin, nickname Tarcisio, fires the first cannon shot against a German column that was proceeding towards Italian placement. In the following weeks about 20000 Italian soldiers decide to not surrender and join Jugoslavian Resistance. The partisans of the Garibaldi Division narrated in this documentary are simple heroes, that fought the freeze, the hunger, and a crushing typhus fever epidemy, paying with tremoundous sufferings a valiant and aware choice of field .

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Celuloide colectivo: el cine en guerra

July, 1936. The terrible Spanish Civil War begins. When the streets are taken by the working class, the social revolution begins as well. The public shows are socialized, a model of production and exhibition of films, never seen before in the history of cinema, is created, where the workers are the owners and managers of the industry, through the unions.

Antifa: Skinhead Hunters

A French documentary on how groups of youth in Paris generated a backlash against the NeoNazi skinhead subculture, and by doing so earned themselves the nickname Chasseurs de Skins or 'Skinhead Hunters'.

Carceller, the Man Who Died Twice

The life story of Vicente Miguel Carceller (1890-1940), a Spanish editor committed to freedom who, through his weekly magazine La Traca, connected with the common people while maintaining a dangerous pulse with the powerful.

A War in Hollywood

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) caused a great impression on the lives of most of the American artists of that era, so many movies were made in Hollywood about it. The final defeat of the Spanish Republic left an open wound in the hearts of those who sympathized with its cause. The eventful life of screenwriter Alvah Bessie (1904-1985), one of the Hollywood Ten, serves to analyze this sadness, the tragedy of Spain and its consequences.

Don't Be a Sucker!

Propaganda short film depicting the rise of Nazism in Germany and how political propaganda is similarly used in the United States. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.

Words for an End of the World

Spain, April 14, 1931. The Second Republic is born. From the beginning, the writer Miguel de Unamuno is considered one of the ethical pillars of the new regime. Five years later, on December 31, 1936, a few months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Unamuno dies at his home in Salamanca, capital of the rebel side, led by General Francisco Franco, and main center of dissemination of its propaganda apparatus.

Uprising in Jazak

The elderly inhabitants of a village in Vojvodina look back on the war and the partisan battles. The film also examines how collective memories and myths enter the individual consciousness.

Leftist Extremism: Activism or Terror?

Leftist extremist groups operating in Europe have chosen violence as a political tactic: they attack the right-wing parties offices, attack the police, provoke riots in demonstrations. Although leftist violence is increasing, it receives almost no public attention. An investigation into the alleged good violence exercised in the name of a supposedly just cause.

Volere Votare

Through the testimonies of some Italian women, the documentary evokes the day of 2 June 1946, when they were called upon to cast their vote for the first time. The battles conducted by Italian women in the years leading up to 1946 to demand recognition of the right to vote. The approval of the right to vote for women by the Italian Parliament on 1 February 1945, at the proposal of the Italian Communist Party Secretary Palmiro Togliatti and statesman and founder of the Christian Democratic Party De Gasperi. The role of the first 21 women elected to the Constituent Assembly on 2 June 1946, and their contribution to the writing of the Italian Constitution.

Albert & Hermann Goering

Two brothers who could not have been more different. The eldest, Hermann Göring (1893-1946), was a prominent member of the Nazi regime, head of the German Air Force, and a war criminal. The youngest, Albert Göring (1895-1966), opposed tyranny and was persecuted, but today he is still unjustly forgotten, although he saved many lives while his brother and his accomplices ravaged Europe.

The Many Lives of Jorge Semprún

The incredible life of Jorge Semprún (1923-2011): son of a republican intellectual; exiled in the early days of the Spanish Civil War; survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II; clandestine communist in Spain during Franco's dictatorship; controversial socialist politician; acclaimed writer, screenwriter and filmmaker.

The Rebel

The adventures of Guido Picelli, a man who was a leading light in the history of twentieth-century Italy and Europe. Guido Picelli fought untiringly for the affirmation of social justice and opposed every form of totalitarianism.

Terrorists in Retirement

Not just another documentary on the French resistance movement, this film focuses on one particular group of underground fighters in France: those from Eastern Europe. Many were Jews and all had fled their native countries before the war broke out. They were among the most staunch and fearless enemies of fascism, as shown here in personal interviews and memoirs of war-time experiences. But the most famous of these immigrants were 23 who were rounded up among several hundred Parisians in 1943, tried for their activities, and executed -- all were immigrants under the leadership of the Armenian poet Manouchian. After their execution, Paris was papered with posters decrying these 23 martyrs as "foreign communists."

The Last Companions of the Liberation

They were going to become heroes, but they didn't know it. Most of them were not yet twenty years old in June 1940, when France found itself on the ground. They were starting careers, studies, had families, friends. None had heard General de Gaulle's call on June 18, but all listened to Marshal Pétain's speech on the 17th, asking to stop fighting. They immediately rebelled and joined London or the Resistance. Through the testimonies of seven of the last Companions of the Liberation (made in 2013), this film tells us about their unwavering commitment and takes us in their footsteps until the Liberation.

L'Assassinat de Pierre Goldman

This film attempts to reveal the reasons behind the death of Pierre Goldman and the identities of his murderers. Reviewing each of the unexplained elements surrounding the murder, the director questions friends and witnesses, travels to Venezuela, Guadeloupe, and Poland and uncovers certain rare archives. In so doing, he illuminates the many shadow zones of an unusual personality, symbol of a generation who thought to change to world. 30 years later, will this film disentangle the complex web of an unsolved mystery?