Through a series of vignettes from the ancient and war-torn Levant, WILD IS THE SPRING captures moments in the lives of diverse ethnic communities who struggle to survive when life descends into chaos.
Social & External
A documentary on how British double-dealing during the First World War ignited the conflict between Arab and Jew in the Middle East. The bitter struggle between Arab and Jew for control of the Holy Land has caused untold suffering in the Middle East for generations. It is often claimed that the crisis originated with Jewish emigration to Palestine and the foundation of the state of Israel. Yet the roots of the conflict are to be found much earlier – in British double-dealing during the First World War. This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determined the fate of the Middle East.
Although he already has searched Iraq unsuccessfully for weapons of mass destruction as a member of a UN mission, German bio-weapons expert Arndt Wolf is still obsessed with the idea that Saddam Hussein is hiding something. Nobody around him is interested in this topic any more. This changes abruptly when an Iraqi asylum seeker claims to have been involved in the manufacture of chemical weapons. The German Federal Intelligence Service summons Dr. Wolf to ascertain the legitimacy of the claims made by the informant, who has been given the code name “Curveball”.
In a field somewhere in the countryside, two Ukrainians take a break from their long drive out of the capital. A personal account of Daniel, his wife Kateryna, and their journey out of their home town of Kyiv, Ukraine, on the 24th of February 2022.
A woman reads the newspaper with such intensity that she gets literally devoured by it. Painted on its pages she witnesses some of the tragic events of our times, drowns in ocean trash and is threatened by the elements unleashed by climate change. Yet in her despair she transforms this darkness into movement and art, so she plants the seeds of hope.
After being tried for his crimes and released on parole, the young Captain Ran Nesher receives a new mission: to command a squadron of Mirage aircraft that not long ago lost its revered commander in battle. The squadron's deputy commander, Captain Eitan Rom is threatened by the appearance of his new commander, who seems to him to be irresponsible and inexperienced to the point of endangering the pilots. The power struggle between them causes tensions and dysfunction of the squadron. When the two crash land together in enemy territory, they are forced to learn to work with each other to survive. Upon their return to the squadron and the outbreak of the Six Day War, the two face a decisive battle and realize that only through cooperation will they be able to lead the squadron to victory. Love also has a place. Eitan, who is in love with Galia, the operations officer, learns precisely from his rival Ran how to overcome his fears and succeed.
This feature documentary follow 5 architects on their determined journeys to continue building during wartime, as they seek a new people-focused identity for Ukrainian architecture. While Russia continues to turn former Ukrainian cities to dust, Ukraine’s leading architects are already building upwards & advanced new buildings are rising again as symbols of hope.
Bahman, Mahtab, Ramin and Donya Mehdipour are enjoying a perfect summer in a small Finnish town. Their routines are fractured by a negative decision on their application for asylum by the Finnish Immigration Service. But life must go on and the 13-year-old Ramin is about to enter an entirely new school, junior high. The Mehdipours use their last chance to appeal but continue their everyday lives, fuelled by their exceptionally positive outlook and attitude.
During a war in an imaginary country, unscrupulous soldiers recruit poor farmers with promises of an easy and happy life. Two of these farmers write to their wives of their exploits.
Meduza follows Ukrainian artist-turned-sniper Pavlo Aldoshyn from the first days of the war in 2022. Throughout the film, Pavlo's inner life connects to a range of stories around the globe, including a Japanese widower searching the ocean for his wife, and an Amazonian tribesman describing the loss of a mythical ladder uniting earth and sky.
Swan is a lonely Serbian refugee in Belgrade. He hopes for a visa to follow his long-lost fiancée to Chicago, but winds up at the Happy Millennium dating agency. A warm romantic comedy with a twist.
Louka, whose parents were killed in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, persuades a beautiful smuggler to take him over the border to visit his village, where a magical experience awaits them.
Here, where even monsters are political, the topography has its own memory. It has the mythological blues. Meanwhile, old gods are upset with us, and I am upset with my father.
Two sisters try to survive the war by isolating themselves inside the house after their parents have disappeared. Through strange messages and clues, they try to figure out where their parents have gone.
In the year 1915, while the world starts falling apart, a husband comes home to his wife with bad news
Qader, a bricklayer from Sardasht in Kurdistan Iran whose wife is pregnant with her 4th child, suddenly found himself amid a war crime perpetrated by the Saddam regime. On June 28th, 1987 Iraqi air fighters dropped mustard gas bombs on the city...
A movie about Hokushin Japan
A Nigerian refugee struggles to integrate into Australian society after escaping the clutches of Boko Haram, until he meets a woman who opens her home, and ultimately her heart, to him.
It was assisted by the Qing army and some traitors (Fan Cheng-En), who captured Guangzhou and massacred the civilians for three days until Sun Yat-Sen established the Republic of China and Chiang Kai-Shek succeeded in the Northern Expedition.
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.
Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.
As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.
A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the war.
Korengal picks up where Restrepo left off; the same men, the same valley, the same commanders, but a very different look at the experience of war.
The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. Some returning combat veterans suffer scars that are more psychological than physical. This film follows patients and staff during their treatment. It deals with what would now be called PTSD, but at the time was categorised as psychoneurosis or shell-shock. Government officials deemed this 1946 film counterproductive to postwar efforts; it was not shown publicly until 1981.
Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.
Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.
Virunga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Africa’s oldest national park, a UNESCO world heritage site, and a contested ground among insurgencies seeking to topple the government that see untold profits in the land. Among this ongoing power struggle, Virunga also happens to be the last natural habitat for the critically endangered mountain gorilla. The only thing standing in the way of the forces closing in around the gorillas: a handful of passionate park rangers and journalists fighting to secure the park’s borders and expose the corruption of its enemies. Filled with shocking footage, and anchored by the surprisingly deep and gentle characters of the gorillas themselves, Virunga is a galvanizing call to action around an ongoing political and environmental crisis in the Congo.
This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the way for the Allied forces from the Germans. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.
“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...
When Sgt. First Class Brian Eisch is critically wounded in Afghanistan, it sets him and his sons on a journey of love, loss, redemption and legacy.
One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows-Primo Levi. The Oscar®-winning Helen Mirren will introduce audiences to Anne Frank's story through the words in her diary. The set will be her room in the secret refuge in Amsterdam, reconstructed in every detail by set designers from the Piccolo Theatre in Milan. Anne Frank this year would have been 90 years old. Anne's story is intertwined with that of five Holocaust survivors, teenage girls just like her, with the same ideals, the same desire to live: Arianna Szörenyi, Sarah Lichtsztejn-Montard, Helga Weiss and sisters Andra and Tatiana Bucci. Their testimonies alternate with those of their children and grandchildren.
Meet the real-life airmen who inspired Masters of the Air as they share the harrowing and transformative events of the 100th Bomb Group.
Directors Hetherington and Junger spend a year with the 2nd Battalion of the United States Army located in one of Afghanistan's most dangerous valleys. The documentary provides insight and empathy on how to win the battle through hard work, deadly gunfights and mutual friendships while the unit must push back the Taliban.
"Trinity and Beyond" is an unsettling yet visually fascinating documentary presenting the history of nuclear weapons development and testing between 1945-1963. Narrated by William Shatner and featuring an original score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, this award-winning documentary reveals previously unreleased and classified government footage from several countries.
An engine fire leaves 4,000 passengers stranded at sea without power and plumbing in this wild documentary about the infamous "poop cruise" of 2013.
Against the darkening backdrop of New Delhi's apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protecting one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite.