Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust (2004)

There Is Many Like Us

In 1943, Max Fronenberg spent one year digging a secret underground tunnel to escape out of a prison camp in Warsaw, Poland during the Holocaust while saving fifteen other prisoners in the process and forced to leave behind the love of his life, Rena, in the prison.

The Dead Nation

A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.

Paragraph 175

During the Nazi regime, there was widespread persecution of homosexual men, which started in 1871 with the Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. Thousands were murdered in concentration camps. This powerful and disturbing documentary, narrated by Rupert Everett, presents for the first time the largely untold testimonies of some of those who survived.

The Devils

In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by the sexually repressed Sister Jeanne.

God on Trial

In the Jewish tradition of arguing with God, Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz decide to put God on Trial.

Winter Journey

Tucson, Arizona, September 1996. At the request of his son Martin, George Goldsmith tells him of his past in Nazi Germany as a member of a family of Jewish musicians and the strange history of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, a Jewish organization sponsored by Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels.

Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape—with U.S. help—to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.

Shoah

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

The Most Precious of Cargoes

Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a great forest. Cold, hunger, poverty, and a war raging all around them meant their lives were very hard. One day, the woodcutter's wife rescues a baby. A baby girl thrown from one of the many trains that constantly pass through the forest. This baby, this "most precious of cargoes", will transform the lives of the poor woodcutter's wife and her husband, as well as those whose paths the child will cross—including the man who threw her from the train. And some will try to protect her, whatever the cost. Their story will reveal the worst and the best in the hearts of men.

St. Louis

Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.

The Zone of Interest

The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing

Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.

I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale

John Cazale was in only five films – The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter – each was nominated for Best Picture. Yet today most people don't even know his name. I KNEW IT WAS YOU is a fresh tour through movies that defined a generation.

Loose Change

2nd Edition of Loose Change documentary. What if...September 11th was not a surprise attack on America, but rather, a cold and calculated genocide by our own government?We were told that the twin towers were hit by commercial jetliners and subsequently brought down by jet fuel. We were told that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757. We were told that flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. We were told that nineteen Arabs from halfway across the globe, acting under orders from Osama Bin Laden, were responsible. What you will see here will prove without a shadow of a doubt that everything you know about 9/11 is a complete fabrication. Conspiracy theory? It's not a theory if you can prove it.Written and narrated by Dylan Avery, this film presents a rebuttal to the official version of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the 9/11 Commission Report.

Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon

The aging Zhao embarks on his final and greatest campaign, a road to adventure that will crown his name in glory for all time.

Sunshine

The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.

Labyrinth of Lies

A young prosecutor in postwar West Germany investigates a massive conspiracy to cover up the Nazi pasts of prominent public figures.

Erna, Helmut and the Nazis

Germany, 1929. Helmut Machemer and Erna Schwalbe fall madly in love and marry in 1932. Everything indicates that a bright future awaits them; but then, in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rise to power and their lives are suddenly put in danger because of Erna's Jewish ancestry.

Here and Elsewhere

Here and Elsewhere takes its name from the contrasting footage it shows of the fedayeen and of a French family watching television at home. Originally shot by the Dziga Vertov Group as a film on Palestinian freedom fighters, Godard later reworked the material alongside Anne-Marie Miéville.

At the Drive-In

Unable to purchase a $50,000 digital projector, a group of film fanatics in rural Pennsylvania fight to keep a dying drive-in theater alive by screening only vintage 35mm film prints and working entirely for free.

The Paper Brigade

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.

Bald: The Making of 'THX 1138'

The film features a conversation between Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, producer of THX 1138. They discuss Lucas' vision for the film, including his ideas about science fiction in general and in particular his concept of the "used future" which would famously feature in his film Star Wars. Intercut with this discussion is footage shot prior to the start of production of THX 1138 showing several of its actors having their heads shaved, a requirement for appearing in the film. In several cases the actors are shown being shaved in a public location. For example, Maggie McOmie is shaved outside the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, while Robert Duvall watches a sporting event as his hair is cut off. Another actor, Marshall Efron, who would later play an insane man in the film, cut off his own hair and was filmed doing so in a bathtub.

Roundhay Garden Scene

The earliest surviving celluloid film, and believed to be the second moving picture ever created, was shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince using the LPCCP Type-1 MkII single-lens camera. It was taken in the garden of Oakwood Grange, the Whitley family house in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire (UK), possibly on 14 October 1888. The film shows Adolphe Le Prince (Le Prince's son), Mrs. Sarah Whitley (Le Prince's mother-in-law), Joseph Whitley, and Miss Harriet Hartley walking around in circles, laughing to themselves, and staying within the area framed by the camera. The Roundhay Garden Scene was recorded at 12 frames per second and runs for 2.11 seconds.

The Pixar Story

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.

Factory Girl

In the mid-1960s, wealthy debutant Edie Sedgwick meets artist Andy Warhol. She joins Warhol's famous Factory and becomes his muse. Although she seems to have it all, Edie cannot have the love she craves from Andy, and she has an affair with a charismatic musician, who pushes her to seek independence from the artist and the milieu.

Conspiracy

At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented.

Marco: The Invented Truth

Enric Marco, a Spanish trade unionist, claims to be a survivor of Nazi concentration camps.

Poland 1939: When German Soldiers Became War Criminals

September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany invades Poland. The campaign is fast, cruel and ruthless. In these circumstances, how is it that ordinary German soldiers suddenly became vicious killers, terrorizing the local population? Did everyone turn into something worse than wild animals? The true story of the first World War II offensive that marks in the history of infamy the beginning of a carnage and a historical tragedy.

Frank and Ollie

Before computer graphics, special effects wizardry, and out-of-this world technology, the magic of animation flowed from the pencils of two of the greatest animators The Walt Disney Company ever produced -- Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Frank and Ollie, the talent behind BAMBI, PINOCCHIO, LADY AND THE TRAMP, THE JUNGLE BOOK, and others, set the standard for such modern-day hits as THE LION KING. It was their creative genius that helped make Disney synonymous with brilliant animation, magnificent music, and emotional storytelling. Take a journey with these extraordinary artists as they share secrets, insights, and the inspiration behind some of the greatest animated movies the world has ever known!

Salaam Cinema

Makhmalbaf puts an advertisement in the papers calling for an open casting for his next movie. However when hundreds of people show up, he decides to make a movie about the casting and the screen tests of the would-be actors.

Lee

The true story of photographer Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.