The betrayal of Hilversum (2024)

Liberation Diaries

The end of World War II brings Europe a new political system, reshapes national and personal identities. Three women from Milan, Paris and Berlin report on the days of liberation in their diaries. Their personal stories expand the historical picture and make LIBERATION DIARIES a chronicle of female self-empowerment, resistance and resilience.

Nazi Death Camp: The Great Escape

The secret Nazi death camp at Sobibor was created solely for the mass extermination of Jews. But on the 14th October 1943, in one of the biggest and most successful prison revolts of WWII, the inmates fought back.

White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Steven Okazaki presents a deeply moving look at the painful legacy of the first -- and hopefully last -- uses of nuclear weapons in war. Featuring interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors - many who have never spoken publicly before - and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, White Light/Black Rain provides a detailed exploration of the bombings and their aftermath.

La France de l'épuration, entre vengeance et justice

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The Day Hitler Died

The story of Hitler’s final hours told by people who were there. This special features exclusive forgotten interviews, believed lost for 65 years, with members of Hitler’s inner circle who were trapped with him in his bunker as the Russians fought to take Berlin. These unique interviews from figures such as the leader of the Hitler Youth Artur Axmann and Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge, have never before been seen outside Germany. Using rarely seen archive footage and dramatic reconstruction, this special tells the story of Adolf Hitler’s final days in his Berlin bunker.

Night Will Fall

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Stalin and the Katyn Massacre

The Katyn massacre, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, was only one of many unspeakable crimes committed by Stalin's ruthless executioners over three decades. The mass murder of thousands of Polish officers was part of a relentless purge, the secrets and details of which have only recently been partially revealed.

Britain and the Blitz

Documentary looking back at a Britain during the darkest days of WWII using stunning new archived footage and interviews with people who lived through it.

Thanks Girls and Goodbye

Documentary using archival footage, newsreels and contemporary interviews with women of the WW2 Australian Women's Land Army.

WWII: Saving the Reality

See Kenneth W. Rendell's collection of over 6,000 artifacts that range from the end of World War I and the rise of Nazism to the start of World War II and the fight in Europe and the Pacific.

Elie Wiesel Goes Home

A documentary chronicling the adolescent years of Elie Wiesel and the history of his sufferings. Eliezer was fifteen when Fascism brutally altered his life forever. Fifty years later, he returns to Sighetu Marmatiei, the town where he was born, to walk the painful road of remembrance - but is it possible to speak of the unspeakable? Or does Auschwitz lie beyond the capacity of any human language - the place where words and stories run out?

The Man Who Cracked the Nazi Code: The Story of Alan Turing

During the Second World War, the allies' key objective was to crack the German army's encrypted communications code. Without a doubt, the key player in this game was Alan Turing, an interdisciplinary scientist and a long-forgotten hero.

Mein Kampf

"Mein Kampf" presents the raising and fall of the Third Reich, showing mainly the destruction of Poland and the life Hitler, which is told since he was a mediocre student and frustrated aspirant of artist living in slums in Austria and Germany, until his suicide in 1945 after being the responsible for the death of million of people, and the destruction of Europe. All the footage is real and belonged to a secret file of Goebbels, inclusive with many very strong scenes filmed by Goebbels himself.

Cinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts

The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.

The Eichmann Trial

In 1961, history was on trial... in a trial that made history. Just 15 years after the end of WWII, the Holocaust had been largely forgotten. That changed with the capture of Adolf Eichmann, a former Nazi officer hiding in Argentina. Through rarely-seen archival footage, The Eichmann Trial documents one of the most shocking trials ever recorded, and the birth of Holocaust awareness and education.

The Light of Dawn: The Normandy Landings

The Normandy landings of 6 June 1944 were pivotal to the outcome of WW2. We learn when Churchill and Roosevelt first proposed the operation and how preparations started—finishing with the key events of D-Day and the far-reaching effects of its outcome.

Spiegelbeeld

Tilburg artist Tommy van der Loo searches for the influence of superiority thinking, racism and colour in his life. Van der Loo is an emerging artist and his work has been purchased by Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. He also had an exhibition at the Kunsthal. He also made the memorial for the abolition of slavery in Eindhoven. He has had multiple experiences with discrimination and incorporates that into his sculptures. Identity and image formation are important to him: How do you look at others, how do others look at you. The search is the inspiration for his new sculpture.

Warsaw: A City Divided

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.

Tinkebell - Who Killed the Blue Bird?

Artist Katinka Simonse, alias Tinkebell, is a controversial, very mediagenic phenomenon. In her universe there is no distinction between life, art and activism; Tinkebell is her own work of art. Everything she encounters on her life path can become part of her story. Filmmaker Judith de Leeuw was given access to all images about Tinkebell, including her entire private archive. She thus constructed an archive film about how as a human being, living on the ruins of the past, you can be a character in your own story. What is the price you can afford if you continue to believe at any cost?

Combat America

Produced in 1943 under the guidance of Army Air Force Lieutenant Clark Gable, this film follows a single 8th Air Force B-17 crew from training through a series of missions over Europe.

Why We Fight: Prelude to War

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.

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.

Three Minutes: A Lengthening

The story of the only three minutes of footage —a home movie shot by David Kurtz in 1938— showing images of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk (Poland) before the beginning of the Shoah.

Guy Martin's D-Day Landing

Guy Martin undertakes a challenge to restore a plane from the Second World War, and recreate a parachute jump into Normandy, as thousands of Allied soldiers did during D-Day.

The Bloody Hundredth

Meet the real-life airmen who inspired Masters of the Air as they share the harrowing and transformative events of the 100th Bomb Group.

Strijdmakker

VPRO icon Wim Brands died on April 4, 2016. He was known to the general public as a presenter of the VPRO Boeken program and also closer, with six collections of poetry to his name. This documentary about his life and work, built entirely from archive material, pays tribute to this television personality. A portrait in which attention is also paid to his complicated relationship with death. With a.o. Karl Ove Knausgård, David Sedaris, Ellen Deckwitz and Pieter Boskma. Brands' work merges with his rich inner life and that he chose death at the age of 56 casts a shadow over everything.

The Last Days

Five Jewish Hungarians, now US citizens, tell their stories: before March 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April 1945.

Zeitgeist: The Movie

A documentary examining possible historical and modern conspiracies surrounding Christianity, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Federal Reserve bank.

From Island to Island

During World War II, Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. This documentary explores the experiences of Taiwanese soldiers, doctors, and overseas residents in Southeast Asia during that time. Using cross-generational memory dialogues, family letters, diaries, and videos, the film addresses the complexities of Taiwan's historical memory and diverse identities during that period.

Attack of the Zeppelins

Engineer Dr Hugh Hunt revisits the little-known story of the First World War's Blitz, when the Zeppelin waged an 18-month terror campaign on the people of London.

The Nazi Jesus

While Nazi ideology dominated Europe, Adolf Hitler used all dogmas to his advantage and fed the cult of his personality. How did the Führer manage to transform the Bible, the Church and the symbols of Christianity into instruments of power, winning the support of the Germans? This documentary traces the rise of a little-known theological organization: the “German Christians”, which became the most powerful propaganda tool of the Third Reich.

Punks

The parents are at their wits’ end, so a temporary supervision order is the last hope for a group of teenagers in Punks. Now, on a remote farm in France, they’re going to have to get their lives back on track, with the help of a counselor. If they want any chance of a happy life, they need to engage in some frank and painful conversations. Mitchel has to find a way to get along with his father, but maybe too much has already happened since his mother died. Jahlano is already at the next stage: he’s no longer allowed to live with his mother, and needs to get over the disappointment. Mike, meanwhile, is struggling with his image as a boy who’s “got a screw loose.” Filmed in constant close-up by director Maasja Ooms, the teenagers try to tame their demons with music and therapy, but problems from the past keep resurfacing. In this intimate and sincere portrait, these troubled kids show us their most vulnerable sides.

Attack! The Battle for New Britain

Actual footage by the United States Signal Corps of the landing and attack on Arawe Beach, Cape Glouster, New Britain island in 1943 in the South Pacific theatre of World War Two, and the handicaps of the wild jungle in addition to the Japanese snipers and pill-box emplacements.

Fascism in Colour

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

Guy Martin's Spitfire

Guy Martin joins the two-year restoration of a Spitfire that was buried in a French beach for decades, and tells the Boy's Own-style story of its pilot, Squadron Leader Geoffrey Stephenson

Nightfighters: The True Story Of The 332nd Fighter Group--The Tuskegee Airmen

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American pilots who saw combat during the Second World War. The 332nd Fighter Group stands apart from any other air force fighter groups in the Second World War: all personnel, from pilots to ground crew to surgeons, were black. They confounded expectations and prejudices existing in America in the thirties and forties about the abilities of black Americans. They excelled as pilots and became a crack unit, showing great courage and skill and achieving where other fighter groups had failed. Despite this, they were segregated on the ground and in the air from the white flyers whose lives they protected. (Alexander Street)

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 Dangerous Man in Europe: Otto Skorzeny's After War

Waffen-SS officer Otto Skorzeny (1908-75) became famous for his participation in daring military actions during World War II. In 1947 he was judged and imprisoned, but he escaped less than a year later and found a safe haven in Spain, ruled with an iron hand by General Francisco Franco. What did he do during the many years he spent there?

The Eternal Jew

A Nazi propaganda film made to promote anti-Semitism among the German people. Newly-shot footage of Jewish neighborhoods in recently-conquered Poland is combined with preexisting film clips and stills to defame the religion and advance Hitler's slurs that its adherents were plotting to undermine European civilization.

Spy from a Distance

The secret past of a World War II-era intelligence officer comes to light when his grandson, actor Joonas Saartamo, begins to investigate his grandfather's activities as the leader of a long-range reconnaissance patrol. Meeting various experts along the way, Saartamo discovers a new insight into the crucial role of long-range reconnaissance patrols in war. He also realizes how strongly the weight of his grandfather's war experiences has been passed down from generation to generation, affecting him directly.

Twice: The Extraordinary Life of Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is a hibakusha. A survivor of both atomic bomb blasts in 1945. First at Hiroshima, then again at Nagasaki. Now nearing 90, Yamaguchi finally speaks out. Breaking taboos of shame and sorrow, he responds to a call to fight for a world without nuclear weapons by telling his story, so that no one else will ever have to tell one like it again. Twice reconstructs Yamaguchi’s experiences in 1945 Japan, interviews him on the after-effects of exposure and documents the last five years of the late-blooming activist’s life.

The Third Reich In Color

This remarkable trove of color footage, assembled from far-flung private and state collections, presents Hitler's Europe as never seen before. Amateur film enthusiasts - soldiers, tourists, Hitler's own pilot, even Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun - began experimenting with color film in the late 1930s, their camera eye recording the Third Reich from every angle. Some of this film was only recently uncovered in former Soviet-bloc archives, hidden for almost 60 years; all of it, thanks to digital technology, has been newly transferred to video with surprising clarity. (This documentary was produced with two different narratives, both an English and German language version.)

Pearl Harbor, l’histoire vraie d’une attaque surprise

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