A Return to Memory (2024)

1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz?

In 1944, two prisoners miraculously escaped from Auschwitz. They told the world of the horror of the Holocaust and raised one of the greatest moral questions of the 20th century.

King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen

A feature-length documentary focusing on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen, writer-director of "Black Caesar," "It's Alive," "God Told Me To," "Q," "The Stuff," and many more.

Stalingrad - Stimmen aus Ruinen

Featuring excerpts from diaries and letters written by local residents and soldiers from both sides, the documentary tells the story of the Battle of Stalingrad through the voices of those who lived it.

Malmedy trial

This chronicle of the war crimes trial of the Waffen-SS battle group Joachim Peiper in Malmedy was compiled from six reels of footage taken by the United States Army Signal Corps at the Dachau concentration camp in May-June 1946.

Besa: The Promise

A documentary exploring how Albanians, including many Muslims, helped and sheltered Jewish refugees during WWII at their own risk, and trying to help the son of an Albanian baker that housed a Jewish family for a year return some Hebrew books that the family had to leave behind.

Belmondo l'incorrigible

Charismatic and resourceful, seducer and daredevil, Jean-Paul Belmondo has always played his roles as he lived, at a thousand miles an hour. He had only one passion: to entertain the public with his smile, his naturalness, his energy, his stunts. But contrary to appearances, his destiny was full of pitfalls. This film lifts the veil on a founding childhood that allowed him to overcome many obstacles throughout his life thanks to the tutelary figures of his father and mother. Told from the inside with the help of his autobiography, interviews and unpublished archives, this epic story traces the career of this turbulent young actor who launched the New Wave in Breathless before becoming the popular Bebel, an indestructible and provocative vigilante. From film to film, this documentary paints an intimate portrait of a man who built himself up to reach the top: his triumphs but also his trials, his doubts, his secrets, his angers, his clowning, his disappointments or his personal dramas.

The Prince of Nothingwood

French documentarist Sonia Kronlund follows actor and director Salim Shaheen, an Afghan movie star who produced more than 110 low-budget movies in a country devastated by war.

The Corporation

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

The Little Prince: A Star Is Born

80 years are gone since The Little Prince was released. Author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also a pilot, and we follow his last four years from his US exile to when his plane in 1944 disappeared over The Mediterranean without any trace.

The Belgian Road to Cannes

A cheerful road movie all about Belgian films at Cannes over the past 70 years. Filmmakers from the past converse with those from the present to paint the portrait of a cinema that is both diverse and free. An account of Belgium’s participation in the greatest film festival in the world.

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.

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.

Filmworker

The story of Leon Vitali, who surrendered his promising acting career to become Stanley Kubrick's devoted right-hand man.

The Making of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

Lights, camera... chickens! Go behind the scenes with the Aardman team and director Sam Fell during the making of this finely crafted stop-motion sequel.

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

A Company of Heroes

Easy Company, the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, fought their way through Europe, liberated concentration camps, and drank a victory toast in April 1945 at Hitler's hideout. Veterans from Easy Company, along with the families of three deceased others, recount their horrors and victories, bonds they made and the friends they lost.

Good Old Czechs

František Fajtl and Filip Jánský were among the few Czechoslovak airmen who actively fought on all major European battlefronts during World War II and lived to tell the tale. This unique documentary edit, which combines authentic eyewitness accounts of historic events with little-known archival footage, examines various fates and places as well as the journeys associated with them. The resulting amalgam of images, speeches, and music/sound files is far from your typical historical illustration. A suggestive portrayal of life under bleak conditions, far away from home and on the cusp of death, unfolds before our very eyes.

Tales from Zone 7 - An Oral History of the Making of Cherry 2000

A documentary on the making of Steve De Jarnatt's 1987 film, Cherry 2000.

A Hole In The Head

A pig farm in Lety, South Bohemia would make an ideal monument to collaboration and indifference, says writer and journalist Markus Pape. Most of those appearing in this documentary filmed in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Germany and Croatia have personal experience of the indifference to the genocide of the Roma. Many of them experienced the Holocaust as children, and their distorted memories have earned them distrust and ridicule. Continuing racism and anti-Roma sentiment is illustrated among other matters by how contemporary society looks after the locations where the murders occurred. However, this documentary film essay focuses mainly on the survivors, who share with viewers their indelible traumas, their "hole in the head".

Sexo en el plató

How are the sex scenes filmed? What tricks are used to fake the desire? How do the interpreters prepare and feel? Spanish actors and directors talk about the most intimate side of acting, about the tricks and work methods when narrating exposed sex. In Spain the general rule is that there are no rules. Each film, each interpreter, faces it in very different ways.

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.

Un été à la Garoupe

La Garoupe, a beach in Antibes, in 1937. For one summer, the painter and photographer Man Ray films his friends Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Eluard and his wife Nusch, as well as Lee Miller. During these few weeks, love, friendship, poetry, photography and painting are still mixed in the carefree and the creativity specific to the artistic movements of the interwar period.

U-505: Extend the Experience

This video invites you inside the U-505 submarine, the actual craft that stalked the waters of the Atlantic before it was blown to the surface and captured on June 4, 1944. This immersive video reveals the technology and life aboard this sub in the days leading up to her capture. Among the many highlights, you’ll see crewmen bunks and the galley, wedged in among the mechanical workings of the sub.

Abortion: Stories from North and South

Women have always sought ways to terminate unwanted pregnancies, despite powerful patriarchal structures and systems working against them. This film provides a historical overview of how church, state and the medical establishment have determined policies concerning abortion. From this cross-cultural survey--filmed in Ireland, Japan, Thailand, Peru, Colombia, and Canada--emerges one reality: only a small percentage of the world's women has access to safe, legal operations.

Pretty Woman, un conte de fées hollywoodien

Overknee boots that triggered a fashion wave, a legendary shopping spree to the iconic theme song - the 1990 romantic comedy "Pretty Woman" by Garry Marshall starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere is still the genre's biggest box office hit. The modern fairytale about a rich man who falls in love with a prostitute and rescues her made millions dream and made 22-year-old Julia Roberts famous overnight.

Satan's Blood: recuerdos de «Escalofrío»

The story of the shooting of Satan's Blood (Escalofrío), a film directed by Carlos Puerto in 1978.

The Five Obstructions

In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.

D-Day: Normandy 1944

June 6, 1944: The largest Allied operation of World War II began in Normandy, France. Yet, few know in detail exactly why and how, from the end of 1943 through August 1944, this region became the most important location in the world. Blending multiple cinematographic techniques, including animation, CGI and stunning live-action images, “D-Day: Normandy 1944” brings this monumental event to the world’s largest screens for the first time ever. Audiences of all ages, including new generations, will discover from a new perspective how this landing changed the world. Exploring history, military strategy, science, technology and human values, the film will educate and appeal to all. Narrated by Tom Brokaw, “D-Day: Normandy 1944” pays tribute to those who gave their lives for our freedom… A duty of memory, a duty of gratitude.

Churchill's Darkest Decision

The background to, events of and consequences of the Battle of Mers-El-Kebir on 3 July 1940. In that battle, Royal Navy ships fired on the French Fleet in order to prevent it from falling into German hands. A French battleship was sunk and several other ships damaged. Nearly 1,300 French sailors were killed.

Eyewitness: D-Day

One famous day. Five heroes. Five key turning points that changed the course of World War II during the D-Day landings, told through the eyes of the people who made a difference. Using rarely seen archival footage dramatic reconstruction and written accounts from eye witnesses, and personal testimony from five heroes, this is D-Day as never seen before.