When The Motherland Is Knocking At Your Door (2024)

The Man Standing Next

When the investigation of 'Koreagate' takes place, Park Yong-gak, a former KCIA director who knows everything about the government's operations, heads to the United States in exile.

The Country Left Behind

Before the Korean War (1950-1953), a daughter of a Russian soldier stationed at Heungnam falls in love with a young Korean anti-Communist. Their love story shows how cruel the Russian soldiers were and how badly many North Koreans craved for freedom.

Curtiz

Hollywood, 1942. The US government pressures Hungarian-born film director Michael Curtiz, who is about to finish shooting Casablanca, to accentuate the film's propaganda message in order to sway public opinion in favor of the country's intervention in the European war.

Heaven and Hell

Norwegian propaganda film and cult drama about Eva (16) and Arne (17), both from well established homes, attend a class where a professor says that cannabis is safer than alcohol. Together with some friends they decide to try the drug. The start of a drug hell for all involved. The film was poorly received by the critics, but it nonetheless became one of the highest-grossing theater films in Norway in 1969.

The Battle

21 sequence shots depict moments in a defining night of the Battle of Rua Maria Antônia, in October 1968, from the point of view of the students and professors of the Left-wing Student Movement, in the Philosophy Faculty building of USP.

The March of Fools

The story is set in the 1970s during the period of military dictatorship. Schools were frequently closed and society seemed to face bleak prospects on all fronts. Nonetheless, Byung-tae, a college student, enjoys pursuing romance in blind group dates. It's during one of these ventures that he meets Young-ja, a French literature student.

Voltei!

Brazil, 2030. The sisters Alayr and Sabrina are hearing on the cell radio the judgment that could change the course of a country "without energy". They are surprised by Fátima, the sister who returns from the dead to fraternize on this historic night.

Tomorrow's Children

Young Alice Mason wishes to start a family, but because her own has been deemed "defective" by the state health authorities—her parents are lazy alcoholics who continue breeding, and her siblings are disabled, have mental problems or are imprisoned—she is ordered by a court to undergo sterilization so that her family's "defective genes" won't be passed on to any further. Her boyfriend Jim and a kindly priest search desperately for a way to stop the forced surgery before it's too late.

Fight for Us

In 1985, in the obscure town of Dolores, the Orapronobis, a cult under the leadership of Kumander Kontra, murders a foreign priest who gave the last rites to an alleged rebel, who was also executed by the same group.

Bampton Shows the Way

Part of BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.

The Nail in the Boot

Banned in the Soviet Union for its "negative" content and never released, Kalatozov was forced to retreat from filmmaking for seven years because of this film. The film sets out to illustrate the old adage, "For want of a nail, the battle was lost," showing how the inferior quality of something so trivial as a nail in a soldier's boot leads inexorably to the capture of an armored train. Kalatozov had intended to demonstrate the crucial and universal importance of efficiency in Soviet industry, but the government decided that his fable gave a negative impression of the Red Army's capabilities.

The Messenger

Vera, imprisoned at a military fortress during the dictatorship, 1969, get to know a soldier, Armando, who, in the face of torture, decides to take messages from Vera to his family and establishes an affective relationship with D. Maria, Vera’s mother. Despite the horrors of the time, the film works on this possibility of a dialogue between two lonely and lost human beings: a high-middle-class lady and a young southerner of rural origin. Today, Vera, aged 70, is a professor at the university, and debates with her students about politics, forgiveness and Hannah Arendt.

The Big Blockade

Wartime propaganda piece reporting on the success of the economic blockade of Germany in the early years of the war.

Days of Hope

Spanish Civil War, 1937. A platoon of Republican soldiers plans to stop the advance of the rebel troops by bombing a bridge on the road to Zaragoza, near the city of Linás. With the close collaboration of the peasants of the area, the soldiers try to overcome the continuous bombardments and endure the harsh and tireless opposition of the powerful enemy…

Full Metal Jacket

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

1988

In the winter of 1988, in the depths of the Iraq/Iran war, the border town of Halabja was attacked by chemical weapons with all its people and their different stories.

Lions for Lambs

Three stories told simultaneously in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.

My Führer

Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the camps in order to train the leader in rhetoric. Grünbaum is torn, but starts Hitler in his therapy ...

The White Ship

Although released anonymously, as was the custom with all films produced by the Italian Navy, La Nave Bianca is the first feature-length effort directed by Roberto Rossellini; it is also very much the work of its co-writer and supervisor Francesco De Robertis. The film combines a documentary look at the Italian Navy during World War II with newsreel combat footage and a scripted love story performed by non-professional actors.

To Die For

Frustrated by the liberal left and what he deems the destruction of the country he risked his life for, reclusive veteran Quint North (Schneider) is ordered by the court to keep his distance from the local high school with the American flag on the back of his El Camino or face a fine and jail time. In an ultimate exhibition of patriotism, he sets forth a series of events that just may get him killed in his own front yard.

Colombe

Khian, Pim and Karn, young rebellious students, work together to make a protest to uncover the corruption in their school by folding hundreds of paper cranes. But as they tried to unfold the truth, the trio are threatened by the shadowy powers.

The Protector

A Czech journalist joins a Prague radio station what broadcasts Nazi propaganda in order to protect his Jewish wife. However, as the Nazi rule over Czechoslovakia calls for more and more collaboration, his relationship with his wife spirals downward.

The 70s

Amanda and Julian are doing their best to rear their five sons during the repressive dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. Though the parents view themselves as apolitical, most of their sons bristle at life under martial law and turn to various forms of activism -- or to simple teenage rebellion -- for release. After the family becomes the victim of extremist violence, Amanda begins to find her own dissident voice.

Bashing

Yuko is a Japanese girl who was taken hostage in Iraq while volunteering there as an aid worker. Finally released and back in her hometown, Yuko finds herself ostracized as a national disgrace by society that sees her helping a country other than Japan, and the embarrassment of getting captured but not killed, as things of which to be brutally ashamed.

Pulgasari

In feudal Korea, a group of starving villagers grow weary of the orders handed down to them by their controlling king and set out to use a deadly monster under their control to push his armies back.

Desierto

Plot unavailable

Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator

After many adventures, a young female switchboard operator starts a love relationship with a serious young man. But while he's away on business, she gets lonely and succumbs to her colleague's passes.

April Captains

Story of the 1974 coup that overthrew the right-wing Portuguese dictatorship--which continued the fascist policies of long-time dictator Antonio Salazar--and of two young army captains who were involved in it.

Jew Suss: Rise and Fall

This intricate historical drama tells the story of actor Ferdinand Marian (Tobias Moretti), who is ordered by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to star in the 1940 anti-Semitic film Jew Suss. Despite his cooperation, Ferdinand's actions have unexpected costs. Ferdinand's Jewish wife, Anna (Martina Gedeck), is sent to a concentration camp, and as World War II intensifies, he rebels against the Nazis, leading to the destruction of his career.

The South

After the end of the military dictatorship in Argentina in 1983, Floreal is released from prison. Instead of returning to his wife, he wanders through the night of Buenos Aires. He meets some people from his past–most of which are only imaginary–and remembers the events of his imprisonment.

Crisis

An American doctor gets caught in the middle of a revolution when he's forced to operate on a South American dictator.