A Time There Was: Stories from the Last Days of Kenya Colony (2009)

René Goscinny, Our Uncle From Armorica

The career of French comic author René Goscinny was a living blend of cultures and an expression of the great importance this artist attached to the production and dissemination of sophisticated popular culture. Goscinny left behind an extremely extensive body of work: "Asterix", "Lucky Luke", "Isnogud", "Little Nick" and many more.

De Gaulle, the Last King of France

Charles de Gaulle, the first president (1958-1969) of the Vth Republic, France’s current system of government, left his mark on the country . He was statesman of action and has been compared to a monarch. This film depicts the general’s personality through the great events of his presidential term, at a time when the world was undergoing considerable changes.

Camp Century: The Hidden City Beneath the Ice

How in 1959, during the heat of the Cold War, the government of the United States decided to create a secret military base located in the far north of Greenland: Camp Century, almost a real town with roads and houses, a nuclear plant to provide power and silos to house missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.

Les Cartoons bannis

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The Rumba Kings

In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.

Sidney & Friends

When his family tries to kill him, Sidney, who is intersex, flees to Nairobi where he meets a group of transgender friends. Together, they fight discrimination and discover life, love and self-worth.

Stalin's Last Plot

January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.

Hexenkinder

The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.

P.S. Burn This Letter Please

A box found in an abandoned storage unit unearths a time capsule of correspondences from a forgotten era: the underground drag scene in 1950s New York City. Firsthand accounts and newly discovered footage help cast a long overdue spotlight on the unsung pioneers of drag.

When Lambs Become Lions

In the Kenyan bush, a crackdown on ivory poaching forces a silver-tongued second-generation poacher to seek out an unlikely ally in this fly-on-the-wall look at both sides of the conservation divide.

Grace Kelly: Destiny of a Princess

In 1956, actress and Hollywood star Grace Kelly (1929-82), then at the height of her film career, unexpectedly dropped everything to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Jinx, an American journalist and friend of the future princess, accompanied her on her journey to the wedding and covered the sensational event.

Das Wunder von Nairobi - Noten der Hoffnung

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1958: Those Who Said No

On October 4, 2018, France celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic. It is a republic born in the throes of the Algerian War and one which—from the day it was founded by General de Gaulle until the presidency of a very Jupiterian Emmanuel Macron—has been assailed as a “Republican monarchy” by partisans of a more assertive parliamentarian state. By revisiting the struggle of those who dared oppose the new regime — only to suffer a crushing defeat on September 28, 1958, when they were barely able to garner 20% of the vote against the constitutional text — this film shines a powerful new light on the origins of the Fifth Republic and its consequences for the next 60 years. It is a constitutional debate that planted the seeds for a complete upheaval of the French political landscape, on the left in particular, and set the country in motion toward what would be called the Union of the Left.

Kenya - Gardiennes des éléphants

In the Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya drought is a menace to both humans and animals. This documentary follows two Elephant Guardians in their tireless work to protect this endangered species.

Frères de la forêt, des résistants face à l'URSS

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The Concorde: Myth and Tragedy

Concorde was the epitome of elegance, speed and glamour, linking London and New York in little over three hours. But on the 25th of July 2000 tragedy struck which meant the end of supersonic flight.

Propaganda: Engineering Consent

How can the masses be controlled? Apparently, the American publicist Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995), a pioneer in the field of propaganda and public relations, knew the answer to such a key question. The amazing story of the master of manipulation and the creation of the engineering of consent; a frightening true story about advertising, lies and charlatans.

Corman's World

A chronicle of the long career of American filmmaker Roger Corman, the most tenacious and ingenious low-budget producer and director in the US film industry, a pioneer of independent filmmaking and discoverer of new talent.

A War in Hollywood

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) caused a great impression on the lives of most of the American artists of that era, so many movies were made in Hollywood about it. The final defeat of the Spanish Republic left an open wound in the hearts of those who sympathized with its cause. The eventful life of screenwriter Alvah Bessie (1904-1985), one of the Hollywood Ten, serves to analyze this sadness, the tragedy of Spain and its consequences.

Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989

Archival film maestro Göran Hugo Olsson has assembled—from a vast catalogue of footage in the vaults of Sweden’s national television service SVT—accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as witnessed and represented by Swedish journalists. Stories of the beginning of the Israeli state interwoven with the Palestinian struggle for independence. News coverage with Yasser Arafat and interviews with Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban during a visit to Sweden unseen since first broadcast. From the tenth anniversary of Israel’s founding to the First Intifada, perspectives and encounters with statesmen, civilians, revolutionaries, and intellectuals tell the story from myriad angles of an evolving media landscape, revivifying a history of the ongoing conflict.

Cured

Mentally ill. Deviant. Diseased. And in need of a cure. These were among the terms psychiatrists used to describe gay women and men in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. And as long as they were “sick”, progress toward equality was impossible. This documentary chronicles the battle waged by a small group of activists who declared war against a formidable institution – and won a crucial victory in the modern movement for LGBTQIA+ equality.

Hanging from a Dream

The history of how the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art of Cuenca was created. In the mid-1950s, the Spanish collector and painter Fernando Zóbel de Ayala (1924-84) becomes fascinated by the young generation of Spanish abstract artists, so he begins to collect their works to show them to the public in Toledo. Until Gustavo Torner, a young forest engineer interested in art, proposes him to visit his city, Cuenca.

Pornotropic

When French writer Marguerite Duras (1914-96) published her novel The Sea Wall in 1950, she came very close to winning the prestigious Prix Goncourt. Meanwhile, in Indochina, France was suffering its first military defeats in its war against the Việt Minh, the rebel movement for independence.

The War Against Women

Sexual violence against women is a very effective weapon in modern warfare: instills fear and spreads the seed of the victorious side, an outrageous method that is useful to exterminate the defeated side by other means. This use of women, both their bodies and their minds, as a battleground, was crucial for international criminal tribunals to begin to judge rape as a crime against humanity.

TINA

Tina Turner overcame impossible odds to become one of the first female Black artists to reach a mainstream international audience. Her road to superstardom is an undeniable story of triumph over adversity. It’s the ultimate story of survival – and an inspirational story of our times.

Pier Paolo Pasolini: An Italian Journey

In the summer of 1959, as a magazine correspondent, writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75) traveled along the Italian coast. In 1963, he documented the sexual behavior of the Italians. In the winter of 1970-71, he witnessed the hardships of the most impoverished Italian population suffering from the boot of state power. After these three trips, he came to the conclusion that Italian society had changed drastically for the worse over the years.

De Gaulle, histoire d'un géant

50 years after the death of General De Gaulle, this film retraces his life, from his birth in 1890 to his burial at Colombey-Les-Deux-Eglises in 1970.

Elvis Presley: The Searcher

Two-part documentary about the life of Elvis Presley featuring interviews with his ex-wife Priscilla Presley, guitarist Scotty Moore, childhood friend Red West and musicians Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris and Robbie Robertson.

Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us

Directors Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott and James Cameron discuss the science fiction movies of the 1950s that influenced them.

Bettie Page Reveals All

The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”

Romy und Magda Schneider: Mutter - Tochter - Rivalinnen?

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Color Adjustment

From Amos 'n' Andy to Nat King Cole, from Roots to The Cosby Show, black people have played many roles on primetime television. Brilliantly weaving clips from classic TV shows with commentary from TV producers, black actors and scholars, Marlon Riggs blends humor, insight, and thoughtful analysis to explore the evolution of black/white relations as reflected by America's favorite addiction.

Lion: The Rise and Fall of the Marsh Pride

Documented in television documentaries for over 40 years by the BBC and other broadcasters around the world, the Marsh Pride is the most filmed pride of lions on Earth. In this film, the Marsh Pride battle for survival in Kenya's famous Maasai Mara Reserve, which has become a magnet for tourists, many of them keen to see the pride for themselves. A tale of shifting loyalties, bloody takeovers and sheer resilience, the lions’ story is told by those who filmed them, tried to protect them and lived alongside them, as well as some who ultimately wanted them dead.

The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout

The story of one of the great environmental disasters to befall the United States, and the terrible movie that helped bring the catastrophe to light.