René – The Prisoner of Freedom (2022)

A Marriage Story

In 35 years of one couple's shared life, a lot of things happen: from the moments of an absolute harmony to the dramatic falls. For the most of the time, the couple cares for common daily life issues and joys that come together with raising the children, running the household or running a business. And this is exactly the life of furniture shop owners Ivana and Vaclav Strnadovi, 2 characters that a director Helena Trestíková follows with her camera as of the year 1980 within a project The Marriage Story. Her new feature documentary about Strnad family is linked to TV films from this cycle, but most importantly it shows further shocking twists, that life brought to the couple and their children.

Eternal Jožo

An untraditional documentary portrait reveals the complicated personality of the Slovak music legend Jožo Ráž, the singer for the pop-rock group Elán. From recordings of everyday situations, playful moments, intimate conversations about God and death, and memories of the past, the director composes a complex image of a man loved by the masses, who, despite all his life successes, feels lonely.

Anny

Anny follows the life of the titular, intriguing character for 16 years, from 1996 up until 2012. Living in the Czech Republic, Anny is a 46-year-old woman whose day-to-day life has consisted of several different occupations, from a bathroom attendant and a doorman, to occasional sex work. Her outlook on her jobs is fairly simple, you have to do the work if you want to eat, spoil your grandkids, or buy yourself new clothes.

Havel Speaking, Can You Hear Me?

This time-lapse documentary follows the last years of former President Václav Havel's life, creating a multi-layered portrait of a world-famous political icon and important playwright, but also an ordinary man plagued by health problems. Havel allows the filmmakers a glimpse behind the scenes of his life, revealing purely personal moments that present him in previously unrecognised contours. With a sense of humour, he reflects on his political legacy and universal human issues. The central motif is formed by the parallels between Havel's life and the successful play Leaving, which Havel always wanted to direct as a film adaptation.

Katka

“You bet on someone in the beginning of the process and then you wait and see what life does with them.” This is how Czech director Helena Trestikova explains her long-term documentaries. Following on from the European Film Academy Award winning RENE (2008), Trestikova brings us KATKA – 14 years in the life of a drug addict. KATKA is an extraordinarily raw and uncensored character portrait of a troubled young woman living on the edge of human existence, desperately searching for love and salvation. Will she find it in the rehab? Will she find it in the arms of the man she loves? Or in the first cry of her long-desired baby? Tagging along with her through the back streets and squalors of Prague, Trestikova gets deep under the skin of a person most of us would cross the road to avoid, and shows us Katka’s profoundly human face. You might be angry with Katka, or your heart may go out to her. One thing is certain – you will never forget her.

Marcela

The life of Marcela, an ordinary Czech woman is explored throughout several decades of her life. We are engaged to struggle and fight back with Marcela as her tragic life unfolds before our eyes especially when dealing with her daughter’s unexpected death, which almost drives her to suicide. The film was initially part of a series about the fate of six married couples, but the events that happened throughout Marcela’s life were the reason why the director decided to focus solely on a documentary about her.

Mallory

Life hasn't been easy on Mallory but after the birth of her son she tries desperately to kick her drug habit, and to stop living on the street. She wants to turn her back on her dark past and help those she knows best - people on the fringes of society.

René

An intimate portrait of a man on the edge of society, filmed over the course of twenty years.

Karolína

Plot unavailable

F1 How It Was

"‘F1: How it was’ is a thrilling, action-packed, insightful documentary into some of the sport’s finest races, despite the lack of budget or theme, Duke Video deliver on providing fans with an entertaining documentary that would make the perfect gift this Christmas." - Joshua Suttill, www.readmotorsport.com

The Road to Terror

In The Road to Terror, revolutionaries tell how their dream descended into a nightmare of terror and execution. They speak as exiles in Paris, a city that is preparing to celebrate the glories of the first mass revolution of 1978. Behind its strange images, the struggle for power in the Iranian revolution has followed a pattern uncannily similar to many of the great revolutions of the past: just as 200 years ago in France, the Iranian revolution has gone down the old road from liberation to repression, the road to terror.

Generation Sputnik

From 1957 —the year in which the Soviets put the Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit— to 1969 —when American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon—, the beginnings of the space conquest were depicted in popular culture: cinema, television, comics and literature of the time contain numerous references to an imagined future.

Scoppa et moi

Plot unavailable

The Great Return of the Siberian Tiger

Plot unavailable

Alien Abduction: Travis Walton

In 1975, six loggers in Arizona witnessed their crewmate's abduction by UFO. The Travis Walton story became an international sensation and ripped apart a small town. Four decades later, shocking new evidence reveals the true story behind Fire in the Sky.

Viva Varda!

A pioneering post-war female film director, an instigator of the New Wave who was honored by Hollywood in her own lifetime, Agnès Varda has become a source of inspiration for a whole new generation of young filmmakers. With movies like Cléo de 5 à 7, Le Bonheur, Sans toit ni loi, Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse, she created a quirky, open to the world, sensitive to the disenfranchised, often silly body of work. Always one finger on the pulse, she shook everything up, including cinema itself which she refused to constrict to pure fiction or long-form films.

Our Cinema

Plot unavailable

Culture Catcher

When Jeff, one of Arby’s four part-time managers and unfamous host of East Anglia Broadcasting Company's Culture Catcher, heard that the most popular show ever held at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery Los Angeles was due to close in two days time, he assembled his finest audio/visual crew and arrived at the scene with a one day and 18 hours spare. Truly a connoisseur of the arts; Jeff assesses every aspect of 'Natalie Cohen’s' first major US solo art show and takes it in real deep. He paces every room of the iconic gallery and leaves no corner unturned in his search for the meaning of (her) art.

Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice

An exploration of the Met’s investigation into Sarah’s murder, how this devastating crime unfolded and its impact. Told by those closely involved in the case from the outset, many of whom are speaking on camera for the first time, including the Senior Investigating Officer, the Prosecuting Barrister and Sarah’s local MP.

Un día en Nueva York con Woody Allen

Spanish filmmaker David Trueba travels to New York to interview Woody Allen, who reviews his filmography and his many personal and artistic concerns.

Pathological: The Lies of Joran van der Sloot

This documentary delves into Joran van der Sloot's lifelong pattern of violence and pathological lying through rare interviews and new insights years after he brutally murdered American Natalee Holloway and Peruvian Stephany Flores.

The 'Frankenstein' Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster

The history of Frankenstein's journey from novel to stage to screen to icon.

Summer of revolution

Plot unavailable

A Nation Denied: Ukraine's Battle for History

A critical and objective look back at Ukraine's tumultuous and tragic history, from its mythical founding in the 10th century to the Russian invasion in 2022.

Join the Club

After losing his lover to AIDS, rebel activist Dennis Peron launches the first public cannabis dispensary in the nation, skirting the law in pursuit of true justice—the legalization of medical marijuana.

Death of a Skyline

A group of citizens lobbied to save the landmark Alberta Wheat Pool grain elevator, one of the defining features of Mayerthorpe’s landscape, from being torn down in 2003 - as thousands of others had been. This film documents those efforts while exploring the broader history and significance of the grain elevator.

Ukraine's War: The Other Side

This unique feature-length documentary follows filmmaker Sean Langan's journey into the Russian side of the war in Eastern Ukraine, the only independent UK journalist to report from what is almost exclusively a hidden and otherwise inaccessible side of this conflict. In an intimate look at a side of Russia’s war rarely seen in Western media, Sean heads into the Russian-occupied Donbas region to find out through the eyes of soldiers on the Eastern front and civilians coping with war in the streets how the conflict is affecting them.