A People on the March

“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...

A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the 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.

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the way for the Allied forces from the Germans. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.

Produced and presented as evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Hermann Göring and twenty other Nazi leaders, this film consists primarily of dead and surviving prisoners and of facilities used to kill and torture during the World War II.

Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

When Sgt. First Class Brian Eisch is critically wounded in Afghanistan, it sets him and his sons on a journey of love, loss, redemption and legacy.

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.

Virunga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Africa's oldest national park, a UNESCO world heritage site, and a contested ground among insurgencies seeking to topple the government that see untold profits in the land. Among this ongoing power struggle, Virunga also happens to be the last natural habitat for the critically endangered mountain gorilla. The only thing standing in the way of the forces closing in around the gorillas: a handful of passionate park rangers and journalists fighting to secure the park's borders and expose the corruption of its enemies. Filled with shocking footage, and anchored by the surprisingly deep and gentle characters of the gorillas themselves, Virunga is a galvanizing call to action around an ongoing political and environmental crisis in the Congo.

Korengal picks up where Restrepo left off; the same men, the same valley, the same commanders, but a very different look at the experience of war.

With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape—with U.S. help—to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.

The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, in 2006.

In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…

The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.

Decades after her untimely death, Princess Diana continues to evoke mystery, glamour, and the quintessential modern fairy tale gone wrong. As a symbol of both the widening fissures weakening the British monarchy and the destructive machinery of the press, the Princess of Wales navigated an unparalleled rise to fame and the corrosive challenges that came alongside it. Crafted entirely from immersive archival footage and free from the distraction of retrospective voices, this hypnotic and audaciously revealing documentary takes a distinctive formal approach, allowing the story of the People’s Princess to unfold before us like never before.

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

The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. Some returning combat veterans suffer scars that are more psychological than physical. This film follows patients and staff during their treatment. It deals with what would now be called PTSD, but at the time was categorised as psychoneurosis or shell-shock. Government officials deemed this 1946 film counterproductive to postwar efforts; it was not shown publicly until 1981.

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

For the first time in history, the UCI Road World Championships are coming to African soil. This documentary captures the sweat, setbacks and symbolic power of cycling.

A study of the behavior of monkeys in the African jungle.

An Austrian director followed five successful African music and dance artists with his camera and followed their lives for a year. The artists, from villages in Ghana, Gambia and Congo, were the subjects of Africa! Africa! touring across Europe, but they have unbreakable roots to their homeland and their families. Schmiderer lovingly portrays his heroes, who tell their stories about themselves, their art and what it means to them to be African with captivating honesty. The interviews are interwoven with dance scenes and colourful vignettes set to authentic music.

North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.

In 1967, Visconti came to Algiers for the filming of The Stranger with Mastroianni and Anna Karina. Camus, during his lifetime, had always refused to allow one of his novels to be brought to the screen. His family made another decision. The filming of the film was experienced in Algiers, like a posthumous return of the writer to Algiers. During filming, a young filmmaker specializing in documentaries Gérard Patris attempts a report on the impact of the filming of The Stranger on the Algerians. Interspersed with sequences from the shooting of Visconti's film, he films Poncet, Maisonseul, Bénisti and Sénac, friends of Camus, in full discussions to situate Camus and his work in a sociological and historical context. “The idea is for us to show people, others, ourselves as if they could all be Meursault, or at least the witnesses concerned to his drama.”

We are living in the time of a heteronormative society that antagonizes Queer people for their Being-ness. In Africa, it is believed that we are un-African to Proudly be Our LGBTQIA+ selves. In this short documentary, we share with you researched origins of modern homophobia and queerphobia, while exposing hidden truths about the English bible. The short is a testament to the harmful effects of colonialism and the dangers of religious indoctrination. This film offers audiences the opportunity to question what we have been told to believe is true about queer people.

Albert Camus, who died 60 years ago, continues to inspire defenders of freedom and human rights activists around the world today. The Nobel Prize winner for literature is one of the most widely read French-language writers in the world. He continues to embody the rebellious man who opposes all forms of oppression and tyranny while refusing to compromise his human values.

Cheikh Djemaï looks back on the genesis of Gillo Pontecorvo’s feature film, The Battle of Algiers (1965). Through archive images, extracts from the film and interviews with personalities, the filmmaker retraces the journey of a major work - from the events of the Algiers Casbah (1956-1957) to the presentation of the Lion of 'Or causing the anger of the French delegation in Venice - which left its mark as much in the history of cinema as in that of Algeria.

Sexual decisions have deadly consequences. Can a small group of college students from Botswana challenge conventional wisdom about AIDS in Africa to save their generation? "The Road We Know" explores the impact of HIV/AIDS in Botswana through the efforts of these young adults who boldly advocate for behavior change to save lives. Facing cultural taboos and difficult travel, this small group sets out across the nation for five weeks with three tents, one car, and a radical solution to save lives.

This 90-minute special presents the complex and riveting history of Rwanda, providing an in-depth look at the propaganda campaign that's crucial to understanding how genocide leaders got ordinary citizens to participate. In 1994, the small African country was awash in blood. An estimated 75 percent of the Tutsi minority was slaughtered, and in just 100 days, more than 800,000 were killed. And, at least 50,000 politically moderate Hutus also perished. We explore the 1994 genocide and post-genocide period, and grapple with the question: How does a country recover from its haunted past? Unfolding through firsthand experiences of Rwandans who lived through the genocide, we document stories of survivors, perpetrators, and government officials and sort through the difficulties of balancing justice with reconciliation.

The image of French prisoners was very often evoked in Algerian cinema and literature, but until today, no Algerian or even European report or documentary had given voice to one of these French prisoners of the war of Algeria. In the interest of truth and writing history, we set out in search of one of these French witnesses. This witness is René Rouby, prisoner of Amirouche's group for more than 114 days in 1958 in the Akfadou region in Kabylia. This is the first testimony from a French prisoner of the ALN (the National Liberation Army).

This film is the result of more than two years of work tracking down archive material and witnesses close to Mobutu in Africa, Europe and the U.S. More than 950 hours of footage have been seen by the world. Among the 104 hours selected as the basis for this film, are 30 hours of archives recently discovered in Kinshasa and never before released. Completing these exceptional documents, are more than 50 hours of interviews with those close to the former president and the events surrounding his reign, conducted by the director in Kinshasa, Brussels, Paris and Washington. Like a vast historical puzzle, this film pieces together the tragic history of a country, and its self-styled leader - the dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, "King of Zaïre".

More than fifty years after the release of the film “The Battle of Algiers” in theaters in June 1966, director Salim Aggar found, after a search which lasted more than a year and a half, the actors, extras and technicians who worked on the film directed by Gillo Pentecorvo and produced by Yacef Saadi. In this documentary full of anecdotes and stories about the filming of the film, the director found the actress who played the role of Hassiba Ben Bouali, the young 17-year-old actress who played Bouhamidi's bride but especially certain figures important parts of the film who were barely 10 years old at the time of filming and who no one will recognize today. Beyond the important historical aspect of the film, the documentary focused mainly on the social, cinematographic and cultural aspect of the film and its impact on a generation which had just regained independence.

Kids from Brooklyn, NY housing projects try to change the world when they are paired with Sierra Leonean pen pals orphaned by a civil war.

Resistance leader Omar Mukhtar opposes Italian colonization before World War II. The brutal guerrilla war against Italian General Rodolfo Graziani and the Fascist forces of Benito Mussolini highlights the struggle for Libyan independence and the harsh tactics utilised by the colonisers.

In 1885, Africa is a succulent cake destined to be wildly divided and everyone wants a piece. A disturbed European king, a Pygmy working in a luxury hotel, a successful but lonely businessman, an enslaved porter, a young army deserter, a ghostly clarinetist. Some benefit from colonialism and greed. Others suffer racism and violence.

The film traces the story of a patrol of the Algerian National Liberation Army (ALN), whose mission is to transport a prisoner French soldier to the Tunisian border. Through the march of this group of guerrillas we witness the spirit of sacrifice and combativeness of these men from the people. The patrol will be decimated, but a young peasant will take over and complete the mission.

In Algiers, during the Algerian War of Independence, one of the leaders of the FLN was arrested by the French colonial army, which used the most violent methods to make the prisoners speak. The use of torture poses a conscience problem for a French officer. Playing shot-reverse-shot, between the tortured and his torturer, in a suffocating camera, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina approaches torture by drawing inspiration from the story of his father, who died of abuse.