Świętokrzyskie Mountains, 1944. A People's Army unit receives orders to transport a party delegate outside the front line, while heavy fighting is going on between the Germans and resistance fighters in the region.
A dramatic story from the end of WW II and a remarkable contemplation of the value of true friendship, meaning and purpose oflife or the possibility to be humane even in inhuma ne conditions. In a frosty mountain setting a cruel struggle for life takes place. After a fight, two partisans return to their brigade carrying along a young German soldier as a captive. But suddenly, amidst the hopelessness of barren mountains. all protagonists find themselves in a liminal existential situation.
The film is set in Karafuto after the radio broadcast of the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War. On August 15, 1945, Soviet forces invaded Karafuto. On August 20, the postal telegraph office in Maoka suspended operations and nine of the twelve telephone operators committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide while the city was being invaded.
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.
A Korean man, forced into service in the Japanese army during WWII, marries his Japanese girlfriend despite everyone's objections. Later, he becomes the sole survivor when the Americans attack.
The plot of this film is set in an idyllic village in the middle of Bosnia, connected with outer world only with a tunnel. Story begins in 1996, when refugees in a police escort come close to their, due to war abandoned, homeland and a tunnel - their only connection with the world.
The famous Swedish Karoliner army has suffered its biggest defeat ever at Poltava in 1709. The Swedish king Karl XII is waiting in the small village of Bender for the Turkish sulton to help him defeat his arch enemy, the czar of Russia, Peter the Great. But the Turks think he's an expensive guest and want him out of Turkey. However, he refuses. The sultan then decides to send Karl XII a princess to marry him, to get him out of the country (a bride for a bribe). The two Swedish soldiers Lagercrona and Kruus are to escort the princess. They experience many different adventures on their way to Bender, namely because other Swedish soldiers and agents try to stop them from ever reaching the village, because they don't want Karl XII to leave Turkey. After their long adventure to get there and a few misunderstandings, the famous "kalabalik" of Bender, where the Turks decide to drive Karl XII out of Turkey by force, begins.
A story of WWI soldiers and the Black struggle for pride and freedom. Eye witness testimonies of surviving veterans, official documents and archive photos reveal the incredible story of the British West Indies Regiment.
The making of 'The World At War'. Each film in the 26 episode series had to be an essay on an aspect of the war, because the length and separate aspects of the war was far too much to cover in detail. Jeremy Isaacs talks about the production process and the aims of the project. The intention of the crew that were involved with the various skills in making 'The World at War' had no desire to use film from British, German, French, Polish, Russian, Japanese, or the Americans because of their specific means of showing the winning side of a specific action. Rather, an effort was made to interview people who were not part of the establishment, but rather the common people or assistants and secretaries of historical persons. Film was researched for those films from cameras where there was no special subject, but those that would allow the viewer to make their own decisions about what they had just seen and heard.
Fly low, blasting everything in front of you to pieces was one version. The other was send light helos, like the Loach, teamed up with two gunships. Together known as "Pink Teams" they would fly low trying to draw enemy fire. When the V.C. opened up, the gunships would strike quickly with rockets and machine guns. The tactic known as Recon by Fire is just one of the operations you will experience firsthand in "CHOPPER WARS." It is a story about one of the most devastating weapons used in the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong's worst nightmare--the helicopter. "To the grunts, they were a godsend--to the enemy they were beasts from Hell--the "CHOPPERS!" -insane copy from the back of the VHS box.
The Android Sisters sing about the alarming increase in U.S. defense spending during the cold war and its effect on various aspects of the domestic economy.