Falling Star is based on three stories by the contemporary Russian writer Viktor Astafyev and centers on a young soldier on the front lines who is wounded and taken to the hospital. Once there, he muses about his childhood and a little girl he had loved - someone who could easily have grown up to be the nurse that is attending to him now. As he recuperates, he and the nurse fall in love and he very much wants to marry her. At this point, the nurse's mother comes for a visit and advises him against such an action because if they were to marry and he were subsequently killed or maimed in action - the fighting is still close to the hospital - the nurse would suffer much more than if he just left her alone. Now it is up to the soldier to make a decision one way or the other.
Located nearly 80 kilometres north of Berlin, Germany, the former municipality of Ravensbrück was home to a prison between 1939 and 1945 that became a concentration camp designed specifically for women. It was built by order of Heinreich Himmler, a high dignitary of the Third Reich and head of the SS. Of the more than 130,000 people who were deported there, almost 90,000 never returned. Based on witnesses, international experts and computer-generated images, the document reveals the atrocities committed in Ravensbrück.
Episodic story of the resistance to the German invasion of the Ukraine in 1918 during World War 1, and made as an example of the guerrilla warfare and fierce spirit in which Ukrainian peasants were again resisting Teuton onslaughts in 1939. Highlights a small band of guerrillas and their battles using scythes, shotguns and, often, just clubs against the Kaiser's army in the Ukrainian forests.
Sicily, July 10, 1943: the US army lands in Gela, where some divisions encounter strenuous resistance from the Italian army. The marines, in an attempt to escape to safety, are dispersed through the Sicilian countryside. A small task force luckily meets Robert Capa: the great photojournalist, who launched himself at the first light of dawn together with the soldiers of the ill-fated 82nd division, awaits help hanging from a tree. The group of soldiers, with the photojournalist and a wounded comrade, stops at a farm of poor Sicilian shepherds. John Mancuso, marine of the first infantry division, discovers that his father's birthplace is in nearby Niscemi, and wants to go and see it. He will get help from little Salvatore.
In 1962, René Vautier, together with some Algerian friends, organised the audio-visual formation centre Ben Aknoun to encourage a "dialogue in images" between the two factions. Together with his students he made a film that shows the history of the Algerian War and of the ALN (National Liberation Army), and life during the reconstruction.
In 1945, on the battlefields in Hungary, three Bulgarian soldiers from the reserve have to fight for the liberation of the country. They are totally unprepared for the war and have no desire to take part in the battles. The three reservists are the sad sight and initially their commander wants to send them back to Bulgaria. But their attitude is changed after the witnessed tragedies. Without knowing it, they all turn into heroes.
In the depths of a snowy forest in an unknown wartime, two soldiers from opposing armies try to outwit each other in a perilous game of cat and mouse - until they find themselves outplayed by destiny.
A plane drops an atomic bomb, after which the pilot is ordered into hiding by the command centre. They have even rented a piece of jungle for him, where he starts a micro-community. However, a power struggle ensues between his half-blind granddaughter Ruby, the insomniac bodyguard, the priest appointed as her guardian by the pilot, and a policeman who says he is family. Things explode when Ruby befriends a mysterious stranger.
In 1895, young journalist Albertine Auclair arrives in the Kabylie during a family visit. The beauty of the region seduces her but she soon learns of the struggles of the native Algerians. She hears in particular about Arezki El Bachir, who was recently sentenced to death by the colonial justice system, and decides to find out more about this extraordinary man.
An Iraqi pilot crashes during the Iran-Iraq War over the Kurdish mountains, and two teams race to find him first: the Iranians who want to arrest him, and the Kurds who want to save him from Iranian capture.
Vietnam, 1968, João Cruz and his platoon are assigned to Da Nang when they are ambushed and taken prisoner by the VC forces, commanded by Colonel Tó Huang, Now he will have to come up with a plan to get out of there, anyway he can. Will he make it, we will find out soon.
During Korean War Chinese veteran Du Chuan was ordered to reorganize the reconnaissance platoon to carry out the mission of raiding deep behind enemy lines. In order to survive the main force, the Volunteer Army's third reconnaissance platoon risked their lives in the attack, forged with fearless courage and the belief of living towards death. A Great Wall of flesh and blood was erected to block the enemy's torrent of steel.
