Fidel Castro employed a vast spy network that helped him remain in power.
Social & External
Himself (archive footage)
Narrator (voice)
Having grown up within the Cuban Revolution, in 1980, Juan Carlos Zaldívar was a 13-year-old "pioneer" jeering in the streets at the thousands of "Marielitos" leaving the island by boat for the United States. Within weeks, he was a Marielito himself, headed with the rest of his family for a new life in Miami. Now a U.S.-based filmmaker, Zaldívar recounts the strange twist of fate that took him across one of the world's most treacherous stretches of water in 90 Miles, a new documentary having its broadcast premiere on PBS's acclaimed P.O.V. series in the summer of 2003. As related by Zaldívar in the intensely personal and evocative 90 Miles, arrival in South Florida is only the beginning of the family's struggles to comprehend the full meaning of their passage into exile. What follows is an intimate and uneasy accounting of the historical forces that have split the Cuban national family in two, and which shape the passage of values from one generation to the next.
Charlie Marx and the Chocolate Factory started as an investigation of the link between politics and chocolate, at the Karl Marx Confectionary Factory in Kiev, Ukraine. Since access to the factory was denied, the project had to be re-considered, re-invented or re-enacted. Mostly made of archival footage and re-enacted performances based on the company's website, the film merges what was left of the initial idea with what has been collected and realized instead. It borrows from the genres of video art, 'Man on the street' interview, direct address, corporate film, essay, and music video, without legitimately belonging to any of them. The film unravels as a reflection on its own failure, and yet keeps on investigating what has always been at stake: the shift from public to private property (and from analog to digital technology), dialectics of permanence and change, language as a mirror of ideology, and post-Soviet oligarchy culture.
Half blind and half deaf, ostraziced Cuban writer Rafael Alcides tries to finish his unpublished novels to discover that after several decades, the home made ink from the typewriter he used to write them has faded. The Cuban revolution as a love story and eventual deception is seen through the eyes of a man who is living an inner exile.
Documentary about the merging of the Communist Party of Germany and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the Soviet occupation zone, a merger that would lead to the creation of the Socialist Unity Party that would rule the soon-to-be-created East Germany until 1989.
Procreation is the social duty of all fertile women, was the political thinking during the 1960s and 1970s in Romania. In 1966, Ceaucescu issued Decree 770, in which he forbade abortion for all women unless they were over forty or were already taking care of four children. All forms of contraception were totally banned. The New Romanian Man was born. By 1969, the country had a million babies more than the previous average. Romanian society was rapidly changing. By using very interesting archival footage and excerpts from old fiction films and by interviewing famous personalities from that time – gynecologists or mothers who were part of the new society - the director revives this period of tremendous oppression of personal freedom. Many deaths were caused by the mere fact that women, including wives of secret Romanian agents, famous TV presenters, and actresses, had to undergo illegal abortions. Many women were jailed for having them.
Taking stock of the extraordinary adventure of "Pif Gadget", a French publishing phenomenon of the 1970s-80s and even of the whole history of children's press. For the comic-strip magazine with the iconic dog, created in 1969 by the French Communist Party, often reached a million copies. With editions available for all of Europe (including Germany, under the title Yps), and on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
A film about the dramatic and extraordinary fate of the lonely man who confronted the meat grinder of the communist regime. Georgy Konstantinov, 19 years old, blew up Stalin's monument in Sofia and death passed him by only because the dictator died two days later. He miraculously survived 10 years in prison and psychiatric wards and managed to escape to France. His State Security file numbers more than 40,000 pages. Even today, he does not cease to expose the crimes of the regime with the strength of truth and of his character.
Bosnian Croat writer Miljenko Jergović and Serbian writer Marko Vidojković replace one another by the steering wheel of Yugo, a symbol of their common past while driving on the Brotherhood and Unity Highway that stretched across five of six republics of Yugoslavia.
At the peak of Perestroika, in 1987, in the village of Gorki, where Lenin spent his last years, after a long construction, the last and most grandiose museum of the Leader was opened. Soon after the opening, the ideology changed, and the flow of pilgrims gradually dried up. Despite this, the museum still works and the management is looking for ways to attract visitors. Faithful to the Lenin keepers of the museum as they can resist the onset of commercialization. The film tells about the modern life of this amazing museum-reserve and its employees.
A research-based essay film, but also a very personal perspective on the history of socialist Yugoslavia, its dramatic end, and its recent transformation into a few democratic nation states.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…
The young American Pablo Menéndez came to Cuba to study Music at the National School of Art. Here he formed a family and became one more Cuban. Member of the Sound Experimentation Group of ICAIC and promoter of the teaching of the electric guitar in Cuba, he is, together with his group Mezcla, one of our most original musicians.
Poland, 1970. When popular protests erupt in the streets due to rising prices, the communist government organizes a crisis team. Soon after, the police use their truncheons and then their firearms. The story of a rebellion from the point of view of the oppressors.
Thomas Sankara came to power in Burkina Faso in 1983, with the promise of a revolutionary government that would transform the West African country. To help build the revolution, he sent 600 children — many orphans from rural areas — to be educated in Cuba. But after Sankara’s assassination, the children were stranded. The last would only return to Burkina Faso in 2005. SANKARA’S ORPHANS tells their stories through interviews with some of the 600, along with archival footage of their lives on Cuba’s Isle of Youth — where both Sankara and Fidel Castro came to visit. Along with their education, the children worked in the fields and received weapons training. This, combined with their idealism, frightened the new Burkina Faso regime, which worried they might return and take up arms.
A documentary that explores the myth behind the truth. Different people around the globe reinterpret the legend of Che Guevara at will: from the rebel living in Hong Kong fighting Chinese domination, to the German neonazi preaching revolution and the Castro-hating Cuban. Their testimonies prove that the Argentinian revolutionary's historical impact reverberates still. But like with all legends, each sees what he will, in often contradictory perspectives.
Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.
Ben Stewart, the bright young musician and philosopher who brought us the sleeper hit "Esoteric Agenda", unveils his new work, Kymatica!. Kymatica will venture into the realm of Cymatics and Shamanic practices. It will offer insight into the human psyche and discuss matters of spirituality, altered states of consciousness and much more! Not to be missed!
Oliver Stone spends three days filming with Fidel Castro in Cuba, discussing an array of subjects with the president such as his rise to power, fellow revolutionary Che Guevara, the Cuban Missile crisis, and the present state of the country.
Acclaimed Florida novelist Randy Wayne White travels to Cuba with former pitchers Bill "Spaceman" Lee (Boston Red Sox) and Jon Warden (Detroit Tigers), and a band of baseball enthusiasts to find and revive the children's baseball league founded by American writer Ernest Hemingway in the days before Fidel Castro came to power.
In a culture where cremation is unusual, cemeteries fill up rapidly. In Latin America and in some other places, to solve the problem, remains are frequently exhumed. In Cuba, two year after interment. Relatives are invited to observe the little ritual. The music of the film is drawn from requiems from different periods. Twelve pieces by seven different composers are quoted. Together, they make up a traditional requiem, although only a few passages from the "dies irae" have been included, and other sections are slightly abbreviated.
In 1959, Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba. He has been one of the most controversial figures in the world ever since. This is the story of the Cuban dictator's turbulent career, told in part through media reports, rare images and recordings.
The documentary Merikotkan paluu (Return of the white-tailed eagle), tells the tale of the past and the present of the white-tailed eagle. The second protagonist of the film is the human - the animal that can be blamed for the eagles’ distress but also credited for its rescue.
I was somewhere between the beggining and the end of life. After winter became spring, and summer became fall, and fall winter again. I always knew change would be constant.
Kumar Agnihotri belongs to a wealthy family, consisting of his dad, Madan, and mom, Janki. He is in love with beautiful Mala Bajpai, and they hope to marry soon with the blessings of their respective parents. Kumar's other passion is boxing, which Janki loathes, and hopes that he will give this up soon. When the Agnihotris bring home a woman named Ganga, and introduce her to Kumar as Janki's childhood friend, Kumar finds out that Ganga is his biological mother, and his father, Ajay Kumar, was the National Champion in boxing, who was killed by three men for refusing to lose a fight. While Janki is afraid that she is going her son to Ganga, Kumar has decided to avenge his biological's father's death by any means, little realizing that he may face the same fate his father did years ago.
UFC 292: Sterling vs. O'Malley was a mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that took place on August 19, 2023, at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. A UFC Bantamweight Championship bout between current champion Aljamain Sterling and Sean O'Malley headlined the event and a UFC Women's Strawweight Championship bout between current two-time champion Zhang Weili and Amanda Lemos served as the co-headliner. The lightweight and bantamweight finals of The Ultimate Fighter: Team McGregor vs. Team Chandler took place at the event.
A casual encounter on Tinder between Michal – a film student, and Alex – a local guy from Sderot, takes an unexpected turn, while the two embark on a poetic journey between Sderot and Paris.
The insects have completely taken over Mickey's garden. He spritzes them with insecticide, but runs out and they keep feasting. He mixes a new batch. Meanwhile, Pluto stalks a bug and gets his head stick in a pumpkin. He stumbles around and bumps into Mickey and the sprayer, giving Mickey a faceful of bug juice. He awakens to a warped reality, where the bugs and plants are giant sized, and the bugs get drunk on the insecticide and chase our heroes. Mickey recovers from his nightmare, discovering the giant worm he was wrestling was the hose.
A seemingly mystical murder takes Captain Sophie Maliquot back to the Mont-Saint-Michel region where she spent part of her childhood and where her father, who died years earlier, is buried.
Cecilia is searching a new means of artistic expression. She does not want to have children, they would hamper her development.
The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart / In your cold room / The silence that makes you mine / Fall, stars / She sat around and counted them all a million times / My name no one will know / And if my love were in vain / Oh God, I would want to die! / She was the roughest, toughest frail / In your cold room look at the trembling stars / I am pining, I am tormented! / but my mystery is closed in me / Have pity / I’ll win at dawn and we must alas die / Have pity / Death and despair flame about me
A radio salesman is trying to sell some gypsies a radio. But they have their easy to operate crystal ball, that even works as a TV. They show him how easy it works by listening to the doings of the Rhythm Boys, Tito Guizar, the Picken Sisters and Ann Lee, and let him try to receive a Frank Hazard program.
Teenage orphan Jenny Yates becomes starstruck when a revival of an old Victorian melodrama passes through her small New England town, to the disapproval of her stern grandfather, Uriah. Stowing away in the car of Philip Greene, a wealthy young man working with the theater troupe, Jenny talks her way into the play's lead role. But director Archie Fisher doesn't tell her that the new version of the play is meant as a spoof.
Dad catches a ball badly, injuring his finger. His guttural scream instantly hushes the entire sports complex. Sarah is paralysed. She barely recognises him; red faced, clutching his hand and crying. In the sanctuary of the locker changing rooms, Sarah explores and tests theories about what has happened with her Dad. She questions who her father is while struggling to grasp the concept of pain, both inside and out. Having found an apparent conclusion, Sarah returns to an apologetic Dad, and decides to put his promises to the test.music:Annette Focksproducer:Tobias Rosen, Heike Wiehle-Timmproduction:Relevant Film, Warner Bros Entertainment Germanybacking:Deutscher Filmförderfonds (DFFF) (DE), Schleswig-Holstein Film Commission (DE), Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA)(DE)distributor:Warner Bros Entertainment Germany
Three years living in Sunset Park, living between the BQE and the Greenwood Cemetery, accumulating footage of junkyard cats, Park Slope strollers, burned out cars, flying birds.
Once a year, an exclusive group of men travels to a top-secret location somewhere in the wooded mountains of Washington State to compete in an all-day event they call The Outdoorsmen. They battle their way through a series of events that combine physical challenges with high-speed beer chugging. For the past 4 years, this dedicated group has competed relentlessly to bask in the glory of winning the coveted title of Outdoorsmen Champion. As we examine the lives and friendships of the "Veteran" and "Newbie" Outdoorsmen, we discover a tradition of male bonding and whole-hearted dedication to a competition that pushes its players through events like DEATH RACE 3000, THE HATCHET TOSS, and BLIND MAN'S BEER.
Two teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love.
You're looking at a very special DVD that very nearly didn't happen. Stewart Lee's tour de force, 90s Comedian, has been dubbed so controversial (along with his directing debut Jerry Springer the Opera) that none of the big DVD manufacturers would touch it with a barge pole. Which is a shame, and is why the fearless Go Faster Stripe stepped in and offered to organise a special one-off evening's pe
![Body Prop - Movement 1 [destroyed be forever all the bonds of nature]](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/elCxmIPiuytCXaSYDj9wnQGXhi2.jpg)
