The Search

The Cuckoo

January 2002 •Russian

September of 1944, a few days before Finland went out of the Second World War. A chained to a rock Finnish sniper-kamikadze Veikko managed to set himself free. Ivan, a captain of the Soviet Army, arrested by the Front Secret Police 'Smersh', has a narrow escape. They are soldiers of the two enemy armies. A Lapp woman Anni gives a shelter to both of them at her farm. For Anni they are not enemies, but just men.

Wag the Dog

December 1997 •English

During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.

Full Metal Jacket

June 1987 •English

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

Babruvahana

January 1977 •Kannada

Babhruvahana, like Arjuna at the beginning of the Kurukshetra war, faces a moral dilemma. Can he risk harming his parents? While Chitarangada alerts Arjuna to shoot an arrow at their son and take advantage of Babhruvahana’s momentary lapse due to a sense of devotion towards them (as Arjuna did with Karna), Uluci, the Naga princess and yet another abandoned wife of Arjuna’s, reminds Babhruvahana of the teaching of the Kurukshetra battle that in the battlefield there is no space for feelings even towards parents. What Babhruvahana must do is to establish his mother’s good name and thereby his own character. This film captures this conflict spectacularly. The eerie parallels with the moral dilemmas of the great Mahabharata battle aside, here all the familial relationships (in particular, strong mothers and dutiful sons) become exaggerated and demand our attention.

Jacob the Liar

April 1975 •German

A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories.

Star-Crossed Lovers

June 1962 •German

Magdalena and Michael have loved each other since they were children. But when the Nazis come to power, Michael rebels against the regime and is sentenced to fifteen years in a concentration camp. Magdalena, meanwhile, goes underground with the help of a friend and later immigrates to the Soviet Union. Michael, who has joined the Red Army, discovers on the way to Moscow that Magdalena is staying there. But when his plane lands, she is already on her way back to Germany. Michael hopes that one day, he and Magdalena will be reunited.

The Adventures of Werner Holt

February 1965 •German

Two 17-year-olds, Werner Holt and Gilbert Wolzow, are pulled out of school and into Hitler's army. Gilbert becomes a fanatical soldier; but at the front, Werner begins to understand the senselessness of war.

Sunflower

March 1970 •Italian

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?

Red Snow

April 2013 •German

A young lieutenant must persuade a captive resistance fighter to betray his comrades, or enforce a law which states that for every German soldier killed, one hundred civilians must be executed.

The Diary of Anne Frank

March 1959 •English

The true, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.

Earth and Ashes

May 2004 •Pashto

Elderly Dastaguir and his newly deaf 5-year-old grandson Yassin hitchhike and walk, but mostly walk, as they make their way to the coal mine where Dastaguir's son Murad works. Dastaguir must tell Murad that the rest of their family were all killed in a recent bomb attack.

A Woman Alone

May 1936 •English

An officer becomes entangled in a love affair with a woman who works as a maid.

Singendes Wasser

January 2007 •German

Persepolis

June 2007 •French

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Savior

June 1998 •Hungarian

A hardened mercenary in the Foreign Legion begins to find his own humanity when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in Bosnia.

The Kazbat Soldiers

November 2019 •Kazakh

A film about the feat of 17 soldiers of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan (now the National Guard), who died on April 7, 1995 on the Tajik-Afghan border while protecting the external borders of the CIS.

Przeor Kordecki – obrońca Częstochowy

December 1934 •Polish

Pre-war Polish film about the siege of Jasna Góra, which took place during the Swedish invasion of Poland.

Na odsiecz Wiedniowi

September 1983 •Polish

Film about the famous Battle of Vienna and the events surrounding it.

No End

June 1985 •Polish

1982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.

All Quiet on the Western Front

April 1930 •English

When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.