Traces: People of the Peacock

Es geht um Alles

May 2008 •German

45 Days: The Fight for a Nation

September 2021 •English

A feature documentary presented and directed by former Royal Marines Commando Emile Ghessen. The documentary tells the story of the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh. In the fall of 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a brutal bloody war. Azerbaijan won, decisively. The feature documentary 45 Days: The Fight for a Nation tells the story of this conflict, from the Armenian perspective, focusing on the human cost of war and its impact on the large Armenian diaspora.

The Cars We Drove into Capitalism

October 2021 •Bulgarian

A cinematic, character-driven insight to what it meant to produce and to own a car in communist times: the Socialist propaganda dreams and the hard reality of living that dream. The freedom that these slow and clumsy vehicles were giving to their owners; the cars as an instrument in the Cold War battle; legends and homemade tune-ups as an attempt to stand at least a little bit off the crowd.

Moscow 1996, Vote or Lose!

November 2021 •French

Moscow, January 1996. Boris Yeltsin gets ready to run for a second mandate of the presidency of the young Russian Federation. Polls are in the single digits. A painful economic transition, war in Chechnya, and the rise of criminal groups have left the majority of Russians dissatisfied with Yeltsin… and willing to vote for the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. Yet six months later, Yeltsin won the election with nearly 54% of the vote. How did that happen?

Putin's Games

December 2013 •English

The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia will be the first ever to be held in a subtropical resort. The most expensive games ever break all records when it comes to corruption and megalomania. Putin's administration has everyone at its beck and call, from oligarchs down to the ordinary people who have to pay the Olympic bill. Both the powerful and the weak speak out in this investigative documentary, which unveils the hidden story behind Putin's games. Government critic Garry Kasparov says that Putin's Olympic propaganda is really all about speeding up the privatization of land in Sochi. Many inhabitants have had to make way for hotels, ski jumps and a large harbor, which were subsequently swept away by storms and landslides – the Olympic village was built on a swamp in the hottest region of Russia. To a large extent, the story of these environmentally unfriendly Olympic Games is one of threats and enormous misappropriations of money.

Rock

January 1988 •Russian

Documentary — featuring both interviews and live footage — about underground rock music in Russia, during the last years of the Perestroika.

How the Holocaust Began

January 2023 •English

Historian James Bulgin reveals the origins of the Holocaust in the German invasion of the Soviet Union, exploring the mass murder, collaboration and experimentation that led to the Final Solution.

The Hitler–Stalin Pact

January 2019 •French

How could Hitler and Stalin, sworn ideological enemies, come to a secret pact in 1939? The captivating and detailed story of the diplomatic fiasco that led to the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact and its devastating consequences.

Melodies of the mountains

January 2006 •Russian

Film about the singing and dancing culture of the Ingush people

Six Days

January 2013 •English

Three women, three wars, one dream. Lanja is a journalist in Iraq fearlessly fighting against honor violence. Maia in Abkhazia battles archaic customs like 'bride kidnapping'. Nelly runs a women's shelter in the slums of Monrovia, Liberia. A universal story of women's courage and survival in the aftermath of war.

PQ17: An Arctic Convoy Disaster

January 2014 •English

Jeremy Clarkson tells the dramatic story of the Arctic convoys of the Second World War, from Russia to the freezing Arctic Ocean.

People of Russia

December 1942 •English

This FitzPatrick Miniature visits the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the largest geographically unbroken political unit in the world, covering one-sixth of the world's land mass.

The Condemned

June 2013 •English

With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)

The Last Days of the USSR

December 2011 •French

From 1989 to 1991 a string of unpredictable events happened that brought to light the rivalry between two men: Gorbachev, hindered by the economic results of his perestroika, and Yeltsin, embodying the hopes of the Russian people. Illustrated with interviews of top protagonists such as Mikhail Gobachev himself, the documentary recounts the critical last two years of the former USSR.

Cracks in the Mask

June 1997 •English

A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific to make elaborate turtleshell masks have none left - they are all in foreign museums. In a quest to reclaim the past, Ephraim Bani, a wise and knowledgeable Torres Strait Islander, travels with his wife to the great museums of Europe where his heritage lies. The film, an SBS Independent production, shows that the thickest of masks cracks when a descendant of the original owners enters a museum.

Ascension

May 2009 •Russian

Definitively proving that all the "B" Science Fiction of the 1950s and 1960s do not hold a candle to the 'real thing,' Pavel Medvedev's surreal 45 minute documentary Ascension is certainly one to look for. Composed entirely out of archival footage, much of it from the Soviet science and space archives, delicately scored and building to an undeniable mood of surreal (perhaps even ominous) energy, it charts (and re-purposed) the progress of man into to the unknown area of space exploration with a flair for creating art out film that was shot by scientists and engineers as a mundane record.

Son of Torum

February 1989 •Estonian

In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.

Juifs de Russie

September 2016 •French

Barbarossa: Hitler Turns East

August 2007 •Hungarian

Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.

And When They Shall Ask

November 1983 •German