Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba

Between 1960 and 1962 more than 14,000 cuban children were sent alone by their parents to the USA. This clandestine operation -with the participation of the CIA and the Catholic Church- became known as "Operation Peter Pan". Many of the parents had expected to follow their children, who had been granted visa waivers by the US government, but the Missile Crisis terminated the flights between the two countries and the children found themselves stranded in the USA. In 2009, for the first time a group of the Peter Pan children, now adults visited Cuba to give "closure and make peace with the land where they were born".

2011-06-24 | es

Lincoln

Famous actors read testimonies from people close to Lincoln about him and his actions during the Civil War.

1992-12-26 | en

Kennedy: One Family, One Nation

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The Jazz Ambassadors

The Cold War and Civil Rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their mixed-race band members, faced a painful dilemma: how could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?

2018-05-04 | en

Look at this City

Started in the summer of 1961, even before the Wall was built, the film becomes an explanation after this historical event as to why things can no longer go on as they were before. Unmistakably, as in almost all of Karl Gass' films, the passion with which he treats his subject is unmistakable. If you want to get to know the zeitgeist of the historically significant year 1961, which on both sides knew more the Cold War vocabulary than factual arguments, you can see the Eastern variant in this propaganda film.

1962-08-12 | de

A Very Animated War

From 1945 to 1989, after the capitulation of Nazi Germany, two rival ideologies, communism and capitalism, faced each other in a merciless battle. On one side of the Iron Curtain and on the other, throughout the Cold War, the USSR and the United States sought to shape children’s imaginations through their magazines and films. Never in the history of mankind have so many comic books been published and so many cartoons produced for young people. In November 1989, communism collapsed with the Berlin Wall; capitalism was left to decide the future of the world. What if this victory had been prepared for a long time, and our thinking conditioned, from our early childhood, to ensure this absolute triumph?

2021-08-15 | de

A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy

Bringing to life an American President who was widely respected by his countrymen and celebrated around the world. Composed from four break through films by Robert Drew, each an unprecedented record in candid photography of a phase of John F. Kennedy’s political life. Kennedy is seen in close up from young Senator campaigning for the Presidency, to an ebullient new President moving into the White House, to a burdened President trying to solve grave problems in the Oval Office. The shock of his death is seen through the faces of his compatriots. Now these four films are edited together with other footage of the time. This film is an intimate history of how one American President struggled to bring wisdom and honor to the office of the Presidency.

2008-04-12 | en

The Helsinki Effect

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was the starting point for the slow but sure collapse of communist authoritarian rule in Eastern Europe. The Helsinki Effect offers new perspectives on the events of the Cold War. The film tells the story of the CSCE process, which had a major impact on the end of the Cold War, and sheds light on secret top-level discussions behind closed doors, through voice simulations using artificial intelligence.

2025-02-21 | fi

Tunnel to Freedom

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

2021-07-22 | de

FDR: A Presidency Revealed

For twelve years he stood as America's 32nd President, a man who overcame the ravages of polio to pull America through the Great Depression and WWII. From his legendary Fireside Chats to his sweeping New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt revolutionized the American way of life. FDR: A Presidency Revealed examines one of history's most compelling figures. Inspired by his cousin Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt rose to the nation's highest office during the depths of one of its darkest periods. A man of few words, he brought a nation together through his revolutionary Fireside Chats. He introduced vast reforms like Social Security and work relief for the unemployed. At the same time, his administration hid a dark underbelly teeming with covert maneuvers, spy rings, and powerful enemies.

2005-04-17 | en

The American Question

An 8-year journey into divided America, The American Question examines the insidious roots of polarization and distrust through past the past and present, revealing how communities can restore trust in each other to unite our country.

2024-10-29 | en

Cold War Submarine Adventures: Cuban Missile Crisis - Secret Subs

Explore the events of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and hear from some of the actual participants in this riveting program. After an American naval blockade intercepted Soviet submarines on a secret mission to set up a military base in Cuba, the two nations engaged in a tense standoff that led the world to the brink of nuclear war. Submariners from both sides talk about the conflict, and viewers get a look inside their subs and the U.S. war room.

2002-01-01 | en

The Polygon

The Polygon shines a light on the village of Sarzhal in East Kazakhstan, situated only 18kms from the perimeter of the former Semipalatinsk Test Site, that was home to over 600 nuclear detonations. Between 1949 and 1991 the Soviet Union detonated 116 above ground bombs, whose massive radioactive mushroom clouds were witnessed by thousands of innocent and unsuspecting Kazakh villagers. They gazed openmouthed at the spectacle, completely unaware that nuclear fallout was raining down on them, their children, livestock and homes. 20 years after the closure of The Polygon they are still suffering high rates of cancer, cancer related diseases and mental illness. The Polygon takes us on a journey from the twisted Cold War experiments to those victims who remain today, still suffering despite the emergence of Kazakhstan as a major economic player on the global stage.

2014-11-04 | en

Der Reichstag

Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.

2017-12-19 | de

Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We?

With the Doomsday Clock the closest it's ever been to midnight, Jane Corbin investigates the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe. She visits Los Alamos, home to the United States’ nuclear weapons development facility and the historic home of Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project. In Scotland, she reveals the strategy behind Britain’s nuclear deterrent, and speaks to campaigners in Suffolk fighting against US weapons they fear will be based on UK soil. Jane also discovers how many of the global agreements and safeguards that have constrained the spread of nuclear weapons since the 1970s are breaking down. This is a story told by the scientists, investigators and diplomats who set the clock and have fought to ensure that the ultimate deterrent has not been used in over 70 years.

2024-01-18 | en

Frenemies: Putin and Trump

Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first politicians to congratulate Donald Trump on his election as president of the United States in 2016, but over time the relationship between the two heads of state has had its ups and downs. Are they friends or enemies? Has their mutual admiration turned into mutual distrust?

2020-03-17 | de

The Most Dangerous Man in Europe: Otto Skorzeny's After War

Waffen-SS officer Otto Skorzeny (1908-75) became famous for his participation in daring military actions during World War II. In 1947 he was judged and imprisoned, but he escaped less than a year later and found a safe haven in Spain, ruled with an iron hand by General Francisco Franco. What did he do during the many years he spent there?

2020-01-29 | es

Ronald Reagan: The Hollywood Years, the Presidential Years

These 2 one-hour specials will take a look back at Ronald Reagan from his ups and downs as a Hollywood movie star to a legendary force in American politics. HOLLYWOOD YEARS: will take a look at the actor as he goes from local sports broadcaster to respected leading an using film clips, interviews and rare footage. This one a kind documentary traces the ups and downs of his on-screen career, his marriages to Hane Wyman and Nancy Davis and his role as a "friendly witness" during the McCarthy hearings. PRESIDENTIAL YEARS: documents Ronald Reagan's extraordinary transformation from a Hollywood movie star to a legendary force in American politics. From political spokesman to Governor of California, Reagan's rapid rise in leadership carried him all the way to the White House where he would inscribe an indelible legacy into the pages of world history.

2001-08-22 | en

Reagan

Americans know President Ronald Reagan s politics, his policies, and his oratorical prowess. But as we approach what would have been his 100th birthday in February 2011, the totality of the legacy of America s 40th president is still eclipsed by the myth. While some say he s a hero, and others call him an empty suit, one thing is for certain President Ronald Reagan made history. But what made him? Using rare archival footage and personal interviews with those who knew him best, REAGAN goes beyond the myth to reveal the epic story of an unforgettable man who, against all odds, rose to the pinnacle of power. A brand-new HISTORY special that uses rare archival footage and personal interviews to reveal the President Reagan that few of us knew.

2011-02-09 | en

Hasselhoff vs. The Berlin Wall

David Hasselhoff, better known for his roles in “Knight Rider” and “Baywatch” released a song titled, “Looking for Freedom” the year before the Berlin Wall came down. He performed it on top of the Berlin Wall to a million people during the biggest New Year's Eve party Germany had ever seen. Twenty five years later, David revisits the now-reunited capital, investigating what is left of the Wall, and explores what it meant in the context of the Cold War dividing Communism in the East from democracy in the West. Along his journey he meets extraordinary people who dreamt of freedom and risked their lives trying to overcome the dreaded Berlin Wall.

2014-09-01 | en