The Secret Spitfires

Spitfires were the nemesis of the Luftwaffe and the instrument which halted Hitler’s plans for invasion. After relentless bombing of the Spitfire factories in Southampton, the Germans were convinced they had halted the production of the Spitfires for good. But across the South of England, hidden in sheds, garages, back gardens, bedrooms, a bus depot, and even a hotel, a workforce of unskilled young girls, boys, women, elderly men, and a handful of engineers secretly built thousands of Spitfires to help win the war. Witnesses recount this never-before-told story of amazing achievement.

Sonderauftrag Führermuseum

One and a half years before the begin of the Second World War during the annexation of Austria in March of 1938, Hitler conceived the megalomaniac idea of creating the largest European art center in his home town of Linz. At the beginning of the war on the 1st of September 1939, not only did his armies advance but also his art thieves began to fan out in their great foray of art plundering; an expedition on a previously unheard of scale began. Not only did the task forces of diverse National Socialist organizations pillage the occupied countries; Nazi bigwigs like Goering also took whatever they felt was valuable. This documentary includes the long and eventful journey of an exceptional masterpiece of European art: the Ghent Altar, created by van Eyck.

Qualcosa che vive e brucia

"Letters from Europe" brings to light the words of men and women who gave their lives resisting the Nazi and fascist conquest from 1939 to '45 across the European continent. The moving goodbyes penned by a few of those sentenced to death are sometimes true spiritual testaments that explore the meaning of civic responsibility, human existence, fraternity, and life and death. Their words, which the film mingles with footage of the present day, can perhaps restore meaning to a humanist ideal and to the ever-changing idea of a united Europe.

Rommel, chef de guerre

Hélène Berr, une jeune fille dans Paris occupé

Mój dom

Two women, one house. An intimate story about a Pole and a German placed by war on enemy sides and their parallel lives accidentally brought together. The film reflects on the concepts of invaders, victim, guilt and forgiveness. It confronts different experiences and their paradoxical similarities. It deals with the controversial subject of the post-war accountings. The visual narration is flowing, guided by memories and archives. Traditional documentation confronts experimental use of archival footage in the cinematic impression about displacement.

The Camps of Death

Human torture. Factories of death. War atrocities. The crimes that haunt the pagse of history are chronicled in the piercing documentary Camps of Death. Following Hitler's murderous career, the film traces his rise to power, his ultimate demise, and the subsequent nuremberg trials that publicized the horrors of Hitler's regime. Concentration camp footage combines with chilling POW interviews to graphically create the nazi nightmare that few could hope to survive. A powerful look at the third reich adn the horrifying fate of its enemies.

Hitler's Supergun

Historians and engineers investigate how Allied forces conspired to destroy Hitler's "supergun".

What They Found

The story of two soldier-cameramen, Sgt Mike Lewis and Sgt Bill Lawrie, who witnessed the liberation of Belsen during the closing days of World War II.

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.

Battle of the Bulge: Siege of Bastogne

With the Fifth Panzer Army fighting its way towards the River Meuse, the cross roads town of Bastogne, vital for the success of Hitler's last attempt to check the Allies in the west, the Americans rushed reinforcements to hold it. 101st US Airborne Division was resting in reserve near Paris when the call for immediate deployment to the Ardennes came and reached Bastogne just before the German ring around the town closed. Wearing only normal uniforms, the 101st joined the other garrison troops in a siege where they fought not only the enemy's panzers but the freezing, snowy, cold to hold the vital road junction. Filmed on the ground we tell the story of the heroic defence of Bastogne.

Věrni zůstaneme

The compilation documentary We Will Remain Faithful is a testimony to the Czechoslovak resistance during the Second World War. The film covers the period from the end of the First Czechoslovak Republic to the victorious Allied advance in 1944. Director Jiří Weiss compiled it from archival footage, his own authentic and subsequently staged war footage, and material from both Allied and enemy newsreels.

L'Occupation intime

June 14, 1940. The German Army marches into Paris. France is an occupied country. Through exclusive amateur footage, personal stories, and popular songs from the time, this fi lm recounts life with the enemy during the occupation, as seen by the French... and the Germans! Despite the Nazis and the troubled war times, day-to-day life in occupied France went on. People learnt to live with the rationing, the cues, the curfew... Many try to forget the hard times, mainly thanks to the movies in which big stars provide a little dream and lead a privileged life. These stars don't actually collaborate, butadapt and give the impression of normal life during the war. After all, is it necessarily shameful to shake the hand of an enemy?

Belgique nazie

In Time's Shadow

Drawing upon eye-witness accounts from survivors and participants in the bombing of Hiroshima, this programme shows how both Japan and the United States are still facing enormous problems in coming to terms with the legacy of that fateful August day.

Warszawa: miasto podzielone

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.

De Gaulle et les Siens

In June 1940 nothing was written. The appeal of June 18 by General de Gaulle was a hope but also a start. The start for an essential page of the History of France, written by De Gaulle and his followers, without whom nothing would have existed in the Resistance to the German tyranny and this film wishes to honor their memory.

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?

Hitler's 9/11

Adolf Hitler's Nazi megalomania knew no limits. The most daring of his plans World War II involved German fighter planes crashing into Manhattan's skyscrapers as living bombs, like the Japanese kamikazes. Hitler understood the huge symbolic power of Manhattan's skyscrapers. He believed suicide bombing would have a devastating psychological impact on the American people and the U.S. war effort.

Tiedustelijat

The secret past of a World War II-era intelligence officer comes to light when his grandson, actor Joonas Saartamo, begins to investigate his grandfather's activities as the leader of a long-range reconnaissance patrol. Meeting various experts along the way, Saartamo discovers a new insight into the crucial role of long-range reconnaissance patrols in war. He also realizes how strongly the weight of his grandfather's war experiences has been passed down from generation to generation, affecting him directly.