As we try to push war away into history its routine horrors assail us, and its dirty secrets disempower us again and again. But these fllms go deeper, through essay, and archive documentary, and fiction, into wars that history books have already misunderstood for us — and those wars erupting daily on the too-often unseen street corners near and far…From Robert Kramer’s 1969 classic ICE, to untold stories of anti-war activism and long-term pacifist struggle in Anand Patwhardan’s WAR AND PEACE and Erlich and Tejada-Flores’ THE GOOD WAR, through to Ruddier Sunner’s powerful analysis of Nazi ideology BLACK SUN, here is war and peace seen by visionary filmmakers such as Claude Chabrol, Shohei Immamura, Joris Ivens, Chris Marker, Lynne Sachs, and Marcel Ophuls.
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff • Drama • With André Dussollier, Niels Arestrup, Burghart Klaußner • 2014 • 85 minutes
As the Allies march toward Paris in the summer of 1944, Hitler gives orders that the French capital should not fall into enemy hands, or if it does, then ‘only as a field of rubb...
Directed by Oren Moverman • Drama • With Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Steve Buscemi • 2009 • 113 minutes
Co-written by Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon, THE MESSENGER is a powerful and tender story about a returned war hero making his first steps toward a normal life. In his f...
Directed by Chris Marker • Drama • With Catherine Belkhodja, Kenji Tokitsu • 1996 • 106 minutes
A woman (Laura), a computer, an invisible interlocutor: such is the setup on which LEVEL FIVE is built. She "inherits" a task: to finish writing a video game centered on the Battle of Okinawa—a traged...
Directed by Gulya Mirzoeva • Documentary • 2014 • 52 minutes
The Soviet troops' intervention in Afghanistan was a pivotal event in the history of the 20th century. It launched Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in 1979. This was the war that changed the world. Western cou...
Directed by Marc Rothemund • Drama • With Julia Jentsch • 2005 • 117 minutes
The true story of Germany’s most famous anti-Nazi heroine is brought to thrilling life in the multi-award winning drama Sophie Scholl-The Final Days. Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Sophie Scholl s...
Rich in emotional images, often tender but more often terrifying, THE PATRIOT GAME tells the story of the long and bitter battle for Northern Ireland.
The film's introduction covers Ireland's history from British colonization to the territory's division in 1922. THE PATRIOT GAME then details the...
Directed by Emmanuel Finkiel • Drama • With Mélanie Thierry • 2018 • 127 minutes
In Emmanuel Finkiel’s haunting adaptation of Marguerite Duras’s semi- autobiographical novel, The War: A Memoir, the famed author (Mélanie Thierry) recounts an emotionally complex story of love, loss, and perseveran...
Directed by Apo W. Bazidi • Documentary • 2017 • 73 minutes
From a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border, an 8-year-old girl named Evlin characterizes the resilience of her hometown of Kobane against ISIS militants. In the midst of the tragic war in Syria, Evlin's story provides hope.
Directed by Gini Reticker • Documentary • With Janet Johnson Bryant, Etweda Cooper, Vaiba Flomo • 2009 • 72 minutes
Winner of Best Documentary award at Tribeca Film Festival and Official Section of Sundance Film Festival, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" chronicles the remarkable story of the coura...
Directed by Christian Bauer • Documentary • 2004 • 90 minutes
The Ritchie Boys is the riveting, untold story of a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany and returned as soldiers in U.S. uniforms. They knew the psychology and the language of the enemy better than anyone. In Camp Ritchie, Maryla...
Directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer • Drama • With Jacques Perrin, Bruno Cremer, Pierre Fabre • 1965 • 95 minutes
1954. The dying days of the French war in Indochina. As the battle of Diên Biên Phu rages, the 317th platoon of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps are ordered to destroy their bas...
Directed by Raúl Santos • Documentary • 2011 • 70 minutes
In 1969, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, closed the entrance to the British territory of Gibraltar, isolating 30,000 people without food, water, or telephone lines. In his words, “The Rock will fall like ripe fruit.” La Roca is an epic...
Directed by Chris Marker & François Reichenbach • Documentary • 1967 • 26 minutes
"If the five sides of the pentagon appear impregnable, attack the sixth side."— Zen proverb
On October 21, 1967, over 100,000 protestors gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam...
Directed by Pirjo Honkasalo • Documentary • 2004 • 104 minutes
An award-winning, stunningly beautiful documentary, THE 3 ROOMS OF MELANCHOLIA looks at how the Russia’s war in Chechnya twenty year ago psychologically affected children both in Chechnya, and in Russia. Divided into three episodes o...
Directed by David Evans • Documentary • 2016 • 92 minutes
A bracingly rigorous examination of inherited guilt and pain, WHAT OUR FATHERS DID explores the relationship between two men, each of whom are the children of very high-ranking Nazi officials but possess starkly contrasting attitudes towa...
Directed by Claude Chabrol • Documentary • With Brian Cox, Maquisard Alfonso, General Bergeret, Jean Bichelonne, Maquisard Boczov, Pierre Boisson • 1993 • 110 minutes
The Eye of Vichy is a brilliantly chosen compilation of long forgotten film footage and newsreels produced by the Nazis and Frenc...
Directed by Tatiana Huezo • Documentary • 2011 • 104 minutes
On the surface THE TINIEST PLACE is the story of Cinquera, a village literally wiped off the official map during El Salvador's 12-year civil war. But on a deeper level it is a story about the ability to rise, to rebuild and reinvent on...
Directed by N.C. Heikin • Documentary • 2009 • 75 minutes
North Korea is one of the world’s most isolated nations. For sixty years, North Koreans have been governed by a totalitarian regime that controls all information entering and leaving the country. A cult of personality surrounds its two re...
Directed by Debra Granik • Documentary • 2016 • 102 minutes
From Debra Granik, director of the Oscar-nominated 'Winter's Bone', comes this portrait of a motorcycle-riding, freedom-loving, Vietnam veteran cast in the mold of an outlaw biker. But there's much more to burly, bearded Ronnie 'Stray D...
Directed by Arnaud Khayadjanian • Documentary • 2015 • 60 minutes
Following in his great-grandfather's footsteps, Arnaud Khayadjanian undertakes a long trek across Anatolia to better understand the Armenian Genocide and honor its victims. First-hand accounts from his relatives and an old paintin...
Directed by John Junkerman • Documentary • 2002 • 74 minutes
“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: Stop participating in it.”
- Noam Chomsky
Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in our Times gives the public a rare opportunity to see and listen to one of the m...
Directed by Etienne Comar • Drama • With Reda Kateb, Cécile de France • 2017 • 117 minutes
During the German Occupation, gypsy Django Reinhardt, a true hero of the guitar, is at the peak of his career. Every night he has Paris reeling to his swing music at the Folies Bergères, while his gypsy br...
Directed by Claire Mollard and Magali Chirouze • Documentary • 2013 • 52 minutes
Kigali Shaolin Temple is a kung-fu club in Rwanda started by a group of orphans from the genocide. They find fulfillment in passing on their skills and teaching young Rwandans the values of sharing, tolerance and mu...
Directed by Günter Kaindlstorfer • Documentary • 2014 • 45 minutes
World War I was the battlefield for the first propaganda war in history. The recently invented and very popular medium of film was used by all military parties to create deception and manipulate public opinion. Scientists, using ...
