El Comité
2006 · 93m · Documentary
A documentary chronicle of the prisoners’ takeover of the Garcia Moreno Penitentiary in Quito, Ecuador. The prisoners find they suddenly have a voice after they take 360 people hostage, and a pattern of abuse and corruption by the guards toward the prisoners becomes clear after lengthy negotiations.
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The Fall of Fujimori
2006 · ★ 7.3
A character-driven, political-thriller documentary that explores the volatile events that defined Alberto Fujimoris decade-long reign of Peru: His meteoric rise from son of poor Japanese immigrants to the presidency; his fateful relationship with the shadowy and Machiavellian Vladimiro Montesinos; his self-coup that dissolved overnight both Congress and the Judiciary.
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Attica
2021 · ★ 6.8
Follows the largest prison uprising in US history, conducting dozens of new interviews with inmates, journalists, and other witnesses.
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Strangeways: Britain's Toughest Prison Riot
2015
Twenty-five years after the biggest riot in British penal history, this film brings together the ringleaders of the trouble with the prison guards they battled with over three weeks of anarchy that brought Strangeways to its knees. For the first time, these events are told through unparalleled access to the people at the heart of the riot - ex-inmates, prison officers and the governor himself - createing a compelling story of the struggle for power between the authorities and the hardcore prisoners who ultimately took their protest onto the prison roof. The stand-off that followed is documented until the final moments, when the siege was ended in a dramatic takedown in front of rolling news cameras.
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God and Devil on Top of the Wall
2006 · ★ 7
Imagine a prison with some ten thousand prisoners, many of them dangerous and, to control them, only a few unarmed employees. Small in number, these employees work in shifts. They are almost prisoners themselves, in a routine of tension, but also of humor and emotion. This prison was all too real. While it was in existence, the Carandiru was the largest prison in Latin America, administered by a reduced number of employees. The documentary shows, from the point of view of these few employees, holding the keys, how the prison operated: the delicate balance in the relationship with the prisoners, affinity among employees, moments of tension and, even, of happiness. These are stories told by former employees, among them, Dr. Dráuzio Varella, author of the book Estação Carandiru. These are the secrets of a place that no longer exists.
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Ghosts of Attica
2001 · ★ 8.2
Documentary about Attica prison riot and lawsuits to get compensation for the victims of these events.
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Behind Bars
2001
Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.
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Pirates: Threatening Global Trade
2016 · ★ 8.5
The French researcher Bertrand Monnet visits pirates in Nigeria and Somalia to learn how they make money from oil theft and kidnapping.
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Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis
2022 · ★ 7.5
In August 1988, two armed bank robbers keep German police at bay for 54 hours during a hostage-taking drama that ends in a shootout and three deaths.
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La toma de la embajada
2000 · ★ 6.3
Bogotá, 1980. During the government of President Turbay. An urban cell of the M-19 invades the Embassy of the Dominican Republic, taking 14 ambassadors as hostages. They demand that they be exchanged for political prisoners. The film focuses on the events that took place during those two months of captivity.
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Money
1989 · ★ 5.5
One day, Carmen Müller realizes that her husband Werner has been unemployed for months and has accumulated debts of 80,000 DM in their bank account. She comes up with a plan to rob her bank. When the branch manager and neighbor Lothar Fuchs, whom Carmen has always envied for his beauty and wealth, recognizes her, she takes him hostage. In their hideout in the Allgäu, the banker falls in love with the housewife, just as Werner and Fuchs' mistress Gabriele grow closer. The quartet form an alliance and defraud the bank together. Having come into money so suddenly, the Müllers don't feel comfortable either and secretly distribute their fortune around the neighborhood.
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Traficantes Del Panico
1980 · ★ 5.2
A band of thugs belonging to an organized crime family assaults several casinos at the same time creating death and panic in their wake. As they flee the scenes of their crimes police begin to close in on them, so they quickly hide themselves in a villa owned by a wealthy industrialist taking him and his family hostage.
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The River Wild
1994 · ★ 6.5
Gail and Tom Hartman are struggling to stay together and decide to take a white-water rafting holiday adventure in Montana for their son Roarke's 10th birthday, only to meet up with a pair of mysterious men whose desperation grows, turning their vacation into a nightmare.
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