Star Spangled Salesman
★ 8 · 1968 · 18m · Documentary
A collection of television celebrities pitch United States Savings bonds.
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Albania
1945
Made by the highly influential Russian cameraman Roman Karmen, this documentary vividly features Albanian life immediately after the communists came to power in 1944. The film is especially memorable since it’s missing much of the heavy socialist realism that marked Albanian doc making. Shortly after he completed the film, Karmen set off for Berlin to shoot the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
More info →Congratulations, Comrade Student!
1956 · ★ 8
The story of Viktor Stratoberdha (1921-1991) mirrors many of Albania’s tragedies. Stradoberdha’s humorous, buoyant style led him to be one of the country’s most promising filmmakers. But after being denounced in 1956, he was expelled from the Kinostudio and sent into internal exile. In 1967, Stratoberdha directed a local theater play in which the economic five year plan was placed in a coffin. He was then jailed for the next two decades. Urime Shokë Studentë! is one of the surviving documentaries of Viktor Stratoberdha’s all too short career.
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In the 11th Festival of Song
1971
No one knows why for certain, but from 1968 to 1973 communist Albania enjoyed a brief liberalisation in the arts. Banned books and Beatles records changed hands. Albania’s Nobel-nominated novelist Ismail Kadare wrote two of his most famed masterpieces, Kështjella (The Castle) (1970) and Kronikë në gur (Chronicle in Stone) (1971) during this period. The rock'n'roll and jazz arrangements featured in this concert documentary were the pretext that brought about the end to the artistic thaw. Several performers seen in the festival were sent to prison or internal exile. The portly, smiling music conductor, Gasper Çurçia, was later accused of forging bus tickets and executed.
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Security Treaty
1959
An early experimental film by Toshio Matsumoto. Produced as part of the student riots in Japan at the start of the 1960s, Matsumoto uses collage, archival footage, and impassioned narration to create an expressive, visceral criticism of the US-Japan Security Treaty.
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New Miensk
1954
A propaganda documentary on the post war reconstruction of Miensk, capital of Belarus.
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Cartoons Go To War
1996 · ★ 10
This remarkable documentary dedicates itself to an extraordinary chapter of the second World War – the psychological warfare of the USA. America’s trusted cartoon darlings from the studios of Warner Bros., Paramount, and the “big animals” of the Disney family were supposed to give courage to the people at the homefront, to educate them, but also to simultaneously entertain them. Out of this mixture grew a genre of its own kind – political cartoons. Insightful Interviews with the animators and producers from back then elucidate in an amusing and astonishing way under which bizarre circumstances these films partially came into existence.
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The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
1993 · ★ 7.2
This documentary recounts the life and work of one of most famous, and yet reviled, German film directors in history, Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts the rise of her career from a dancer, to a movie actor to the most important film director in Nazi Germany who directed such famous propaganda films as Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The film also explores her later activities after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and her disgrace for being so associated with it which includes her amazingly active life over the age of 90.
More info →Cultural Marxism: The Corruption of America
2010
A love affair with collectivist ideologies has lead to ever bigger government and the welfare-warfare state. Lead by a Marxist splinter group called the "Frankfurt School" -- "the long march through the institutions" has infiltrated every corner of Western culture to corrupt traditional Christian values with "political correctness," another name for "cultural Marxism." The ultimate goal of cultural Marxism is to first destroy American free-enterprise capitalism by undermining its economic engine, the Middle Class and this will lead -- they hope -- to the destruction of the basic building block of society: the Family Unit.
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Two Down and One to Go
1945 · ★ 6.8
Documentary short film produced by the U.S. Army, intended to enlighten the American public on the final thrust of the Allied war effort in Europe and on the plans for the return home of American forces. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2008.
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The Conquest of the Air
★ 10
A sweeping, cinematic pseudo-documentary history of human flight, starting with the failed attempt of Icarus, and ending with the aviation triumphs of the fascist regime.
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Pamela, A Love Story
2023 · ★ 7
In her own words, through personal video and diaries, Pamela Anderson shares the story of her rise to fame, rocky romances and infamous sex tape scandal.
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Animated Soviet Propaganda
1997 · ★ 3
A landmark four disc Box Set - Unearthed from Moscow's legendary Soyuzmultfilm Studios, the 41 films in ANIMATED SOVIET PROPAGANDA span sixty years of Soviet history (1924 - 1984), and have never been available before in the U.S.
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