January

World War II, occupied Soviet Union. István Semetka is a simple Hungarian farmer who serves as a Sub-Lieutenant in a special unit scouting for partisan groups. On their way to a remote village, his company falls under enemy fire. As the commander is killed, Semetka has to overcome his fears and take command of the unit as he is dragged into a chaos that he cannot control.

Ukrainian journalist Katya Soldak, currently living in New York City and working for Forbes magazine, chronicles Ukraine's history: its strong ties to Russia for centuries; how it broke away from the USSR and began to walk alone; the Orange Revolution, the Maidan Revolution, the Crimea annexation, the Donbass War; all through the eyes of her family and friends settled in Kharkiv, a large Ukrainian city located just eighteen miles from the Russian border.

Most people don't think about singing when they think about revolutions. But song was the weapon of choice when, between 1986 and 1991, Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. During those years, hundreds of thousands gathered in public to sing forbidden patriotic songs and to rally for independence. "The young people, without any political party, and without any politicians, just came together ... not only tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands ... to gather and to sing and to give this nation a new spirit," remarks Mart Laar, a Singing Revolution leader featured in the film and the first post-Soviet Prime Minister of Estonia. "This was the idea of the Singing Revolution." James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty's "The Singing Revolution" tells the moving story of how the Estonian people peacefully regained their freedom--and helped topple an empire along the way.

The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

The To Be Continued documentary follows lives of five children throughout their first school year. Kārlis's family is firmly rooted in the Latvian countryside. Gleb's grandparents came to Latvia only in the Soviet period. Zane's family are first-generation urban-dwellers. Anastasija's family moved from the city to the countryside. Anete's mum lives and works in England. The film explores how these choices made by adults are reflected in a child's thinking.

This film about the Baltic nation of Lithuania from 1989 to 1991, when it broke away from the Soviet Union. This period of peaceful protests involving lots of singing came to be known as the "singing revolution."

Siblings Roby and Raya after the death of their father and being abandoned by their mother, are forced to live with their dominating grandmother in a small country house owned by their family. Things change after the sudden death of their grandmother. The teenagers have to face a tough choice: either to report the accident and submit themselves to a life in an orphanage or hide the dead body and live as if nothing has happened.

As his country is gripped by revolution and war, a Ukrainian victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster discovers a dark secret and must decide whether to risk his life and play his part in the revolution by revealing it.

Men from Russia and the United States join forces to prevent a powerful drug ring from achieving global domination.

Young and promising doctor loses everything due to her conflict with the totalitarian Soviet regime – career, love for life and even mother’s instinct denying breast milk to her baby. However, the grown-up daughter becomes her only supporter who tries to help ease mother’s depression and learn to live under the Soviet regime. The lifelines of mother and daughter flow in the occupied Soviet Latvia from 1945 to 1989 when the Soviet Union collapses. “I didn’t want to live and I didn’t want her to drink milk from a mother who doesn’t want to live.” The story is based on the bestseller Soviet Milk by the renown Latvian novelist Nora Ikstena. Soviet Milk has been translated and published in more than 20 countries.

In a world where ghosts are real and front-page news, a controversial new medical procedure allows people to peacefully kill themselves. In the midst of this breakthrough, two strangers travel cross country together to end their lives, only to unexpectedly find what they’ve been missing along the way.

Lithuania, 1948. War is over, but the country is left in ruins. 19-year-old Untė is a member of the Partisan movement resisting Soviet occupation. They do not fight on equal terms, but this desperate struggle will determine the future of the whole population. At the age of discovery of life, Untė discovers violence and treachery. The lines are blurred between the burning passion of his youth and the cause for which he is fighting. He will invest himself wholeheartedly, even if it means losing his innocence…

Minsk, August 2020. Pasha and Yulia, a young married couple, leave the house at night and find themselves in the midst of peaceful protests. Everyday walk turns into a real hell, in which innocent people are victims of police brutality.

A unique, engaging film that combines documentary footage with narrative cinema to tell the story of four generations of a Latvian family. Sixteen year-old student Jānis has been given an interesting homework assignment – to draw his family tree and explain it. The story of his family begins with his great-great-grandfather who burned down the manors of German landowners during the 1905 revolution. My Family Tree takes us on a journey to various countries and political regimes, showing Jānis’ ancestors to be people of diverse fates and life stories. A rich Latvian trader, a red rifleman loyal to Lenin, a carpenter with the KGB and war refugees in Sweden are only a few branches on his family tree, and the boy has heard something unusual and unforgettable about each and every one of these people.

When a circus troupe comes to a small, extremely conservative New England town, the residents go to their minister to have him protest the scandalous fact that the female tightrope walker wears a pair of pink tights. When she has an accident and is forced to recuperate at the minister's house, he has to hide her in order to avoid even more of a scandal. Mazie Darton, a high-wire performer with a traveling circus, longs for a peaceful country life. Forced to stay in a small town while laid up with an injury, Darton is spurned by the conservative townspeople. Rev. Jonathon Meek, the local parson, befriends the circus troupe, especially Darton. But he, too, opens himself to criticism from his flock, who protest his closeness with the show people. Eventually, Darton's boyfriend arrives and the pair become closer. The parson fades from the scene as a possible mate for Darton, who ends up winning the hearts of the townspeople.

Czterej pancerni i pies was a Polish black and white TV series based on the book by Janusz Przymanowski. Made between 1966 and 1970, the series is composed of 21 episodes of 55 minutes each, divided into three seasons. It is set in 1944 and 1945, during World War II, and follows the adventures of a tank crew and their T-34 tank in the 1st Polish Army. Although both the book and the TV series contain elements of pro-Soviet propaganda, they have achieved and retain a cult series status in Poland, Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. The T-34 tank Rudy with the identifying number "102", a German Shepherd dog from Siberia Szarik and to a lesser extent the crew Jan Kos, Gustaw Jeleń, Grigorij Saakaszwili, Tomasz Czereśniak, and their commander and mentor Olgierd Jarosz, as well as other heroes of the series, have become icons in Polish popular culture.

The complete landmark documentary series follows events from pre-history to 1990. Charting the country's past, this series chronicles the rise and fall of empires, the clash of great armies and epoch-making rebellions. The vibrant story is one of courage, daring and folly, told through the personal testimonies of the everyday men and women who lived it — trappers and traders, pirates and prospectors, soldiers and settlers, saints and shopkeepers.

Amerika is a miniseries about life in the United States, ten years after a bloodless takeover engineered by the Soviet Union.

The daily lives of a group of soldiers in 'B' Company, 1st Battalion The King's Fusiliers.

A documentary television series of the Nazi-Soviet War, edited from over 3.5 million feet of film taken by Soviet camera crews from the first day of the war, 22 June 1941, to the Soviet entry into Berlin in May 1945.

The year is 1940 and Nazi Germany is at the height of its military prowess, having captured most of Europe and eyeing the Soviet Union to the East. The Russian military command suspects hostile intent from Germany and so arranges for its spies to infiltrate ranks of the German military and the SS. Alexander Belov is a Russian spy, who travels from Soviet-held Latvia to Nazi Germany under an alias of Johann Weiss. His mastery of the German language, steel nerves and an ability to manipulate others help him to use his connections in the SS to ascend the ladder of the German intelligence. He uses his position to identify sympathetic Germans, who help him to procure vital intelligence, and to help local resistance movements in their collective fight against Nazism.

The acclaimed documentary series from 1991 that examined political in-fighting in the Soviet Union and the battle for perestroika.

Commanding shoguns and samurai warriors, exotic geisha and exquisite artisans—all were part of the Japanese “renaissance”; a period between the 16th and 19th Centuries when Japan went from chaos and violence to a land of ritual refinement and peace. But stability came at a price: for nearly 250 years, Japan was a land closed to the Western world, ruled by the Shogun under his absolute power and control. Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire brings to life the unknown story of a mysterious empire, its relationship with the West, and the forging of a nation that would emerge as one of the most important countries in the world.

Chef and restauranteur Isaac Toups travels across the country to help failing restaurants and food businesses before they're shuttered for good.

As widespread power outages cause chaos and threaten lives across the country, the COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room) committee comprised of the UK’s leading experts and politicians, gathers to find a way to turn the lights back on.

A filmmaker spends years documenting controversial wrestler and cat breeder Teddy Hart, but the project is thrown into chaos when Teddy is accused of wrongdoing; as Teddy defends himself, his protégé and ex-girlfriend Samantha Fiddler disappears.

On May 4th 1994, the 4th anniversary of Latvia’s splintering from the Soviet Union, rookie police investigator Aldis Karklins is tasked with solving the murder of Natalia Nolle, an influental behind-the-scenes political figure. The trail leads the 23-year-old Aldis in to the underbelly of organized crime and KGB conspiracies that outlive the Soviot Union. A miniseries in seven episodes, based on the novel "Don't Call Me, Don't Look for me! Life of Soviet Secret Agent" (Meklējiet sievieti) by acclaimed Latvian crime fiction writer Andris Kolbergs.

A girls' volleyball team and a boys' orchestra get caught out by the pandemic and are forced to self-isolate together in a country house in the middle of nowhere.

In the late 1970s – at a time when the fiercest propaganda against Western culture was being waged throughout the USSR – an ardent rock and roll fan sets up a successful and illegal underground jeans factory in a Latvian psychiatric hospital.

In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, the supermarkets have become like the UK’s fourth emergency service. While most people have been staying safe in their homes, an army of workers across the country have been putting themselves at risk and working round the clock to keep us all fed.