Best movies like Poetry of Witness

It’s 1948 and the Cold War has arrived in Chile. In the Congress, prominent Communist Senator and popular poet Pablo Neruda accuses the government of betraying the Party and is stripped of his parliamentary immunity by President González Videla. The Chief of Investigative Police instructs inspector Óscar Peluchonneau to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to escape from the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril, but they are forced to go underground.

In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.

The first film to fully expose the humanitarian crisis of North Korea, this stylish, deeply moving documentary is centered around astonishing interviews with survivors of North Korea's vast and largely hidden prison camps, and interspersed with archival footage of North Korean propoganda films and original art performances.

With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

The sensational expose of the complicity of Britain, USA and Australia in the continuing genocide in East Timor.

Follows the first year of business for Alex, Charlie, and Nigel as they try to make their theatre, The Toronto Underground Cinema, a success in the dying world of repertory cinema. The film also places the cinema in context to the larger world of rep. Featuring interviews with theatres such as Film Forum in NYC, The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, and The New Beverly Cinema in L.A., and celebrities such as Kevin Smith, John Waters, Atom Egoyan, and George A. Romero, the world of repertory cinema will come alive as a vibrant and culturally significant medium that needs to be preserved

This riveting documentary depicts former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as a warmonger responsible for military cover-ups in Vietnam, Cambodia and East Timor, as well as the assassination of a Chilean leader in 1970. Based on a book by journalist Christopher Hitchens, the film includes interviews with historians, political analysts and such journalists as New York Times writer William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter.

Winner of a Best Documentary Academy Award, Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape--with U.S. help--to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.

This exceptional, disturbing and thought-provoking documentary compares the atrocities committed by the Nazis as revealed during the Nuremberg trials to those committed by the French in Algeria and those done by the Americans in Vietnam. The four hour epic questions the right of any country to pass self-righteous moral judgements upon the actions of another country.

More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.

Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne. House-boy, would-be cabaret performer, and self-proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked, pill-popped view of what it was like to be coloured and gay in 1960s Unites States. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Testament of Youth is a powerful story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, which has become the classic testimony of that war from a woman’s point of view. A searing journey from youthful hopes and dreams to the edge of despair and back again, it’s a film about young love, the futility of war and how to make sense of the darkest times.

An obsessed scholar attempts to withdraw from the world but finds personal ties drawing him back into the family he had left behind, in this novelistic, beautifully modulated drama from acclaimed Québécois filmmaker Bernard Émond.

Director John Dullaghan’s biographical documentary about infamous poet Charles Bukowski, Bukowski: Born Into This, is as much a touching portrait of the author as it is an exposé of his sordid lifestyle. Interspersed between ample vintage footage of Bukowski’s poetry readings are interviews with the poet’s fans including such legendary figures such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Fante (wife of John), Bono, and Harry Dean Stanton. Filmed in grainy black and white by Bukowski’s friend, Taylor Hackford, due to lack of funding, the old films edited into this movie paint Bukowski’s life of boozing and brawling romantically, securing Bukowski’s legendary status.

A chronicle of the rescue of oppressed intellectuals and artists from Europe before the outbreak of World War II. It studies the cultural and intellectual impact of this emigre population on American life.

After a man-made virus failed to reduce the world’s overpopulated areas, global leaders would start a new game show, broadcast live, where random contestants would be exiled into a concrete jungle, forced to kill each other for their freedom.

A drama documentary of the life and death of the poet Dylan Thomas, who died in New York 25 years ago at age 39. Alcohol and a doctor's injection of morphine were the immediate causes. Ever since his childhood in Wales his life was a spectacular attempt - comic at times, serious below the surface, tragic at the finish - to survive on his own bizarre terms as the poet to end all poets. By the 1950s, that first postwar decade of uneasiness and change, Dylan Thomas was a legend to his admirers but a burnt-out case to himself. As he tours America to read poetry to rapt audiences, his past crowds in on him, the fractured memories of a man at the end of his tether.

A self-portrait documentary of Dusan Makavejev who travels to former Yugoslavia, and charts the changes of the society which parallels to his own life.

Tells the story of probably the world's greatest pilot through an extensive and in-depth interview: Capt Eric "Winkle" Brown CBE, DSC, AFC. From his flight with WW1 German fighter ace Ernst Udet in 1936 through to commanding a squadron of Buccaneers at the height of the Cold War, we hear how "Winkle" Brown experienced the rise and fall of Nazism; how he flew the most dangerous, uncontrollable aircraft, how he cheated death countless times.

Back to the Titanic documents the first manned dives to Titanic in nearly 15 years. New footage reveals fresh decay and sheds light on the ship’s future.

In a war that has left more than 25,000 wounded, ALIVE DAY MEMORIES: HOME FROM IRAQ looks at a new generation of veterans. Executive Producer James Gandolfini interviews ten Soldiers and Marines who reveal their feelings on their future, their severe disabilities and their devotion to America. The documentary surveys the physical and emotional cost of war through memories of their "alive day," the day they narrowly escaped death in Iraq.

Martin Shaw takes a fresh look at one of the most famous war stories of them all. The actor, himself a pilot, takes to the skies to retrace the route of the 1943 raid by 617 Squadron which used bouncing bombs to destroy German dams. He sheds new light on the story as he separates the fact from the myth behind this tale of courage and ingenuity. Using the 1955 movie The Dam Busters as a vehicle to deconstruct the raid, he tries to piece together a picture of perhaps the most daring attack in the history of aviation warfare.

This documentary covers the acid house, rave and club culture revolution in the UK and of course the chemical Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or ecstasy. This era inspired the film 24 Hour Party people and sheds light on the forgotten counter culture movement.

This investigative documentary sheds light on the baffling 2012 cold-blooded slaying of a British family and local cyclist in the French Alps.

Ten families read letters from their loved ones killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in this powerful and moving HBO documentary by Oscar and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Bill Couturie (Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam). Photos of the soldiers in military and civilian life are shown as family members read the final correspondence received from Iraq and share their thoughts and memories about the fallen troops and the realities of war.

Six decades after the Nazis systematically exterminated millions of Jews, Holocaust scholar Daniel Goldhagen returns to Europe to examine the roots of genocide and the reasons behind its continuing occurrence. Along the way, he gathers stories from survivors, eyewitnesses, participants and political figures who shed light on genocide's disastrous effects and offer insights for preventing its repetition.

Visualisation of Tony Harrison's poem "v.". v. is about the multiple meanings of the letter - victory, versus, verses, etc. Starting from an incident in a Leeds' graveyard where the poet's parents' headstone has been defaced with graffiti,v. rises to a view of the divisions, antagonisms and aspirations within British society, and the poets own self.

The gripping true story of a boy abducted from the streets of Elizabethan London, and how his father fought to get him back. Presented by acclaimed children's author and academic Katherine Rundell, this intriguing tale is set behind the scenes in the golden age of Shakespeare and sheds a shocking light on the lives of children long before they were thought to have rights. Thirteen-year-old Thomas Clifton was walking to school on 13 December 1600, when he was violently kidnapped. And what's most extraordinary is that the men who took him claimed that they had legal authority to do so from Queen Elizabeth I herself. Children are so often missing from history, but this tale has survived by the skin of its teeth. This inventive film pieces together Thomas Clifton's story from contemporary accounts, court documents, plays and poetry, with the missing gaps beautifully illustrated by vivid hand-drawn animation.

An affectionate tribute to the Glasgow-born Cutler who has been Britain's best kept secret with his mix of poetry, music, painting and comedy.

Perhaps this is Robert Vas' most personal film; a portrait of his country - Hungary - as seen through the eyes of an exile. Robert Vas escaped from his homeland after the brutal crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising by the Russians and he was never able to return. He portrays his country through the writings of Hungary's national poets and illustrates the film with images of the Revolution and of the society it would become in the years immediately following 1956. The film was transmitted on the 20th anniversary of the crushing of the uprising.

Children and childhood fascinated Benjamin Britten throughout his life and inspired some of his greatest music. John Bridcut's compelling film sheds light on the composer's own inner child throiugh interviews with several of Britten's former companions and muses.

More than two thousand Gibraltar citizens were evacuated to the island of Madeira during WWII, changing forever their lives and the history of the island.

An eye-opening investigation into the making of Hollywood sex scenes, shedding light on the real-life experiences behind classic scenes of cinema and tracing the legacy of exploitation of women in the entertainment industry.

The Roma, commonly referred to as Gypsies, have been both romanticized and vilified in popular culture. Dozens of Roma from 11 countries—including Holocaust survivors, historians, activists, and musicians--bring Romani history to life through poetry, music, and compelling first-hand accounts.

The mass murder of Jewish people by the Nazi regime is chronicled, with a warning that anti-Semitism is on the rise and the events of the Holocaust could happen again. The history of European Jewish culture and events before and during the Holocaust are seen in newsreels, photographs, and animated segments. The words of the victims of the era are read, and footage from the liberation os a concentration camp is shown.