Best movies like Those Who Dare

Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki's shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.

An American reporter falls in love with a Russian ballet dancer.

Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.

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.

Magnús is a 45-year-old lawyer, whose routine is upset by the personal news that he is suffering from cancer. This causes Magnús to stop and think about himself, his life and his family. If his life is going to end sooner than he expected, he wants to know how much it's been worth to him. Has life been worth living? Is it worth fighting for; is it worth a struggle against death? He takes a look at his family, a group of ordinary people, who are the colourful heroes of everyday life, struggling along in a world far removed from the world of high finance, power politics and international intrigues, but yet to them their lives are lives of high adventure. Those adventures, from the sublime to the ridiculous, form the storyline of the film, told against the background of Magnús' dilemma.

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.

St. John’s Night is a traditional midsummer Latvian celebration where family and friends get together to build bonfires, drink and have a good time. According to a legend, on this night lovers and those who wish to fall in love can search the woods for the "magic fern".

Roman is a born proofreader from a family of proofreaders, a real intellectual from St. Petersburg who comes to Narva-Jõesuu, a small Estonian spa town, to find inspiration, tranquility, and silence. He does proofreading of the encyclopedia of the Baltic Sea Fishes, compiled in the same location by Professor Polyanski, winner of the Nobel Prize. This work is very important for Roman. He would have accomplished his task, but once he swam too far in the sea. It was then that Helena came into his life, to change his ideas about the world forever.

An elderly couple leave their retirement home to make one last journey back to their home in the Western Fjords.

An Estonian student hiking group get caught up in a series of scary events unfolding in wintry Siberia. The unpopular group leader Olle, becomes disappointed in his companions during the trip and disappears on the last day in the mountains. His rival, liberal-minded and adventurous Eero guides the descending hikers into a Buryate village on the mountain to seek help. A weird and insane chain of events is unleashed which seems to be orchestrated by the missing Olle. In a foreign land and among people they do not know, the hikers are faced with a task which they at first do not want to undertake and later are unable to tackle.

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."

In the Cold War years of the 1970s, an American patrol boat meets a Soviet ship off the east coast of the United States for talks about fishing rights in the Atlantic. In the midst of this, while Russian commanders are aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel where the talks are being held, a Lithuanian sailor jumps across the ten feet of icy water separating the boats. Crash-landing on the deck of the American ship, he desperately begs for asylum. Though they try, the Americans ultimately fail to provide protection and the Soviets are allowed to capture him and brutally return him to their vessel. Thus begins a stranger-than-fiction story of imprisonment, discovery, fame, and freedom. Through rare archival footage and a dramatic first-person re-enactment of that fateful day by Simas Kudirka, the would-be defector himself, this tale of one of the biggest Cold War muddles takes us on a journey of uncanny twists of fate, and the emotional sacrifices of becoming a universal symbol of freedom.

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.

The love story of sixteen-year-old Arturs is interrupted by the First World War. After losing his mother and his home, he finds some consolation in joining the army, because this is the first time national battalions are allowed in the Russian Empire. But war is nothing like Arturs imagined – no glory, no fairness. It is brutal and painful. Arturs is now completely alone as war takes the lives of his father and brother. Also, no progress is made in the promised quick resolution of the war and timely return home. Within the notion that only he alone cares about returning home and that his homeland is just a playground for other nations, Arturs finds strength for the final battle and eventually returns home to start everything from scratch, just like his newly born country.

Indiana lives in a council estate and makes her living preying on the welfare system. In her small private garden she tends to her award winning tree. When her only son turns up with a foreign girlfriend - Indiana's world is upended.

To understand firsthand what the United States of America can learn from other nations, Michael Moore playfully “invades” some to see what they have to offer.

The story of an Icelandic man and his slow descent into madness. Along his journey he meets Dagný, the initial cause of his breakdown. Other people he meets in the asylum have been committed for various reasons, such as signing cheques for Adolf Hitler and, believing themselves to be writing songs for the Beatles and telepathically transmitting to the band.

Our hero is Umbi (an acronym for emissary of the bishop), sent by him to undertake an important investigation at Snæfell-glacier. In particular he is to look into the conduct and behavior of Jón Prímus, the old pastor at Snæfell. Fantastic rumors are rife: amongst other things it is said that a corpse is lodged in the glacier! Armed with his tape recorder and notebook, Umbi embarks upon his mission. He tries to question the weird locals, a weird lot, but gets evasive answers. Slowly he is dragged into a quagmire of strange happenings and his efforts to understand only make him confused. If at the beginning he is a chipper, a mere device, by the end of the story he is inextricably involved, a committed participant in the bizarre events.

In medieval Tallinn, a famous knight who is freed from the pirates of the Baltic Sea is murdered. The hero's head is cut off and his mouth is stuffed with coins. The gold chain he bought the same day is missing. The bailiff orders Melchior, an apothecary, to investigate the crime. The clever young man discovers that the slain was looking for a mysterious "Tallinn prisoner" and the traces lead to the Dominican monastery. A fabulous sequence of bloodwork is unleashed - anyone who comes into contact with this secret is in danger of dying.

Just 25 years after gaining independence from Russia, Lithuania is facing occupation again. The airspace above the Baltic States is now one of the most dangerous in the world. In the face of the biggest aggression in Europe since the Second World War, this documentary tells a story of people desperately trying to preserve peace against imaginable odds. But the film is not about the war, it is about peace and the people willing to fight to preserve it.

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…

After a heavy decision, Anna and Juhan are unable to move on with their lives. They take time off at their friends' fancy summer house and once there, are forced to offer shelter to another couple caught in the storm. The couple assumes that the house belongs to Anna and Juhan and they do nothing to correct the mistake. Instead, they seize their new roles and start taking their mutual bitterness out on the strangers.

June 14, 1941, 3 a.m. Over 40000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are deported by Soviets to Siberia. Among them is a philosophy student Erna, a happily married mother of a little girl. Separated from her husband Erna and her daughter are dispatched together with other women and children to remote Siberian territories. Despite hunger, fear and brutal humiliation Erna never in next fifteen years loses her sense of freedom and hope of returning to homeland. The story is inspired by real events.

Simon moves from Copenhagen to Vesterby, where he meets Bjarke - the city's alpha male and heir to the local speaker empire. The two outsiders begin to challenge each other in cross-border actions, and the friendship grows. But when fraud forces the loudspeaker factory to go bankrupt, the city disintegrates, and Bjarke's family is blamed. Anger arouses the beast in Bjarke, and Simon must now choose whether to try to save his friend or withdraw from the course that Bjarke has set - towards his and Vesterby's downfall.

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.

When young Sól is sent to live with her distant countryside relatives for a summer, she becomes entangled in a dramatic rite of passage with a mysterious farmhand, Jón, and the farmer’s daughter, Ásta.

The fighting between the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the Contra rebels backed by U.S. money and expertise is the focus of this pro-Sandinista film by Haskell Wexler. On a secret mission to help the U.S. Special Forces train Contra rebels in the jungles of Nicaragua, American soldier Eddie Guerrero begins to question the morality of the task at hand and consider how his actions may influence the fate of a nation.

In a barren land ruled by oppression and ignorance, a spirited woman driven by hope of a better life must fight against the odds. Agnes is a servant in the house of the county sheriff. There she is constantly sexually harassed by him and treated with contempt by his wife. Agnes falls in love with Natan, a self taught homoeopathic doctor. The sheriff takes revenge on Natan by making it illegal for him to practice his profession. The dramatic relationship between the three main characters ultimately leads to a fatal web of events where a love affair turns into a nightmare of brutality and destruction.

This Icelandic tale, loosely based on the real-life experiences of director Fridrik Fridriksson tells the saga of a boyhood spent in Iceland in the 1960s.

Dainius, a young rock singer, locks himself away in a secluded country house surrounded by swamps. Hoping to meet his beloved in dreamland, the musician is eagerly assisted in his studies by a local boy exploited by moonshiners.

Seneca’s Day is set in the year 1989, the final period of the Soviet era in Lithuania. Eighteen-year old buddies establish the Seneca’s Fellowship with the motto “Live each day as if it was your last”. A love triangle breaks up the fellowship right at the time the nation experiences an exceptional sense of community via Baltic Chain.Twenty-five years later, the main character who at first glance appears to be accompanied by good luck, is disillusioned with himself. He has betrayed the ideals of his youth and become a cold observer of life.

Looking for solutions of an efficient management and creation significant ideas to flourish Latvian culture and education, leaders of the Riga Latvian Society decide to hold the 1st Latvian Singing Festival back in 1873. At the beginning there are only four of them, very soon others – Latvians, Baltic Germans and Russians get involved, both influential persons of the society, countless volunteers from Riga, Livonia and Courland governorates. Also twenty-year-old Anna, whose desire to sing is stronger, despite the obstacles she has like any woman in that period of history, finds a way to join. By singing she finds self-confidence, power, joy of life and sense of unity, flourishing together with the Latvian nation, becoming a symbol of woman’s freedom.

A French man from an international record company is sent to Iceland where he is supposed to find the next big hit.

Fighting as a partisan in the mythical Baltic past and in wars in 20th century Eastern Europe at the same time, Baņuta’s life is saved by weary and disenchanted Lithuanian prince, Daumants. Speeding away on a motorcycle, he brings the fighter back to his homeland in Romove, a holy Baltic site. There is about to be a wedding, but the preparations are interrupted by ravens. Their black feathers are a mirror for Daumants’ conscience and act as a reminder of his crime against Jargala, a girl he raped and killed. Soon Daumants falls in battle, and being a stranger in Romove, Baņuta is caught up in sacrificial rituals and revenge. However, she is strong-willed and will not bow to fate – no one will take her happiness away. A hundred years after the premiere of Alfrēds Kalniņš’ first Latvian opera Baņuta in 1920, comes the opera film Baņuta – an international project that melds opera, musical performances, the conditionality of the performing arts and contemporary performativity.

A woman returns to her native Estonia to unravel the complex mysteries of her family's past. Set in 1989, against the background of the Baltic territory's struggle for peace and independence from the Soviet Union.