Between 1933 and 1945 roughly 1200 films were made in Germany, of which 300 were banned by the Allied forces. Today, around 40 films, called "Vorbehaltsfilme", are locked away from the public with an uncertain future. Should they be re-released, destroyed, or continue to be neglected? Verbotene Filme takes a closer look at some of these forbidden films.
During WW2, in a Nazi-occupied country, a local partisan blows-up a German military train, prompting the Germans to take civilian hostages to be shot if the culprit doesn't surrender before a deadline.
At the end of World War Two, Polish people move to the western lands vacated by Germans. But some ruthless profiteers pose as government representatives and intend to make off with loot from a deserted town they took over. One honest man stands up against them because he believes these goods belong to the people.
Documentary short film depicting the American assault on the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima and the massive battle that raged on that key island in the Allied advance on Japan. Four cameramen died bringing this footage to the public
A dramatic re-enactment of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish uprising in April 1943 were 650 armed members of the Jewish Fighting Organization of Poland held off a 3,000 strong Nazi force in which only a handful of Jews survived. Tom Conti plays Dolek Berson, a Jewish smuggler who joins the resistance movement and is aided on the Aryan side of the wall by a former teacher named Regina Kowalski played by Rachel Roberts in her final role.
A portrait of the era of "Red Terror" during the civil war that followed the Bolshevik revolution, The Seventh Companion offers a character study in General Adamov (Andrei Popov), a law professor in the tsarist army, who is incarcerated by the Bolshevik secret police along with many other members of the bourgeoisie. Finally released into the new world of the Soviet Union, the resigned officer finds that he has lost everything from his old life except a mantel clock that he carries through the night from place to place, until he ends up back where he started.
The plot lasts from 1945 until today's day. Pavle, Stojan and Dragisa, the three war friends are taking different positions within the society immediately after the war. Pavle, a former war commissar, is now a school teacher. Thanks to him, Stojan, who was a bakery assistant before the war, does the job of a district committee's secretary, while Dragisa works in the state's secret police. The reason of conflict between Pavle and Stojan in 1947 was Stojan's fiancée Lena, who loves Pavle, marries him and gets pregnant, right when Pavle is taken to the state prison. Stojan accepts his wife and kid again, but the avalanche of political events will make all them unable to stop the inevitable catastrophe.
Documentary short film depicting the harrowing battle between the U.S. Marines and the Japanese for control of the Pacific island of Tarawa. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with National Archives and Records Administration in 2005.
Today, the word "Auschwitz" is a synonym for the Holocaust. Thousands of Jews died there every day. With the help of some acted scenes, photos and graphics, the film tells of a day in May 1944. The starting point is a unique document: a photo album created by the SS perpetrators themselves. Almost all of the photos were taken at the end of May 1944, in just a few days. They show the cruel routine, the arrival of the victims, their "selection" on the ramp, the robbery of their property and the transformation of all those who were not immediately killed, into shaved, uniformed slaves. One survivor is Irina Weiss. On a photo she recognizes her little brothers and her mother - waiting unsuspectingly near the crematorium. The SS photographers captured all of this. Their identity is known today: one of them was Bernhard Walter, a "Stabsscharführer" who lived with his wife and three children near the extermination camp.
Four Spanish Blue Division soldiers captured after the German invasion of Soviet territory face a choice in forced labor camps: renounce their Spanish nationality for better conditions. While two accept, Captain Adrados leads a group resisting, labeling those who comply as traitors, showcasing a struggle for loyalty to Franco's values.
The Korean war does not start well for the US. They are being routed by the North Koreans and In July 1950, the early stage of the Korean War, at the Jugok Village in the middle of the Korean Peninsula, Chang-yee and his friends grow excited over the amateur singing contest knowing nothing about what is going on around them. At the time, the US Army keeps losing and are pushed back to the village, evacuating all villagers to head south. The villagers took refuge like going on a picnic believing that the US Army is protecting them, they just follow their orders moving south bound.
A boy from Leningrad has his world turned upside down by his parent's separation and World War II. He leaves town amidst the fighting and returns to find a friend in his step-brother. The war is seen through the eyes of children and told in flashback form. The film was a special prize winner at the Venice Film Festival.
Made under extraordinary, and extremely dangerous, conditions, Jirga tells the emotional story of a former Australian soldier who travels to Afghanistan to seek forgiveness.
Romania, 1944. Six intelligence agents, Russians and Romanians, at the cost of their own lives, prevented the Nazis from destroying a strategically important object — a tunnel on the path of the Soviet Army.
Set in April of the turmoil that is the year 1941. The Germans have occupied Yugoslavia and its capital Belgrade. Adolf Hitler is again drawing the new borders of Europe. Remains of Belgrade are filled with chaos, despair, black markets, famine and poverty. The Serbian people are broken up into national traitors, servants of the German occupants, chetniks, communists etc. That is the setting where our well-known characters find themselves. Our hero is Zivota Grujic – Comrade Black, the descendant of the notorious Black Gruya. Just as cunning and witty as his predecessor, Comrade Black endeavors to make use of every situation he finds himself in. Ideal opportunities open up when against his own will, he is forced to cooperate with all the present influential heads of Europe.
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