How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin

In August 1962, director Leslie Woodhead made a two-minute film in Liverpool's Cavern Club with a raw and unrecorded group of rockers called the Beatles. He arranged their first live TV appearances on a local show in Manchester and watched as the Fab Four phenomenon swept the world. Twenty-five years later while making films in Russia, Woodhead became aware of how, even though they were never able to play in the Soviet Union, the Beatles' legend had soaked into the lives of a generation of kids. This film meets the Soviet Beatles generation and hears their stories about how the Fab Four changed their lives, including Putin's deputy premier Sergei Ivanov, who explains how the Beatles helped him learn English and showed him another life. (Storyville)

2009-09-06 | en

Mission to Mir

This film shows how far we have come since the cold-war days of the 50s and 60s. Back then the Russians were our "enemies". And to them the Americans were their "enemies" who couldn't be trusted. Somewhere in all this a young girl in Oklahoma named Shannon set her sights on becoming one of those space explorers, even though she was told "girls can't do that." But she did.

1997-10-17 | en

Die kalten Ringe

19 years after the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan, the Olympic Games of 1964 took place in Tokyo. In the midst of the cold war, the games are supposed to become a symbol for a peaceful world. Especially the divided Germany is expected to prove this: By order of the IOC, both German states must participate in Tokyo with a joint team despite deep ideological rifts. The fact that athletes from both German states still had to compete against each other in order to form a joint team for the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck and in Tokyo is all but forgotten. The film tells the story of the East-West German team of 1964 for the first time and is simultaneously a current document about the relation of sports and politics in international relations.

2021-07-19 | de

The Half-Life of Genius Physicist Raemer Schreiber

Our two-hour film highlights the life and career of Dr. Schreiber with respect and clarity. Raemer, his wife Marge, and young daughter Paula would move to the high-desert of New Mexico where he and other brilliant minds would change the world forever.

2018-07-17 | en

Tunnel to Freedom

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

2021-07-22 | de

Tokyo Phoenix

In 150 years, twice marked by total destruction —a terrible earthquake in 1923 and incendiary bombings in 1945— followed by a spectacular rebirth, Tokyo, the old city of Edo, has become the largest and most futuristic capital in the world in a transformation process fueled by the exceptional resilience of its inhabitants, and nourished by a unique phenomenon of cultural hybridization.

2017-05-20 | fr

Land of White Alice

Film sponsored by Western Electric (AT&T's equipment manufacturing division), the builder of the United States Air Force's White Alice Communications System in Alaska. Introduces the people and geography of the new state as well as the Western Electric radio-relay system, which links far-flung military sites, alert stations, and missile-warning facilities. Ralph Caplan praised the film's "intrinsically dramatic and highly photogenic" portrayal of communications equipment.

1960-01-01 | en

Uncle Jack: Manhattan Project and Beyond

The Manhattan Project was an enormous undertaking that required the efforts of many of the world's most brilliant intellectuals. Hundreds of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers were needed to design, build, and test the world's first atomic weapon and the Unites States government did everything in its power to lure these individuals to the Manhattan Project. Documentary to include: Interviews with Scientists conducted by the World War II Foundation Interviews with World War II Historians Interviews with WWII veterans Interviews with those who worked with John Gray in the world of Atomic Energy Interviews with authors who have written extensively about the Manhattan Project Interviews with people from the world of academia. This film is personal: One of those assigned to the project was my uncle John Edmund Gray, a University of Rhode Island graduate with a brilliant mind. —Tim Gray

2016-11-12 | en

The Atomic Cafe

A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.

1982-03-17 | en

Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie

"Trinity and Beyond" is an unsettling yet visually fascinating documentary presenting the history of nuclear weapons development and testing between 1945-1963. Narrated by William Shatner and featuring an original score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, this award-winning documentary reveals previously unreleased and classified government footage from several countries.

1995-09-29 | en

Die Mächtigste Bombe der Welt

2011-10-15 | en

Twice: The Extraordinary Life of Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is a hibakusha. A survivor of both atomic bomb blasts in 1945. First at Hiroshima, then again at Nagasaki. Now nearing 90, Yamaguchi finally speaks out. Breaking taboos of shame and sorrow, he responds to a call to fight for a world without nuclear weapons by telling his story, so that no one else will ever have to tell one like it again. Twice reconstructs Yamaguchi’s experiences in 1945 Japan, interviews him on the after-effects of exposure and documents the last five years of the late-blooming activist’s life.

2010-01-05 | ja

Stealing the Superfortress

How the Soviet Union was able to copy the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, and the influence of the resulting Tupolev TU-4 on the Cold War.

2016-12-28 | en

White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Steven Okazaki presents a deeply moving look at the painful legacy of the first -- and hopefully last -- uses of nuclear weapons in war. Featuring interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors - many who have never spoken publicly before - and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, White Light/Black Rain provides a detailed exploration of the bombings and their aftermath.

2007-08-06 | en

Last to Know

In the documentary Last To Know political prisoners, sent to jail for openly opposing the East German regime that existed until the German reunification in 1990, talk about their times of trial and their lives today. Neither they, nor their families have come to terms with what happened.

2006-02-11 | de

The Last Spy

The riveting biography of 102-year-old CIA spymaster Peter Sichel, who unpacks the obscured roots of conflicts that plague today’s world and the toll espionage took on his personal life.

2025-06-29 | en

Rich Hall's Red Menace

2019 marks the 30th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Rich Hall examines the relationship between the West and the USSR in his inimitable fashion.

2019-11-05 | en

Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We?

With the Doomsday Clock the closest it's ever been to midnight, Jane Corbin investigates the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe. She visits Los Alamos, home to the United States’ nuclear weapons development facility and the historic home of Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project. In Scotland, she reveals the strategy behind Britain’s nuclear deterrent, and speaks to campaigners in Suffolk fighting against US weapons they fear will be based on UK soil. Jane also discovers how many of the global agreements and safeguards that have constrained the spread of nuclear weapons since the 1970s are breaking down. This is a story told by the scientists, investigators and diplomats who set the clock and have fought to ensure that the ultimate deterrent has not been used in over 70 years.

2024-01-18 | en

Espions pour la planète

In the aftermath of the Cold War, Russian and American intelligence agencies, once enemies, joined forces and pooled their data to serve the planet, threatened by global warming. The story of a remarkable odyssey.

2016-12-20 | fr

President; Actor of Cinema

Gorbachev believed that it was impossible to achieve a successful economy until the tensions of the Soviet Union continued with the Western countries, and especially the US, so that their high priority was to tame down, establish relations and negotiate with the Americans.

2017-06-22 | fa