72nd San Sebastian Festival - 20/28 September 2023
71SSIFF - 22/30 September 2023
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Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
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Agenda
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It Happened Yesterday
Films
Films
Alan J. Pakula
138 min.
In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defence case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organisers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.
Roger Spottiswoode
141 min.
Account of the first five years (1980-85) of the AIDS outbreak in the USA mainly focusing on the scientific research carried out right from the beginning and describing medical ignorance vis-à-vis this mysterious and unknown virus and the indifference of a Reagan Administration that refused to fund the said research. Between the two extremes are the fear experienced by people, particularly in the gay community, in the face of an illness about which they then knew virtually nothing.
Francis Ford Coppola
203 min.
The USA is becoming increasingly entangled in the Vietnam War as it tries to oust the Vietcong from the impenetrable jungle. Captain Willard is sent on a special mission to eliminate Colonel Kurtz, an ex-?green beret? imposing his tyranny on a community of mountain-dwellers along the Cambodian border. The closer he draws to his objective, the more men Willard loses and the farther he descends into the bowels of hell.
Philippe Mora
110 min.
This documentary compiles newsclips from the 1930s to chronicle the entire decade of The Great Depression culminating in the New York stock exchange crash of 1929. The fact that it also includes many songs from the period makes it an essential testimony of this critical moment in American history.
Bob Fosse
124 min.
Coming to Berlin in the early 1930s in the hope of becoming a teacher, British writer Brian Roberts makes the acquaintance of flamboyant American Sally Bowles, entertainer at the Kit Kat Klub, a Berlin cabaret where each night the androgynous Master of Ceremonies introduces a jazz-driven girly show to his debauched audience. While hedonism reigns inside the club, outside the Nazis are taking control of Germany in a terrible social transformation from which the Kit Kat is unable to escape.
Maria de Medeiros
Portugal - Spain - Italy - France
98 min.
A forbidden song Grandola, vila morena sounding out over the Portuguese radio on the night of 24-25th April 1974 gives the go-ahead to the soldiers who have decided to oust one of the oldest dictatorships in Europe. Only a couple of months have passed since Pinochet carried off his coup in Chile, but the two have absolutely nothing in common. The movie follows the story of three main characters: two captains, Maia and Manuel, and Antonia, the young teacher and journalist who is married to one of the two. The character of captain Maia draws its inspiration from the figure of Salgueiro Maia, one of the leaders of the ?carnation revolution?.
Basilio Martín Patino
130 min.
Documentary on General Franco's revolt and the ensuing Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) from both the Republican and Falangist points of view. Includes documentary film footage, narrative excerpts from various well-known writers who reported on the war at first hand, and contemporary visits with surviving participants.
Patricio Guzmán
56 min.
After decades of military rule in Chile, Patricio Guzman returns to his country to screen his documentary, Battle of Chile, which until the time of filming was banned by the authorities. His audience, a new generation of Chileans who remember little of the revolution and ensuing coup, reflect on their experience of watching the film after so many years of suppression. For Guzman, this is the chance to discover the extent to which the oblivion enforced by the dictator has succeeded in destroying the memory and energy of a people.
Roland Suso Richter
157 min.
It's 1961, the year the Berlin Wall was built, and Harry is suffocating in oppressive East Germany; he wants out, but his sister Lotte feels that an escape attempt into West Berlin would be too dangerous for her young daughter. Reluctantly leaving Lotte behind, Harry swears that he will return to rescue her. Once safely in the West, Harry teams up with his best friend and engineer, Matthis, to plan the near-impossible project of digging a tunnel under the wall, to do which they have to convince other people who want to rescue members of their family or friends trapped on the other side to join them. Nine harrowing months later, despite cave-ins, flooding and Stasi spies, the team breaks through the cellar of a building in East Berlin.
Volker Schlöndorff
108 min.
Hamburg-based journalist Georg Laschen arrives in Beirut where he meets an employee in the German embassy who wants to adopt a child and ends up helping her with the technicalities. Georg had until now wanted no ties to anything or anyone, but the cruelty of the Lebanese war and his relationship with Arianna force him to reconsider his stance. Learning that the girl has a Palestinian lover, he decides to leave the war-torn city and return to Hamburg where he refuses to release his information on the war to the press.
Stanley Kubrick
93 min.
Convinced of a communist complot to conquer the world, a Strategic Air Command general, acting purely on his own account, orders an atomic attack on Moscow and entrenches himself in the base to avoid detention. The action swings between the wacked out general, the bombers winging it to the Soviet Union and the war room at the Pentagon, where the US President frantically tries to head off the now-imminent inevitable raid. The problem is that only the rebel general knows the codes that can stop the B-52's from going ahead with their mission.
Imanol Uribe
134 min.
Story of the trial that took place in Burgos starting 3 December 1970 telling how the accused joined ETA and how, after the death in an assault of police commissioner and renowned torturer Manzanas, there was an enormous raid leading to the arrest of 13 men and 3 women belonging to ETA, including two priests. Lawyers Juan María Bandrés and Miguel Castells explain the details of the trial. Nine of the defendants were condemned to death, but General Franco, under pressure from national and international opinion, commuted the sentence.
Otto Preminger
212 min.
Concerned with the emergence of Israel as an independent nation, the first half of the movie focuses on the efforts of 611 holocaust survivors to defy the blockade of the occupying British government and sail to Palestine on the ?Exodus?. They were followed by thousands more. The final portion of the film shows the pains of the infant nation to weather its own internal struggle and the attacks from its Middle-Eastern neighbours.
Emil Weiss
52 min.
May 1945 saw North America's First Infantry Division, alias the Big Red One, win its last European battle in the Czechoslovakian Sudete mountains on freeing the prisoners from Falkenau concentration camp (Czechoslovakia). The then Corporal Samuel Fuller, later to become a famous film director, took part in the battle and filmed the event. After an introduction explaining the conditions in which the movie was shot and the freeing of the camp itself, Fuller narrates the twenty minutes of images without sound which he had filmed forty years earlier.
Barbet Schroeder
90 min.
General Idi Amin Dada is a documentary about the Ugandan dictator who was responsible for the deaths of 300,000 of his countrymen between 1971 and 1979, a situation that hit the headlines when he ordered expulsion from the country of all inhabitants of Asian origin before proceeding to commit one atrocity after another. With the consent of Amin himself, the camera accompanies him on a wildlife tour, to a swim meet and to other events intended to demonstrate his popularity, but which really only serve to reveal his mad self-absorption and paranoia. He was nevertheless overthrown shortly afterwards and found asylum in an Arab country.
Roberto Rossellini
78 min.
It's ?Year Zero? in a Germany under reconstruction following the war. The German people are becoming increasingly aware of their defeat and of the horrific genocide perpetrated by Hitler's followers. 12-year-old Edmund is forced to care for his dying father. Working on the black market, he runs into one of his former teachers, a homosexual who finds boys for an ex-Nazi general. Through his new acquaintances, Edmund begins to believe that only the strong deserve to survive and that the weak should be killed. Imbued with these thoughts, he takes the decision to kill his ailing father.
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
81 min.
Comprising three dramatic sketches (El herido, Rebeldes and La batalla de Santa Clara) depicting the armed insurrection against Batista in the Cuba of the 50s, this is also the saga of the youths who lived, loved and fought in the hope of a better future. The movie handles the epic proportions and mysticism of the Cuban Revolution from an almost documentary angle.
David Helpern
105 min.
Combining newsreel footage with material shot by the author, Hollywood on Trial is a documentary on the communist ?witch-hunt? era lead by Senator Joseph McCarthy, more specifically concentrating on the misadventures of the ?Hollywood Ten?, a group of screenwriters and directors in 1947 who refused to answer the questions of the Un-American Activities Committee, immediately finding themselves on the blacklist, meaning that no producer would hire them, and winding up in jail to boot.
Zhang Yimou
129 min.
The China of the forties. Devoid of both money and family as a result of excessive gambling, Fugui teams up with his friend Chunsheng in a shadow theatre company thanks to which they earn some kind of a living. After the communist victory of the civil war, Fugui gets back together with his estranged wife, Jiazhen. The theatre company contributes to the revolution by boosting people's morale as everyone is participating in the unsuccessful attempt at economic renewal known as the Great Leap Forward. As if things weren't bad enough, the death of Fugui's son in an accident caused by Chunsheng puts a cloud over the couple's happiness. The Cultural Revolution breaks out and the doctors are all sent to work in the countryside, so that when the time comes for Fugui's daughter, Fengxia, to give birth, there are only students to look after her and she dies of a haemorrhage nobody is able to stop. Fugui and Jiazhen, now aged, find their reason to live in the education of their grandchild.
Oliver Stone
189 min.
Investigating a case related to the assassination of President Kennedy, New Orleans attorney Jim Garrison is determined to get to the bottom of the story, even if it means putting his job, his life and his family on the line. The evidence leads him to the conclusion that Kennedy's murder was the result of a conspiracy to get him out of the way because of his intention to order retreat from Vietnam.
Bo Widerberg
117 min.
A chronicle of the events leading up to the execution of notorious labour leader Joe Hill in 1915. The story begins with his immigration from Sweden to the USA. Once there he became involved with the Wobblies (although really called the Industrial Workers of the World, it obtained its popular name from the difficulties experienced by immigrants on trying to pronounce the letters IWW). A shortlived growth of its membership towards the 250,000 mark was soon curbed when 150 of its leaders were jailed. Never without his banjo, Joe soon started composing union songs. After working with the Wobblies for a while, Hill travelled to Utah where, in an attempt to protect the woman he loved, he took the blame for a murder and ended up in front of a firing squad.
Stanley Kramer
178 min.
Judgment at Nuremberg is the disturbing tale of the war crimes committed in Germany during World War II and particularly in the Nazi concentration camps. Based on the trials held at Nuremberg which uncovered Hitler's attrocities to the world, the film is also a reflection on the need to make individuals responsible for their own war crimes rather than permit the accused to continue alleging collective guilt or claiming that they had only been following orders.
Shohei Imamura
123 min.
The title refers to the radioactive rain that fell after the first atomic bomb was let off over Hiroshima. Although young bride-to-be Yasuko has the misfortune to be visiting the city in question on the day of the explosion, she is miraculously unhurt and returns to her village across the bay. Unfortunately, the whole region has been profoundly affected by the ?black rain? which over the following years is responsible for the poison that slowly but surely erodes their souls. Yoshiko's former friends insist that they can't be sick, that she must be the one to have brought this illness to them. Now a pariah, Yoshiko's life is shattered as surely as if the bomb had disintegrated her upon impact.
Patricio Guzmán
90 min.
During the third year of President Salvador Allende's mandate in Chile, both the right and left wings are passionately organizing their campaign for the parliamentary elections as the camera takes to the street to film the action with no intermediaries. The upper and managerial classes intend to topple the socialist government. Politicians, activists and ordinary citizens give their opinions, creating a direct and lively chronicle of events prior to the tragedy of September 1973. The Chilean people play the leading role in this report of increasing perspective with the passing of time.
Patricio Guzmán
92 min.
A chronicle covering the period of the failed June 1973 coup until the repression following the military bombardment of the Palacio de la Moneda in September of the same year, a Coup d'Etat during which President Allende lost his life defending the Constitution. Extremely precise, this documentary expounds both the advances of the right-wing opposition and the disorganization of the left-wing sectors, incapable of presenting a united front, during the agitated southern winter. There are even some masterly strokes of cinematographic observation: the burial of Allende's aide-de-camp, the interview with women from a run-down neighbourhood, or a TV controversy serving as an appropriate synthesis of the division running through Chilean society.
Gillo Pontecorvo
135 min.
In 1954, 130 years of French colonialism in Algeria ends in revolt as the National Liberation Movement (FLN) strikes for independence by attacking the local European community. The governor hopes to quell the uprising by sealing off the Casbah, refuge for the FLN, but the attacks persist. The French bring in a paratroop division under the leadership of Colonel Mathieu, who tortures captured terrorists into naming their compatriots. Despite wiping out all of the FLN leaders, the rebellion continues. Thousands of Algerians riot, taking over the city, finally achieving their independence on July 3, 1962.
Luis Puenzo
112 min.
In the Argentina of the military dictatorship, Alicia and Roberto lead a reasonably comfortable lifestyle with their adopted daughter, Gaby, thanks to Roberto's contacts in higher circles. One day, an old friend of Alicia's turns up after having spent a number of years exiled in Europe, explaining that she had left after having been imprisoned and tortured for over a month. She also tells Alicia that the arrested women included a number of pregnant mothers-to-be whose children were taken from them at birth for adoption by families favoured by the military regime, a revelation sewing seeds of concern in Alicia's mind due to the fact that she doesn't know where Gaby came from as Roberto took care of the whole adoption process.
Dino Risi
90 min.
Demobilised after World War I with no profession, Domenico scrapes by in Milan on petty crime. Running into his old Captain Paolinelli, a ringleader of the fascist movement then still at the incubation stage, he decides to join their ranks. Meeting an old comrade at a demonstration, he convinces the man to sign up for the Black Shirts. Landing a two-year jail sentence after a run-in with the Police during a street sweepers' strike, the fascists set the pair of them free only a few months later, just in time for the March on Rome.
Joris Ivens, Marceline Loridan
France - Nothern Vietnam
113 min.
Situated on the demarcation line between North and South Vietnam, that is, on the 17th Parallel, the movie shows the daily life of the people together with their struggle against the Americans. Constant bombing by B52's obliges the Vietnamese people to live underground by day and to work on the land by night. In only a few weeks more than twenty thousand tons of bombs were dropped on the area.
Marcel Ophüls
256 min.
From 1940 to 1944, the part of France administrated by the Vichy Government collaborated with Nazi Germany, thus leaving a controversial blotch on French history. Marcel Ophüls mixes archival footage with 1969 interviews with collaborators and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand in the centre of France, and with the odd German officer. Also featured is Pierre Mendès-France, jailed for his anti-Vichy action and later France's Prime Minister, and Christian de la Mazière, one of the 7,000 French youths to fight on the eastern front wearing German uniforms.
Romain Goupil
95 min.
Michel Récanati was a militant leader in the May ?68 riots in Paris who continued his political activity beyond the disturbances. He was imprisoned for a short while in 1973. Disillusioned after the failure of the demonstrations and the death of the only woman he had loved, his life seemed to change from a period of hope and activism to one of bottomless despair ending in his suicide in 1978. His friend and militant companion Romain Goupil directed this documentary about Récanati's life.
Alain Resnais
32 min.
Short film
Resnais was commissioned to make this short film as part of a history of World War 2. The chilling title is a direct translation from Hitler's order that anyone who endangered Germany's security would ?vanish without trace in the night and fog (Nacht und Nebel) of the Third Reich?. The film begins in the overgrown ruins of Auschwitz concentration camp, ending with the Nuremberg trials and reminding the audience that responsibility for the horror was not that of the Nazis alone.
Sergei M. Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov
103 min.
Commissioned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution and pay tribute to the Soviet people, protagonist of the 1917 events, this film reconstructs the facts leading up to the said revolution in Petrograd. Although the film was an ideological and propaganda seeking vehicle for the Soviet State, it was censored by Stalin for the appearance of a character who, while having played a key role in the success of the revolution, had later fallen into disgrace: Leon Trotsky, meaning that virtually all of the shots in which he appeared were mutilated.
René Clément
175 min.
Towards the end of World War II the Allied armies are heading for Paris where the different divisions of the French Resistance are attempting to prepare themselves and organize an uprising. The German general in charge of Paris, Dietrich von Cholitz, has explicit orders from Hitler to burn and destroy the monuments were they to lose control of the city or the Allies to come too close. But, although he is one of Hitler's right-hand-men, von Cholitz unexpectedly disobeys orders.
Stanley Kubrick
86 min.
The war has reached deadlock in the trenches. The French high-command needs to do something big in order to calm public opinion. General Broulard therefore requests the taking of a German stronghold of the similarly ranked Mireau, who in turn informs Colonel Dax of the plans. In charge of the action, and despite his serious misgivings on the subject, Dax goes goes ahead and leads the assault, which turns into a massacre. The second round of troops refuse to charge and General Mireau furiously orders Captain Rousseau to bomb his own men to make them to fight, an order the latter refuses to obey without written orders. The recruits turn around and head back into the trenches. Dax defends three men at the court-martial whom Mireau wants to serve as a lesson by having them condemned to death by a firing squad.
Eduardo Meilij
75 min.
Documentary on the life and work of Juan Domingo Perón and his political party, the Justicialista, in the Republic of Argentina between the years of 1943 and 1955; i.e., from Peron's coup d'état until the fall of his regime. The movie comprises scenes from the documentaries and cinema news reels produced by the Press and Diffusion Office which picture houses were obliged to screen before the film.
Darrell Roodt
88 min.
Place of Weeping tells of the harsh iniquities endured by the black farm labourers of a small farming community in Weenen (South Africa). Encountering emotional drama and undignified abuse at the hands of her racist white boss, young Gracie places her life in danger in a personal fight for freedom setting an example for her companions. This was the first antiapartheid film to be distributed in cinemas throughout the country and not only in those reserved for black people.
Milcho Manchevski
113 min.
Manchevski came up with the idea for this film while travelling to his native Macedonia after several years of absence. Inspired in his country's civil war, he wrote three simple tales with universal storylines: impossible love in Words (a pure and innocent orthodox monk breaks his vows in order to shelter a terrified young Albanian girl); an unsolvable drama in Faces (the effect of war on an English publisher, sentimentally torn between her husband and her lover); the sterile attempt to understand why one-time friends are now bitter enemies in Pictures (a Macedonian war photographer returns to his country). The connection between these characters and different environments is only uncovered at the end of the film.
Fruit Chan
128 min.
Set in the summer of 1997, the movie follows the life of an ex-marine whose unit is disbanded during the months leading up to and following the handover of Hong Kong to China. Unable to find a job, he joins his brother working for a crime boss as a driver. Unsatisfied with their lot in life, the brothers and some friends plot to rob a bank where one of the ex-marines is working as a guard. But the heist goes tragically wrong when they come across another group of more violent robbers.
Paul Leduc
105 min.
In 1913, North American journalist John Reed crosses the Mexican border on his way to the Durango barracks of Pancho Villa supporter, General Urbina, where he stays for 18 months, gaining the confidence of the revolutionaries and eventually becoming actively involved in the fighting while sharing day-to-day life with the troops.
Roberto Rossellini
105 min.
The Nazi occupation of Rome brings different people into contact with one another, Manfredi, a Resistance leader hunted by the Gestapo and Pina, widowed wife-to-be of Francesco, likewise member of the Resistance. With the Nazi's hot on his heels, Manfredi finds refuge with Francesco's providential help in the home of parish priest Don Pietro, but is discovered when his ex-mistress reveals his hideout. Francesco is arrested by the Gestapo and Pina is shot down in the street while running after the lorry taking him away. Nothing can stop the Nazi fury. Manfredi is tortured to death and Don Pietro is executed before the incredulous eyes of his parishioners.
Margarethe von Trotta
West Germany - Czechoslovakia
122 min.
Powerful portrait of the Polish-German activist Rosa Luxemburg (1972-1919), member of the German Socialist Democratic Party and subsequently co-founder of the Spartacist revolutionary movement with Karl Liebknecht and Leo Jogiches. A life of political (she was jailed as often as nine times) and personal struggle finally brought to an end with her murder during the unsuccessful Spartacist rebellion in Germany, immediately after its defeat in World War I.
Oliver Stone
113 min.
Based on the experiences of American journalist Richard Boyle during the bloody El Salvador civil war between 1980 and 1981. In mid personal and professional crisis, made worse by his drink and drug problem, Boyle heads for El Salvador as a war correspondent with his not-too-clear disc jockey sidekick, becoming a first-hand witness to the clashes between the guerrilla and Government troops. El Salvador has become a hell where human values are crushed between political extremes in the midst of which Boyle attempts to save the life of his Salvadorean girlfriend, Maria.
Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
103 min.
Two silent film stars, Don Lockwood and Linda Lamont have a serious problem: the arrival of talking pictures. Their producer makes them realize that if they are going to survive what he believes will be no mere momentary gimmick, they had better adjust fast. When Linda's voice proves to be an earsore, they save her career by dubbing in Kathy Selden's. After a successful showing of the film, Linda proudly parades live onstage without realizing the consequences. Don encourages the audience into demanding a song from her; after she has made a fool of herself, he introduces the exciting new talent: Kathy Selden.
Samuel Fuller
113 min.
Based on the First Infantry Division's campaigns in North Africa and Europe during WWII, most of the action takes place in the years 1942-45, when the overall drive among the Allies intensified into simply getting the war over and done with. Under the orders of a veteran sergeant, four unlikely heroes become friends, learn the real meaning of harship and constantly defy death in a world where good and bad come second to survival.
John Ford
91 min.
Gypo Nolan, a dull-witted, impoverished Dubliner in the middle of the 1922 Sinn Fein Rebellion turns stool pigeon and tells the police where to find Frankie McPhillip, for which he receives a reward of twenty pounds, while Frankie is tracked down by the authorities and takes his own life. When Dan Gallagher, the revolutionaries' leader, seeks Frankie's informer, Gypo places the blame on an innocent man. But before the night is over, Gypo's guilt is evident. While he's sleeping, Gypo's prostitute girlfriend reveals his whereabouts and he is seriously wounded. Seeking refuge in a church, he comes across Mrs. McPhillip as she sits praying. Confessing his treachery to her, she grants him forgiveness as he falls dead.
Roger Corman
84 min.
After years of debate, the courts have finally ordered desegregation of the nation's schools, so that black students can now study in places previously restricted to the all-whites. Enter Adam Cramer to a sleepy southern town shaken like so many others by the decision. The leader of a racist organization opposed to desegregation, Cramer begins to sir up the community with fiery rhetoric and bold tactics, only to discover that the mob he has helped create is running out of control.
Bernardo Bertolucci
160 min.
The last Chinese emperor, Pu Yi, lived during a turbulent historical period. The Japanese used him as a puppet governor of the occupied Manchuria and and the Communists sent him to a political re-education camp. After the oppulence of the court, he ends his days as a gardener. The tale of his life takes us through six decisive decades in the history of China.
Andrew Marton, Ken Annakin, Bernhard Wicki
169 min.
The Longest Day relates the first 24 hours of a crucial episode in World War II: the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. Eisenhower gives the order setting powerful warfaring machinery in motion - to the surprise of the Germans who didn't expect the attack on that particular day. The Allies head for the Normandy beaches while paratroopers are dropped inland to take key towns and bridges. Bloody battles on all fronts end with D-Day and victory for the Allies, thus able to advance through France as a result of the positions they had taken.
Shyam Benegal
151 min.
The Making of the Mahatma portrays the transformation process of westernized Indian barrister Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, apparently vulnerable in his professional and family life, into the historical Mahatma Gandhi who had left India in April 1983 for South Africa with the intention of staying for a year working for a company belonging to Indians who had settled there. He stayed for 21 years. In South Africa he became aware of the repression suffered by non-whites and conceived a war without violence. On his return to India, he was already known as Mahatma, ?great soul?, the man who was to free his country from foreign rule without firing a shot.
Philip Kaufman
191 min.
Towards the late 40s, US Air Force test pilots are faced with a formidable challenge apparently impossible to achieve: to break the sound barrier. One of them crashes in the attempt to succeed and a number of fellow pilots gather before his grave, including the prodigy of the group, Chuck Yeager. Although Yeager goes on to become the first man to actually succeed in crossing the sound barrier, his superiors subsequently omit to select him as an astronaut and leave him out of the Mercury project marking the start of the space race.
Joris Ivens
52 min.
In the small Spanish village of Fuentedueña between Madrid and Valencia, the villagers develop plans for the irrigation of land recently confiscated from the feudal landowners while Franco's military forces take part in the defense of Madrid. The commentary for the English version is narrated by Ernest Hemingway while the French version was done by Ivens himself. There was a first English version with the voice of Orson Welles and another French version with Jean Renoir as the narrator. The production company, Contemporary Historians, was founded by Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, John Dos Passos and Clifford Odets, among others.
Terrence Malick
170 min.
Based on the novel by James Jones, The Thin Red Line tells the story of the changes, suffering and discoveries made about themselves by an army rifle company during the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal. The key is to take control of the airfield permitting control over an enormous part of the Pacific and ultimately stem the Japanese advance from island to island. The action takes place as troops are moved in to relieve battle-weary Marine units - from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.
Richard Fleischer, Toshio Masuda, Kinji Fukasaku
144 min.
Having signed an alliance with Hitler, Japan's desire for expansion is threatened by the presence of the American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. While Admiral Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Marines, puts the last touches to an attack intended to destroy the American ships, the North American fleet commanders discard the idea of an attack. But Japan's official declaration of war is imminent. Six Japanese aircraft carriers are already heading full steam towards Hawaii while they prepare to launch their raid on Pearl Harbor immediately the declaration is delivered, surprising a poorly prepared garrison in the doing.
Michael Wadleigh
184 min.
This filmed chronicle of the legendary 1969 music festival, Woodstock, offers an excellent chance to watch the performances of Joan Baez, The Who, Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, among others; but it's not just any old musical documentary, it's also a perfect reflection of the atmosphere reigning amongst the American youngsters of the time.
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