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A visionary Slavic queen and her faithful allies draw on everything in their power to overthrow the queen's despotic husband.
Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore.
In 1807, Napoleon meets and falls in love with 22-year-old Polish countess Marie Walewska, who is unhappily married to a much older man. Enchanted by the blonde, blue-eyed countess, the emperor enters into an affair with Marie, who uses the relationship to induce Napoleon to treat Poland fairly.
The film follows a character known as The Cinematographer, who is looking for someone called Atieh (Future). As he calls out to her, he is magically transported back in time from the early twentieth century to the reign of Naser al-Din Shah in 19th century Iran. Captured by the Shah's guards, he shows films from the history of Iranian cinema to the Shah. The Shah is entranced and eagerly shows his family the apparently magical medium.
Intrigue at the Roman Emperor's court prior to its destruction by Vesuvius.
Based on the tale by Dale Jarvis, "Lady at Number 16" tells the story of two sailors in the 1800s that help a young lady back into her mansion. They return a few hours later to realize that their night was not all that it had seemed, and it may have had a more sinister twist than expected.
A film about a man with a breakthrough history of Poland in the background. Edward Gierek is one of the most important figures of the 20th century in the collective memory of Polish people.
Elmore Leonard, author of more than 40 novels, is renowned in the literary community. From his westerns and early novels of crime based in Detroit and South Florida, right through his complex and virtually plotless later work, Elmore Leonard dissected an America whose founding sins have continued to haunt it all the days. Leonard’s depiction of America is as real as Twain’s Hannibal, Faulkner’s Mississippi and Steinbeck’s Monterey. The new documentary ELMORE LEONARD: “But don’t try to write” explores the prolific author’s legacy and his influence on generations of writers. The documentary features exclusive images and previously unseen home movie footage, family photographs, and in-depth interviews with both literary experts and those who knew him well, including colleagues, family, and childhood friends.
Aboard a giant slave ship in an abandoned Citroën factory, the history of the West Indies is traced through several centuries of French oppression. The ship becomes a stage for the people to tell stories via song and dance—from their enslavement to their displacement in Metropolitan France.
The aging king of Israel, Ahab, falls under the influence of a young and beautiful but scheming Pagan woman named Jezebel and, against the advice of his advisers and the prophet Elijah, marries her. Her plan to introduce her idols to Israel angers God, who wreaks vengeance on Israel.
A retiring Civil War reenactor stages a provocative final performance amid escalating attempts to obscure the realities of American history.
A Shaw and Sons production about a couple who loves each other but end up marrying different people because of parental pressures.
The story of the defense of the mission-turned-fortress by 185 Texans against an overwhelming Mexican army in 1836.
In 1519, adventurer Hernán Cortés defies impossible odds to conquer a nation. Part one of a two-part film.
The life story of Aleksis Kivi, author of the first Finnish novel in Finnish language and (posthumously) its most successful writer.
Writer/Director Bruce Reisman pays homage to the Golden Age of Broadway during the summer of 1948. Inspired by true events, this is the story of private, often forbidden romances of legends from Montgomery Clift to Richard Rodgers, told through the perspective of 24-year-old Sidney Lumet. This special director’s cut adds 12 minutes of previously-unseen footage.
The last days of Napoleon on the island of Saint Helena.
A Bolshevik army officer and Uzbek who has been nursed back to health by a young Uzbek woman to whom he is now married, gains responsibility for the local village in 1929. He is urged by comrades in Tashkent to have the local women drop their chadors and veils but he is also told that he should not force this on anyone. His wife declines to take off her veil, so a 14 year old girl steps forward to set the example, over the objections of the local Muslim clergy and most of the village men. After the girl is killed, and the commissar is shot, his wife takes him to the hills to nurse him back to health once again. She begs her husband to leave the village. Instead when he decides to return, she is pressured by her father to continue to wear the veil.