Summary: The fall of 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof, the film Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) called 'the most powerful movie musical ever made.' Narrated by Jeff Goldblum, it captures the humor and drama of director Norman Jewison's quest to recreate the lost world of Jewish life in Tsarist Russia and re-envision the beloved stage hit as a wide-screen epic. Oscarʼ- nominated...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2022

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Summary: The Neiger family was living a peaceful life in the Jewish community in Krakow when the arrival of World War II changed their lives forever. When Nazi soldiers forced the family from their home into the harsh life of the Ghetto, they made a vow to escape as a family. But when circumstances forced the family to separate from older brother Ben, their will to survive was put to the test. This is...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2022

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Summary: Ten years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, this piece documents the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek. One of the first cinematic reflections on the horrors of the Holocaust and contrasts the stillness of the abandoned camps' quiet, empty buildings with haunting wartime footage.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Criterion Collection 2003

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Summary: "As a teenager, filmmaker Pearl Gluck left her [Hasidic] Jewish community in Brooklyn for secular life in Manhattan. Many years later, Pearl's father has one wish: that she marry and return to the community . Pearl, however, takes a more creative approach to mend the breach. She travels to Hungary to retrieve a turn-of-the-century family heirloom: a couch upon which esteemed rabbis once slept....

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Zeitgeist Films 2005

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Summary: The documentary serves as a fascinating look at Putin in the earliest days of his presidency, when the seeds of his authoritarianism were already being sown. It also raises difficult questions about the role of Mansky himself. As a filmmaker who witnessed and, in some cases, shaped these events, is he in some way complicit?

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2022

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Summary: In June 2023, Russia destroyed the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine and committed an unprecedented ecocide. In response, French philosopher and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy returns to Ukraine to capture Ukraine's deep humanity despite the dire conditions and civilian resilience and resistance unlike any other.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2024

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Summary: Narrated by Tony-and Academy Award-winner Joel Grey, this entertaining documentary mingles cultural history with illuminating perspectives on the origins and meanings of some of Broadway's most beloved songs, stories, and shows. With performances by Matthew Broderick, Kelli O'Hara, Zero Mostel, Nathan Lane, Barbra Streisand, Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenoweth, and many more!

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2021

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Summary: Enlightening documentary about the Russian avant-garde and the role art played in the Russian Revolution. Explores the works and careers of important Russian artists, including Chagall, Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Malevich, and many others. Includes historical reenactments.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2018

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Summary: This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront ongoing anti-LGBTQ pogrom raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity, and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2021

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Summary: As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2023

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Summary: The story of a Paul Pena, a blind American blues musician, and his trek to Tuva to live among its inhabitants and compete in their triennial khoomei (throat singing) contest. He is accompanied by a documentary film team and Tuvinian throat singer Kongar-ol Ondar.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Docurama 2000

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Summary: Founded in 2011 after Vladimir Putin was given a third term as Russian president, Pussy Riot is an anonymous feminist art collective/punk band based in Moscow. The group's protest inside the cathedral was intended to protest Putin's union of church and state. On Feb. 21, 2012 they participated in a 40-second "punk prayer protest" on the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral before being...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2014

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Summary: This documentary traces the unorthodox path of Daniel Smith - eccentric musician, visual artist and devout Christian - as he creates a musical phenomenon with family and friends, and mentors an unknown singer-songwriter whose subsequent success stands in contrast to the music world's uneasy reception of Danielson just a few years earlier.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Image Entertainment 2007

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Summary: Tells the story of the 550,000 Jewish Americans who fought in World War II. In their own words, veterans both famous and unknown bring their war experiences to life, how they fought for their nation and their people, struggled with anti-Semitism within their ranks, and emerged transformed.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2018

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Summary: The story of the surviving members of the Viennese Hakoah sports club women's swim team, a world-dominating competitor in the 1930s. The club was eventually shut down during Hitler's reign, though all the women managed to escape capture. Combines historical footage and contemporary interviews to reconnect the women's lives and memories.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Kino on Video 2005

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Summary: Chronicles the uprising that toppled the government of Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich and has since developed into an international crisis between Russia and the West.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Cinema Guild 2015

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Khodorkovsky, Mikhail

Summary: Profiles Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian oligarch and prisoner who became a political dissident speaking out against the Putin regime, and explores the relationship between oligarchy and government and its effect on democracy.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Kino International 2020

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Summary: Documents the discovery of film footage of the Warsaw Ghetto, found after World War II, that was shot by the Nazis to use as war propaganda.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Oscilloscope Pictures 2011

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Summary: Explores the lesser-known tale of George's creators, Hans and Margret Rey. Years later, having heard that Hans was wasting his artistic talents as a bookkeeper in Rio, Margaret traveled to Brazil to persuade him to marry her and do something creative together. Arriving in New York as refugees, they started their life anew and over the next three decades, they created a classic that continues to...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2017

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Summary: Why was classical music so important to Hitler and Goebbels? The film centers around two people who represent musical culture during the Third Reich albeit in very different ways. Wilhelm Furtwängler was a star conductor; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the cellist of the infamous Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. Both shared a love for classical German music. The world-famous conductor made a pact with...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2023

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Summary: Nicky's Family tells the nearly forgotten story of Nicholas Winton, an Englishman who organized the rescue of 669 Czech and Slovak children just before the outbreak of World War II.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2013

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