Mussorgsky

Saint Petersburg, 1858. A group of composers known as The Five meet at Balakirev's. Young Modest Mussorgsky, both a civil servant and a musician, has become a fixture there. He tells about the first opera he plans to compose. Then he goes to the country where he discovers the lowly conditions of the peasants and the bloody conflicts with the rich land owners. He works on Gogol's 'The Marriage', trying to render into music the natural accents of the play's naturalistic dialogue. But his efforts do not pan out. On the other hand, he starts writing his opera on the story of Boris Godunov. The Marinsky Theatre refuses to stage the work. The Five, and Mussorgsky among them, are libeled and the group starts disintegrating. When 'Boris Godunov' is finally performed in 1874, it is a popular success.
Movie Star Rating : 4.5  Read More

The Unorthodox

The year is 1983 and Yaakov Cohen, the owner of a Jerusalem printing press, is tired from being pushed around. It seems that he was born on the wrong side, with the wrong family name and in a moment's decision he decides to establish a Sephardic-ultra-Orthodox list that will run to the Jerusalem municipality. He gathers two friends, and together they improvise a campaign - no means, no connections, no money, but with much rage, passion and a sense of justice.
Movie Star Rating : 6.5  Read More

Laugh or Die

Parikka, the actor once called the Funniest Man in Finland, and his troupe are about to be executed for the atrocities committed during the Civil War in Finland. Jaeger Lieutenant Nyborg, an admirer of Parikka, suspects a definite miscarriage of justice. He wants to save the actors. The forthcoming visit of the German General von der Goltz to the prison island provides him with a suitable opportunity. Nyborg suggests that the actors prepare a comical performance for the visitor and not be shot. Instead, they will be given a new trial. Preparing a comedy in the horrible circumstances, in the midst of hunger and death, seems quite an overwhelming task. Only a handful of real actors are still alive, the rest of the troupe consists of stagehands. Parikka has to use all his inventive skills to be able to produce something funny.
Movie Star Rating : 6.3  Read More

The Liberators

Medieval art treasures seized by the Nazis go missing at the end of World War II. Were they destroyed in the chaos of the final battles? Or were these thousand-year-old masterpieces stolen by advancing American troops? For over forty years, the mystery remained unsolved. A true detective story, "The Liberators" follows a dogged German art detective through the New York art world and military archives to the unlikeliest of destinations: a small town on the Texas prairie. Featuring interviews with Willi Korte (Portrait of Wally) and Texas attorney Dick DeGuerin, the film raises intriguing questions as to the motivations of the art thief and the whereabouts of the items that, to this day,
Movie Star Rating : 5.6  Read More

Tsamo

In the 1860’s Alaska and Finland are simultaneously parts of the Russian Empire. A Finnish mining engineer Simon buys a Tlingit girl named Tsamo and decides to bring her to Finland. The child, Tsamo, is baptized and Simon starts to teach her European manners. Tsamo thinks she’s married to Simon and acts accordingly, but when Simon marries a lady of his own age and class, she gets confused. Simon is forced to send the girl away and the battle over Tsamo’s identity takes complicated turns.
Movie Star Rating : 0.0  Read More

The Border

The young man must set up a clear border between Finland and Russia, white and red, enemy and friend, us and them. While the task seems clear he finds out the execution of his command in concrete situations is very difficult. Right choices turn out to be wrong ones and correcting them make things worse.
Movie Star Rating : 5.2  Read More

Admiral Nakhimov

A biography of a famous Russian Admiral Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov.
Movie Star Rating : 4.2  Read More

Behind the Magic: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The story of the rocky road that Walt Disney took to get his interpretation of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) to the silver screen.
Movie Star Rating : 6.3  Read More

Voltaire

Writer and philosopher Voltaire, loyal to his king, Louis XV of France, nonetheless writes scathingly of the king's disdain for the rights and needs of his people. Louis admires Voltaire, but is increasingly influenced against him by his minister, the Count de Sarnac.
Movie Star Rating : 5.7  Read More

Juan & Eva

The earthquake in the city of San Juan, in January 1944, is the origin of the love story between Juan Domingo Perón (Osmar Nunez) and Eva Duarte (Julieta Diaz). He was a colonel in the Army and she was a popular radio actress. Eva collaborates with other artists in the collection organized by Peron, from the Secretary of Workr, to raise funds for earthquake victims. Neither then imagine what the future holds them.
Movie Star Rating : 4.2  Read More

Tlön

Jorge, an Argentinian writer in the 40ʼs, and Luis, a Mexican game developer in the 2020ʼs, investigate a mysterious question: What is Tlön? What is Uqbar? As each of them finds new answers, Tlön’s mystery will unveil bit by bit, exposing them to a revelation that will change their lives...
Movie Star Rating : 10.0  Read More

Doty

Richard Doty is a former Air Force Intelligence operative whose job at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico involved creating and disseminating disinformation about the existence of extraterrestrial spacecraft to UFO researchers. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kirtland AFB was home to a wide range of highly classified technology experiments involving lasers, stealth aircraft, and nuclear weapons. Strange phenomena in the skies above the base piqued the interest of amateur and professional UFO investigators. Doty’s job was to recruit UFO researchers to be informants to the Air Force about goings-on in the UFO community and to spread military disinformation about UFOs among their peers. To accomplish this, Doty supplied fake documents to UFO investigators purporting to tell the “truth” about government involvement with extraterrestrials.
Movie Star Rating : 0.0  Read More

Dreams

This entry in MGM's Passing Parade series looks at the meaning of dreams, including one by Abraham Lincoln that foretold his death.
Movie Star Rating : 5.0  Read More

A Tapestry of a Legendary Land

As a modern artifact researcher prepares for the exhibition of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains," he unexpectedly travels back nine hundred years to the Northern Song dynasty, entering the heart of young painter Xi Meng. There, he witnesses Xu Meng's passionate journey and the collaboration with dedicated laborers as they overcome great challenges to create a timeless masterpiece.
Movie Star Rating : 8.0  Read More