Shoshana

Short film about the 400th anniversary of Augsburg, Germany

By setting a bad example, pilot Dilbert shows the necessary safety rules for fighter pilots, and the ones training them.

Several Puerto Rican Christmas tunes are performed on screen by Juan Rivera, Juan Ortiz Vargas, José Ramón Morales, and the Morgado Brothers.

The Vatican opened once-secret records on Pope Pius XII on March 2020. This gave researchers a brand new insight into the Catholic Church during the Nazi era. What did the Pope know about the Holocaust?

So many Israelis still wax nostalgic about that old Friday afternoon ritual, back in the times when television had just one channel. Everyone would watch the Arab movie of the week, but did anybody ever wonder how Israel’s official TV station was able to transcend hostile boundaries to obtain these films, and why it insisted on showing movies made by “the enemy”? The Arabic-language movie from Egypt let some of us escape back to our original homeland, and let others peek out from our “villa in the jungle” and catch a glimpse of our neighbors across the border. But most of us didn’t really want to see the people whose culture, anguish, and aspirations were reflected on our screens. “Arab Movie” brings us the stars and the songs, the convoluted plots, and that fleeting moment when we shared the same cultural heroes as everyone else in the Middle East. But this film about the richness and intensity of Egyptian cinema also raises some disturbing questions.

Auschwitz is synonymous with the Holocaust, but it’s also a place on the map with a surprising history preceding World War II. Narrated by Meryl Streep, this short documentary tells the story of Auschwitz, from its construction to its infamy.

Interesting short documentary on young athletes in a Soviet ice skating program, some of whom are barely past toddler age. Kinetic and up close, the doc focuses on movement with music, eschewing interview and conversation, and mostly submerging political and social commentary.

Documentary on the design and choreography of Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943), an artist and teacher associated with the Bauhaus. After a discussion of his artistic philosophy and goals, illustrated by his drawings, reconstructions of his choreographic works are seen in action, each with a brief introduction.

EMPATHY (a digital love letter) is a short essay documentary, a heartbreaking comedy about a break-up, an attempt to concretize emotion and evoke empathy from a writer’s approach. After getting her heart crushed in a relationship, a woman writes a letter to the man she loves for a simple reason—to evoke his empathy towards her. Knowing the premise of human emotions, the woman starts her letter with her own life stories, follows with a blunt confession of affection, and ends with a cursing when she can’t handle the emotions anymore.

The film in a metaphorical form demonstrates a model of self-devouring in a closed spiritual system, it explores intermediate state between a human and a non-human: a subhuman deprived of a divine spark.

This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year long conflict. The I-Unit has built up a database of thousands of videos, photos and social media posts. Where possible it has identified the posters and those who appear. The material reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to the demolition of entire neighbourhoods and murder. The film also tells the story of the war through the eyes of Palestinian journalists, human rights workers and ordinary residents of the Gaza Strip. And it exposes the complicity of Western governments – in particular the use of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as a base for British surveillance flights over Gaza.