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Confidence
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by István Szabó • 1980 • Hungary
Arguably the first mature masterpiece from one of Hungary’s greatest auteurs, Confidence is a perfectly controlled study in suspicion and longing. Set in a cowering Budapest in 1944, it follows two strangers forced to pose as a married couple in order t...
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Outskirts
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Boris Barnet • 1933 • USSR/Russia
Set in a provincial backwater on the eve of the First World War, this reflective drama from one of Soviet cinema’s most underrated directors is a milestone in Russian-language film history. One of the first notable Russian films to be shot with sound...
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Adelheid
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by František Vláčil • 1970 • Czechoslovakia
Mining intense drama from a troubled and still-controversial moment in Czech history, František Vláčil’s Adelheid shows how the war came home from the front lines. At the end of the Second World War, Czechoslovak lieutenant Viktor Chotovický (...
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Twenty Days Without War
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Aleksei German • 1976 • USSR/Russia
One of the few “cinéma-vérité” gems centred around Second World War, Aleksei German’s sophomore film is a melancholic yet deft investigation into the true wages of war. Disillusioned correspondent Lopatin is granted twenty days of leave from the St...
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The Good Soldier Švejk
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Karel Steklý • 1956 • Czechoslovakia
Of the many screen adaptations of Jaroslav Hašek’s beloved novel, this delightful farce is the most enduringly popular. Written and directed by the redoutable Karel Steklý and with Rudolf Hrušínský excelling in the titular role, The Good Soldier Š...
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Look at These Young People!
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Revaz Chkheidze • 1969 • USSR/Georgia
It is the summer of 1941, and a group of idealistic Georgian students are graduating. Their hopes for the future, however, are scuppered by the impending war. Dreams are swapped for soldiers’ overcoats as they are dispatched to the front line, wh...
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Commissar
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Aleksandr Askoldov • 1967 • USSR/Russia
When a Red Army officer is forced to shelter with a Jewish family while seeing her unwanted pregnancy to term, she finds her fierce communist values at odds with their sprawling generosity. Over time, these two worlds are brought closer togethe...
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Annychka
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Borys Ivchenko • 1968 • USSR/Ukraine
A wartime melodrama shot through with the folkloric magic and vivid imagination that defined Ukraine’s so-called “poetic cinema” of the 1960s. In the dark days of Nazi occupation, a young girl native to the Carpathian mountains falls in love with ...
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Chapaev
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by the Vasilyev Brothers • 1934 • USSR/Russia
This biopic of Vasily Chapaev, peasant turned mythical military hero, is perhaps the most canonical film of state-sponsored Socialist Realism. Charting Chapaev’s campaign in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, frenetic action is juxta...
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Hello, It’s Me!
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Frunze Dovlatyan • 1966 • USSR/Armenia
Based on the real-life story of Soviet physicist Artem Alikhanian, this film presents a beautiful yet tragic reflection on war, as the main character deals with his own ghosts and tries to find a way to move on. Moving freely between the 1940s a...
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No Path Through Fire
Movie + 3 extras
Directed by Gleb Panfilov • 1967 • USSR/Russia
The debut feature from Gleb Panfilov, marking his first collaboration with his future wife and muse Inna Churikova, No Path Through Fire is a classic of sixties cinema. Set during the Russian Civil War and following the fate of military nurse Tanya,...
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The White Bird Marked with Black
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Yuri Ilyenko • 1971 • USSR/Ukraine
Yuri Ilyenko’s landmark film follows the Zvonars, a family of poor musicians, as personal and geopolitical crises collide across the course of the tumultuous 1940s. Set in the region of Bukovina, on the border between Ukraine and Romania, Ilyenko’s ...
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Eroica
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Andrzej Munk • 1958 • Poland
One of only three feature films completed by Andrzej Munk before his tragic early death in a car accident, Eroica is a scathing assault on the false pieties of national pride and a key film in the history of the Polish School. The film is structured as tw...
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Farewells
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Wojciech Has • 1958 • Poland
Also known in English as Lidia Ate the Apple, Wojciech Has’s melancholic adaptation of Stanisław Dygat’s novel evokes the despair pervading Poland in the years before and after the Second World War. In 1939, bourgeois student Pawel (Tadeusz Janczar) rebel...