Welcome to Yiddishland

An upbeat, witty, and timely exploration of a global community of artists creating innovative work in their quest to rediscover and revitalise the endangered Yiddish language. From behind-the-scenes with an acclaimed Yiddish-language version of Yentl in Melbourne, to enjoyably transgressive punk-Klezmer musicians, and Barrie Kosky’s latest trailblazing production in Berlin – the endangered Yiddish language is alive and well in this rousing documentary. The language originated amongst the Jewish community in Eastern Europe, but almost disappeared when more than half of the world’s Yiddish speakers were murdered during the Holocaust. Most of the artists and performers (aka Yiddishists) in the film didn’t grow up speaking Yiddish, but all have found solace, identity, and inspiration in its rich traditions and culture. Ros Horin has mapped a fascinating cultural history.

A bissele Glik

A Yiddish World Remembered

Elliott Gould narrates this affectionate look at life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "It's unreal that all this could have just disappeared," says Polish native Mariem Adler Stok, one of the seniors whose memories of this "Yiddish world" give this documentary its life. The hour traces Jewish history in Europe and explores Jews' focus on education, their religious customs, clothing, food, music and theater.

La Brigade des papiers

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.

The Great Yiddish Love

Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars the self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement, Zarah Leander. It is a melodrama of love, emigration, and betrayal reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa and Yiddish films from the 1930s and 40s.

An American Pickle

An immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn. He learns his only surviving relative is his great grandson, a computer coder who he can’t connect with.

The Man Without a World

The Man Without a World is credited to the legendary (and imaginary) 1920s Soviet director, Yevgeny Antinov. But the film is anything but old. In fact, Antinov himself is the creation of contemporary filmmaker Eleanor Antin. Her film is a moving, comic melodrama set in a typical shtetl (village) in Poland. The Jews’ struggle against poverty and racial hatred is complicated by their own division into hostile political factions of the religious orthodoxy, assimilationists, socialists, Zionists, anarchists and survivors. While the Jews of the shtetl pursue their loves, politics, religion, business and dreams for the future, the Angel of Death is ever near...

Motl der Operator

Motel, a poor laborer, loving husband and new father, leads cloakmakers in a strike for better working conditions. When he is severely injured by strikebreakers, his wife, Esther, and infant son are left destitute. Desperate to save her starving child, Esther gives him up for adoption to a wealthy couple, and then commits suicide. The richly-rendered beautiful Yiddish songs by Sholem Secunda featuring Cantor Leibele Waldman and Joel Feig's famous choir are a good example of the bittersweet melodrama in the finest tradition of the Yiddish theater.

40 Nickels

Based her grandfather’s boyhood in St. Louis, Yasmin Gorenberg tells a story of the pain passed from refugee parents to their children and the hope that can overcome it. “40 Nickels” captures the image of a generation of immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s and through that spotlights the effects of the 1919 pogroms in Eastern Europe. This is a film about parents and children: how trauma never leaves a family, and how hope and resilience is also passed down. It asks the question: Can a new generation look at the world with wonder rather than fear?

Gold for Fools

Raised in rural isolation by an extremist Hasidic sect, Chaim is torn between his devotion to his grandmother, an aging Holocaust survivor, and his attraction to a sexy blond in a Liberty car insurance ad.

의리적 구토 그 후, 100년의 구투

October 27, 2019, the 100th anniversary of Korean cinema. However, while preparing for the stage of reenactment of the first Korean film known as 'Fidelity Vomiting', the biggest controversy that will shake up 100 years of Korean film history comes to the surface... The best sleight of hand in the history of Korean cinema unfolds over the 'first Korean movie'!

Remarkable Rabbits

There are more than 100 types of rabbits and hares, both domestic and wild, from snowshoe hares to Flemish giants. Despite their extraordinary ability to reproduce, many wild rabbits are in danger of being eradicated.

Planeta Praha

Amidst today’s urban jungle of concrete, glass and metal, it is easy to forget that we actually live in the territory formerly dominated by wildlife. Many of its members have been exterminated by humans, while others have fled the sprawling urbanization to the surrounding countryside. It is their survival strategies that get revealed in exciting detail in the documentary series, Planet Czechia. For two years, a team of camera operators headed by Jan Hošek were recording a life cycle of Prague’s wild animal world across all seasons of the year. The film, accompanied by the commentary read by the actor Jiří Macháček, registers everyday struggles of the fat dormouse, the mouflon, blackbirds or the water hen, teaching the viewers in a casual manner a higher degree of tolerance toward the city’s overlooked inhabitants.

Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough

David Attenborough brings to life, in unprecedented detail, the last days of the dinosaurs. Palaeontologist Robert DePalma has made an incredible discovery in a prehistoric graveyard: fossilised creatures, astonishingly well preserved, that could help change our understanding of the last days of the dinosaurs. Evidence from his site records the day when an asteroid bigger than Mount Everest devastated our planet and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Based on brand new evidence, witness the catastrophic events of that day play out minute by minute.

Alt for Norge

The Norwegian football adventure in the 1990s, when Egil "Drillo" Olsen lead Norway to victory after victory. This movie takes you on that fantastic ride from the inside.

Tutankhamun: The Last Exhibition

To mark the centenary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, this documentary offers, for the first time ever, an extraordinary opportunity to meet the Pharoah , and relive those unique moments on the big screen following exclusive coverage of how 150 items from among his treasures, were moved to become part of the biggest international exhibition ever dedicated to the Golden Boy. Tutankhamun is a name that has become part of the collective imagination worldwide. Few people, however, associate his celebrity status with a combination of unique events and the stubbornness of the British archaeologist who discovered the tomb. This documentary film retraces this incredible story and offers exclusive access to some of the places which continue to pulsate with its history. “Please watch them, before they return back to Egypt forever”, said Mostafa Waziry, secretary general of the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities.

Dans l'intimité de Johnny : Tranches de vie

Seven Songs for Malcolm X

The Black Audio Film Collective’s seventh film envisioned the death and life of the African American revolutionary as a seven part study in iconography as narrated by novelist Toni Cade Bambara and actor Giancarlo Espesito. The stylized tableaux vivants that memorialise Malcolm’s life referenced the early 20th century funeral photography of James Van der Zee’s The Harlem Book of the Dead and the elemental static cinematography of Sergei Paradjanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates.

Speedy Delivery

A wig, moustache and timeless uniform help transform David Newell into the whimsical Mr. McFeely, an authentic character who always delivers. "Speedy Delivery" follows Newell's global quest to save "The Neighborhood," infused with a deep retrospective look into what made "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" the longest running children's show in history.

One Direction: Reaching for the Stars

This is the story of Harry, Niall, Zayn, Louis and Liam; five boys from the UK who are taking the world by storm. One Direction are a global phenomenon, spearheading a British Invasion of America not seen for fifty years. From their explosive first appearance on The X Factor to becoming the hottest boy band on the planet, Reaching for the stars features previously unseen footage from the boy s world tour and concerts. Interviews with industry experts explore what really makes these teen idols tick, and as this pop fairy-tale unfolds we ask what s next? for the boys who seem to have it all.