Frontline: The Tank Man

On June 5, 1989, one day after Chinese troops expelled thousands of demonstrators from Tiananmen Square in Beijing, a solitary, unarmed protester stood his ground before a column of tanks advancing down the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Captured by Western photographers watching nearby, this extraordinary confrontation became an icon of the fight for freedom around the world. FRONTLINE investigates the mystery of the tank man — his identity, his fate, and his significance for the Chinese leadership.

All in My Family

After starting a family of his very own in the United States, a gay filmmaker documents his loving, traditional Chinese family's process of acceptance.

The Last Emperor

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

무사

In 1375, China was in chaos between Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty. Coryo (an ancient kingdom of Korea then) sent a delegation of many diplomats, soldiers and a silent slave to make peace with the new Chinese government. However, this delegation got charged as spies and sent in exile to a remote desert.

Primary

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

Demokratia

Shanghai Express

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

Corto Maltese : La Cour secrète des Arcanes

At the end of 1918 while civil war is raging on in Russia, antagonism is slowly spreading to the East, between the Oral mountains and Shanghai. Stuck between a desire to save what's left of the great Imperial Russia, and starting from a clean slate, old generals, secret organizations, and mercenaries attracted by gold, struggle to take advantage of the events. As Corto Maltese returns to Shanghai, he barely gets time to cross paths with his old friend/nemesis Rasputin, and escape a murder attempt before being contacted by members of a Chinese secret organization called "The Red Lanterns". In the heart of violent Manchurian horizons, Corto and Rasputin launch themselves into a fabulous treasure hunt, following the tracks of the mysterious armor-plated train of Kolchak. A steel monster spiked with canons and machine guns, this trains protects the counter-revolutionaries gold...

Jia Zhangke, Um Homem de Fenyang

Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke returns to the shooting locations of his films, along with his actors, friends and close collaborators. Jia recalls the inspiration sources for his movies, such as Platform, Still Life and A Touch of Sin. The film is the memory of a filmmaker and of a country in convulsion, China, which reveals itself little by little.

Inside Red China

October 1st, 1957. Dusk descends on Tiananmen Square, Peking. Fireworks crackle light across the night sky, above a city alive with National Day festivities and celebrations. Two intrepid New Zealand film-makers - Rudall and Ramai Te Miha Hayward - are there, documenting the life and times of communist China. The distinction of being the first English speaking foreigners to film unfettered in communist China was significant. The invitation to visit China was facilitated through the New Zealand China Friendship Society. They filmed in Canton, Shanghai, Peking (Beijing) and Wuhan. It was a small window of opportunity for Westerners to gaze on a country that was largely a mystery to the outside world since 1949. The unfortunate irony was that two of the documentaries; “Wonders of China”, and “Inside Red China”, were considered to be communist propaganda, and were not distributed outside of New Zealand.

Dogs of Democracy

Dogs of Democracy is an essay-style documentary about the stray dogs of Athens and the people who take care of them. Author and first-time filmmaker Mary Zournazi explores life on the streets through the eyes of the dogs and peoples' experience. Shot in location in Athens, the birthplace of democracy, the documentary is about how Greece has become the 'stray dogs of Europe', and how the dogs have become a symbol of hope for the people and for the anti- austerity movement. A universal story about love and loyalty and what we might learn from animals and peoples' timeless quest for democracy.

The Corporation

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

China's problems with the Uyghurs

For the first time, a French director-journalist will join an official trip to the heart of one of the most secret regions in China: Xinjiang. Unstable and by far the most volatile province in the country, it’s a unique opportunity to visit an area that’s normally out of bounds to tourists. Located in the far northwest of the People’s Republic, on the borders of central Asia, Xinjiang is the scene of frequent clashes between the Chinese authorities and the Uyghurs, Turkish-speaking Muslims who, like their Tibetan neighbors, reject the colonization of their territory. Going beyond the Uyghur problem (which gets less media coverage than the unrest in neighboring Tibet) the aim of this documentary is to decipher the propaganda that is currently being put out by the Chinese, who are trying to convince the world, and Chinese tour operators in particular, that the region is a haven of peace, a heaven on earth suitable for mass tourism.

I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story

A documentary about Caroll Spinney who has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969. At 78-years-old, he has no intention of stopping.

Tiananmen

The true story of the seven weeks that changed China forever. On June 4, 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations were violently and bloodily repressed. Thousands of people died, but the basis for China's future was definitely planted.

Demirkırat: Zafer

Societies, like people, have turning points in their histories. These milestones sometimes silently and spontaneously knock on the door, and sometimes they explode like a terrifying thunderclap. The year 1950 was such a turning point for Turkey. A simmering social reaction against 27 years of power erupted in the spring of 1950. Society has cracked its quarter-century shell. Not by shedding blood in the streets, but by voting at the ballot boxes. "Demirkırat" was reared by the general vote. That's why the 14 May 1950 elections were always called the "White Revolution"...

12 Mart: Sancı

Revolutionaries passed before the streets of the 1960s on the road to democracy. Then the youth with the victory songs, the workers with the rebel flags, the rightists, the leftists and the putschists again. The country spent 12 years in the grip of the revolution and in the end all roads came to the same crossroads. Ankara was restless in the minutes when the ousted prime minister of the Democratic Party, Adnan Menderes, was hanged. The news of Menderes' execution had not yet come. There was an anxious wait in the houses. Ears were on the radio. Everyone was wondering what happened in Imrali. In the Assembly, the National Unity Committee was in a meeting. They were also trying to learn the fate of Menderes. Suddenly, news came that EP Chairperson Ragıp Gümüşpala and Secretary General Şinasi Osman wanted to meet with the committee urgently. The committee members did not break the request of their former commander Gümüşpala and made an appointment for 14:30...

Arrogance of Power

This documentary shows the fascist might of the Marcos regime and how militarisation and human rights violations were institutionalised in Philippine political life. The film exposes the human rights violations during the Marcos regime, unmasking the dictator's claims that there were no political detainees under martial law. Arrogance of Power (1983, TRT 38 mins.) is a documentary by AsiaVisions (previously named Creative Audio-Visual Specialists or CAVS) made originally in Super 8 migrated to U-matic and digitized for access.

Le réveil des ombres

Documentary about new chinese cinema.

12 Mart: "Demir-El"

By the end of 1963, the word coup was no longer spoken in Turkey. Talat Aydemir is history, the last tremors of the May 27 earthquake have passed and the sliding faults of the regime have begun to settle into place. In this transition period, which lasted more than four years, the person who managed to get the ship to the port without running aground was İsmet İnönü. He ruled for four troubled years in a country torn between armed uprisings, Cyprus crises, coalition governments and regime debates. But meanwhile, he was also worn out. In the local elections held at the end of 1963, while the CHP's votes remained at 37 percent, the AP found 45 percent. But on the very day of the final election results, a few gunshots heard from across the Atlantic turned everything upside down...