An Execution by Hanging

A depiction in the hanging of Edward Heinson, an assumed criminal assault convict in Jacksonville, Florida.

Killing Time

6 February 1998, Port Arthur, Texas: Erin is home alone. She is about to watch a film when a masked man suddenly appears in the living room. She thinks it’s a friend joking around. 12 June 2013, Huntsville, Texas: In Huntsville State Penitentiary, preparations are underway for execution #499. A little after 6pm, Elroy Chester will be executed by lethal injection for the rape of Erin and Claire DeLeon and the murder of their uncle, fireman Billy Ryman. Killing Time reconstructs an old murder, and shows the impact on the family members and victims during the day of execution. The family of the victims and the prisoner, the guards in the towers, the pastors, the journalists, the handful of demonstrators: everyone has his own way of killing the last few hours of Elroy Chester’s life. Where one yearns for the long-anticipated closure of the case, the other faces oblivion

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.

Les Tribunaux d'Hitler

Qualcosa che vive e brucia

"Letters from Europe" brings to light the words of men and women who gave their lives resisting the Nazi and fascist conquest from 1939 to '45 across the European continent. The moving goodbyes penned by a few of those sentenced to death are sometimes true spiritual testaments that explore the meaning of civic responsibility, human existence, fraternity, and life and death. Their words, which the film mingles with footage of the present day, can perhaps restore meaning to a humanist ideal and to the ever-changing idea of a united Europe.

Разкази за убийства

A father killed his son. In a state of alcoholic delirium, a young man murdered his friend. A 21 year-old boy shot a policeman. Faced with their death sentence, they tell about what happens with them at the moment when they are between death and ... death.

El Infierno

Chennu committed his first crime when he was 15 years old: being a street kid. And he entered hell: Pademba Road. The adult prison in Freetown. In hell, Mr. Sillah is in charge, and there is no hope. Chennu got out after four years. Now he wants to go back.

KDO JINÉMU JÁMU Rudolf Slánský

The full-length television documentary, using currently found audio-visual records, tells the story of the fabricated political process from November 1952, the story of its victims and its masterminds. At its end, 11 executed high-ranking officials of the Communist Party of the Czech Republic, committed to the communist party, who mechanically "recited" memorized confessions and accusations of "accomplices", former friends and colleagues in front of the court in response to prearranged questions from the prosecutors and judges.

A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness

A woman in Pakistan sentenced to death for falling in love becomes a rare survivor of the country's harsh judicial system.

Pickle

An ode to man's capacity to care for all creatures throughout their sometimes greatly protracted existence, displayed through the homegrown remedies Tom and Debbie Nicholson create for disabled animals.

La guillotine, une invention bien française

Forty years after the abolition of the death penalty in France, voted on September 18, 1981, the guillotine remains in the collective imagination as the instrument of the death sentence. This machine, developed during the Revolution to render justice more equal, was presented as progress. Over time, opinion has been divided on the subject of the death penalty, the guillotine becoming the object of man's cruelty, a remnant of an archaic way of dispensing justice and fuelling the many debates around the death penalty and its abolition.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt?

Documentary covering the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black nationalist and journalist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer and sentenced to death in a trial marked by controversial prosecutorial and defense tactics and charges of racism.

Sommersby

Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.

Dead Man Walking

A death row inmate turns for spiritual guidance to a local nun in the days leading up to his scheduled execution for the murders of a young couple.

The Fugitive

Wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death, Richard Kimble escapes from the law in an attempt to find the real killer and clear his name.

The Knife Thrower

A man must overcome his demons in order to save his brother who has been falsely convicted of a crime in a foreign land and sentenced to death.

Aida - Arena di Verona

The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pageantry of Verdi's Egyptian opera, presented here in a staging that is true to the original 1913 production, framed by obelisks and sphinxes and filled with chorus and dancers. Chinese soprano Hui He has won international acclaim for her portrayal of the eponymous slave girl whose forbidden love for the war hero Radamés (Marco Berti, the experienced Verdi tenor) brings death to them both.

Yield to the Night

Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.

Scarlet Street

Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she's really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris's work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.

June Zero

Israel, 1961. Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, responsible for organizing the extermination of European Jews, is sentenced to death.