Angel Vagenshtain

As a teenager in wartime Bulgaria, Wagenstein commanded a daredevil Jewish partisan brigade, surviving capture and torture by fascist police. At 94 years old, screenwriter, author and revolutionary Angel Wagenstein offers an account of his life in film and politics. Film clips contextualize historical moments and history contextualizes the films as Wagenstein provides witty and insightful commentary throughout.

A film pioneer, Binka Zhelyazkova was at the forefront of political cinema under Bulgaria's Communist dictatorship. Though she remained faithful to the communist ideals she became an avid critic of the regime and brought upon herself the wrath of its censorship. As a result four of her nine films were shelved and released to the public only after the fall of the regime in 1989, and Binka Zhelyazkova became known as the bad girl of Bulgarian cinema. A provocative portrait that reveals the pressures and complexities that arise when art is made under totalitarianism.

Two friends (Katerina Didaskalo, Stefan Danalyov) are separated when their village is divided by Communism, but they meet again 40 years later and begin having an affair.

German two-part miniseries about the westerns staying at a popular hotel in Shanghai as the Japanese invasion of China also known as the Second Sino-Japanese War begins in 1937 as a precursor to WWII.

A documentary about German director Konrad Wolf (1925–1982).

Crete 1897. Greek rebels gained their freedom by fighting in the mountains. An allied fleet of French, English, Italian and Russian warships anchored in the port of Chania in protecting Greek and Turkish inhabitants. Rosa Bonaparte, accompanied by twelve girls off at a deserted beach with all the equipment of a Marseille brothel. Installed in a wing of a huge, ruined former Town Hall, where the officers of the allied fleet meet and entertain in the evenings surrounded by undercover agents, military connectors, and speculators : an East-West mosaic of languages, costumes and intrigue ...

Knyaz Boris I reached the most important spiritual insight - the country needed a single language and script. It accepts students of Cyril and Methodius, creating Ohrid and Preslav Literary School. What other nations took centuries, for bulgarians takes place only about 20 years after their baptizing - introduced a Slavonic Alphabet.

The picture features the life and deeds of Boris I - strong historic personality, which completes his mission to the full and at the end of his life receives holy orders. Prince Boris I is ruling in the late 9th century. In his youth, he, the brilliant statesman and diplomat, is experiencing heavy defeats in the wars he wages against his neighbors. Nonetheless, he manages not to cede any territories to the enemies. Under his rule, Bulgaria breaks with paganism and joins the Christian community, paying an exorbitant price, a heavy death toll, but there is no other way. The adoption of Christianity in 864 was a historical event of great significance. It guaranteed Boris I much need peace with the Eastern Roman Empire and allowed him to merge the numerous tribes inhabiting the country into a unified nationality and later to found a state. Boris I introduced the Slav script, thus turning Bulgaria into the cradle of Slav culture.

This is a film about a traveling theatrical group in the beginning of 20th century. The itinerant troupe arrives in the little town, comprising several families, an eccentric student, an anarchist, all united by their love for theatre. The theatricals of 'Othello' are pending. All of a sudden, the performer of Desdemona falls ill. The local woman teacher plays in her stead. She makes a success and joins the troupe. The young woman travels with them along the dusty country roads and never gives up. Step by step she becomes a very good actress and assumes the leading of the group through its complex life. United by their common fate, the actors go through the joys and disappointments of their pioneering educative mission together.

Eight space cargo-ships disappear without a trace within three days. And the orbit station "Margot" has suddenly fallen silent. The space council is faced with a mystery and the scientist in charge, Maria Scholl, sees no other solution than ordering a total flight stop to this mysterious sector of space. Her colleague, Prof. Tal seems to be suspicious since he knows things before they are even released. A forbidden look into his personal file brings to light that Tal was part of the Eolomea project that never found approval of the commission in charge.

Adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella for East German television, produced in 1965/66, not shown until 1972.

As a painter in the court of King Carlos IV, Goya has attained wealth and reputation. He believes in King and Church, yet he is also a Spaniard who dearly loves his people. This contradiction presents him with a dilemma.

This film brings us back to show us the life of the famous ancient sage Aesop, who helped people with his wisdom in their struggle for freedom and happiness.

This film brings us back to show us the life of the famous ancient sage Aesop, who helped people with his wisdom in their struggle for freedom and happiness.

People from all over the world spend their summer holidays at the Black Sea. German Walter and his girlfriend Gisela check in at the hotel as spouses. Walter uses the passport of his wife. The police find the body of a young woman washes up by the waves. Inspector Damyanov begins an investigation. Walter is not under suspicion, but he is ill at ease. It is because of his wife passport? Ex-Nazi officer Kunze has his own little secret and causes for worry. Dutch musician Jan has something on his conscience, too, after a little love with a Bulgarian girl. Having penetrated the unsavory secrets of all those people, Damyanov leads them to the conviction that it is difficult to live a life of deception.

In the mid-1950s, mayor Zwischenzahl is killed on the day of his inauguration in a West German town. The killer is Ruth Bodenheim, a Jewish woman, who wanted to avenge the death of her parents. Zwischenzahl, a former SA member, was apparently involved in the deportation of her parents to a concentration camp during the war. Ruth cannot bear the horrible events and the death of her parents and wants to open the eyes of the town′s residents.

The struggles of a captured partisan to escape

Stefan and Tanya arrive in a miners' settlement. They register as a married couple at the hostel, but Tanya admits to the house managers that Stefan has a wife but has started divorce procedure. The two have fled from the scandal. Stefan starts work at the mine and she waits for him in the hostel with little to do. Her mother arrives. Unable to swallow the humiliation of having been rejected by Tanya's family, Stefan gets drunk. When he comes back, he starts a row and has to be restrained. Stefan takes offense, leaves the mine, parts with Tanya, and becomes a waiter in the pub. Soon he obtains a divorce. He wants to take Tanya back to his native town. She refuses to give up her new friends and the steady job she has found. Stefan sets out alone. At the very last moment, he jumps from the bus...

A shy snowman is smitten by a little girl and refuses to leave her when spring comes.

Stationed in a secluded Bulgarian village in 1943, Walter - a German Wehrmacht sergeant and artist - lives in almost idyllic distance from the war. Then a transit camp is set up for Jews arriving from Greece. When Ruth, one of the internees, asks Walter to help a pregnant woman, the two form an unlikely bond.

A diver gets trapped at sea and needs to be rescued by the man whose love and life he has ruined.

The weaknesses and shortcomings in the work of some leaders in the years of the building of socialism are ridiculed.

The young Bulgarian Muslim woman Zyulker wants to study and become a teacher. Her father decides to arrange a marriage to her. After the wedding, she runs away and goes to the town. There she starts work in a hostel. Her husband takes her back. He beats and humiliates her. She gives birth to her child prematurely, takes the baby and goes to the school for Muslim in the town. She has to surmount many difficulties. The young woman meets her first teacher Stefanov. The two fall in love. With his help, Zyulker finishes her study successfully and makes up her mind to return to her native village as a teacher. Stefanov follows her and proposes to her. The two embrace.

The film is dedicated to the uprising, which broke out in Bulgaria in September 1923. All characters, with the exception of the leaders of the uprising Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov, are symbolic characters. The central figures, Stefan and Peter, impersonate the motive forces behind the uprising - the workers and the peasants. They are involved in worker's strikes, in the stormy events of the First World War and the Soldier's uprising in 1918. They also participate in the bloody clashes of the September uprising and suffer its defeat after they have seen too late the need for concerted action by communists and agrarians.

Captain Velkov was sent chief of a border post near the village of Novi Izvor, where he was a partisan. In Novi Izvor a celebration is being prepared to mark the switching on of the electricity. Saboteurs cut the cables, killed the watchman and set fire to the machinery on the farm.

The action takes place in the last years of the Second World War, immediately before the socialist revolution in Bulgaria. It centers on the life of the middle-class family of Lazarov, which is torn by the sharp political contradictions taking place against the background of the popular struggle against fascism. The father Vitan goes through terrible mental traumas, which are the price, he has to pay for his illusions that in such clashes one can remain neutral and free from politics. The partisans execute the son Boris - a fascist officer, a sadist and a murderer. The daughter Lily is forced to search for her place in the conflict between the representatives of two hostile worlds - that of fascist brother and her husband - a communist and a revolutionary.