Heike Lettau

Paris, France, February 2, 1922. The novel Ulysses, by Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941), is published by US poet Sylvia Beach (1887-1962), owner of the small bookstore Shakespeare & Co. The book, whose writing consumed seven years of Joyce's life, years in which his family was in financial need, would have a profound and unprecedented impact on 20th century literature and culture.

After twenty years in power, Vladimir Putin continues to implement his geopolitical strategy with Russia’s comeback on the big stage of world politics. He already announced his ambitions in 2007 – and still, it seems like the western governments were hit completely unprepared. What is behind this repeat of the Cold War?

A relentless chronicle of the tragedy of the Uighurs, an ethnic minority of some eleven million people who live in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, speak a Turkic language and practice the Muslim religion. The Uighurs suffer brutal cultural and political oppression by Xin Jinping's tyrannical government: torture, disappearances, forced labor, re-education of children and adults, mass sterilizations, extensive surveillance and destruction of historical heritage.

After decades of growth and ostentation, when every excess was allowed, the fashion industry is currently at a turning point, caught up in the political issues that are reshaping our times: climate change and sustainable development, cultural representation and appropriation, equality, gender issues... Brands and creators are now subject to increasingly sharp public scrutiny. How is the fashion industry facing these challenges and responding to this new paradigm? Based as it is on the concept of planned obsolescence, can fashion survive?

Paris, Rue Beautreillis, July 3, 1971. The corpse of rock star Jim Morrison is found in a bathtub, in the apartment of his girlfriend Pamela Courson. The chronicle of the last months of the life of the poet, singer and charismatic leader of the American band The Doors, one of the most influential in the history of rock.

The Indian Act, passed in Canada in 1876, made members of Aboriginal peoples second-class citizens, separated from the white population: nomadic for centuries, they were moved to reservations to control their behavior and resources; and thousands of their youngest members were separated from their families to be Christianized: a cultural genocide that still resonates in Canadian society today.

En 1981, una película sobre las desventuras de la tripulación de un submarino alemán en 1941 se convierte en un éxito mundial casi cuatro décadas después del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Millones de espectadores en todo el mundo hacen de «El submarino» la película alemana de mayor éxito internacional de todos los tiempos. Con todo, y debido a disputas sobre el guion, accidentes en el plató y voces que acusaban a los realizadores de glorificar la guerra, el proyecto estuvo a punto de ser cancelado en numerosas ocasiones.

The apocalyptic blast in the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, on August 4, 2020, exacerbates anger at those in power: protests cross religious boundaries as the Lebanese people curse corruption, nepotism, gross economic mismanagement and squandering of resources. How did the Land of Cedars, a country with so much to offer, allow itself to get into such a dire situation? And will it be able to bounce back?

En los Estados Unidos de América, los grupos de presión, las grandes corporaciones y los multimillonarios invierten millones de dólares para asegurarse de que un candidato adecuado, uno inclinado a apoyar sus ambiciones personales y proyectos económicos, gane una elección, lo que inevitablemente afecta a todo, desde la selección de los funcionarios locales hasta las elecciones presidenciales, crea innumerables conflictos de intereses y socava lo que supuestamente solía ser una democracia modelo.

Czech painter and illustrator Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) ranks among the pioneers of the Art Nouveau movement at the end of the 19th century. Virtually overnight, he becomes famous in Paris thanks to the posters that he designs to announce actress Sarah Bernhardt’s plays. But at the height of his fame, Mucha decides to leave Paris to realize his lifetime project.

Meryl Streep is one of the most versatile and successful actresses of all time and is still considered a superstar after 50 years of career. She fascinates filmmakers and audiences alike with her broad range of expression.

Old guilt, forgiveness and a new love. After 20 years in the French Foreign Legion, Martin returns to his Czech hometown. As soon as he arrives, he learns that his mother has died in his absence. Martin realizes that while in the military he learned to survive in any dangerous situation, but not how to cope with the complexities of human emotions and relationships. When he meets the deputy mayor's clever daughter Sara, he falls passionately in love and happiness seems to be within reach. But then his past catches up with him ...

Pippi Longstocking, a superhuman girl, extremely strong, redhead with pigtails and freckles, moves to Villa Villekulla, a wooden house located in a small town, together with her monkey, Mr. Nilsson, and her horse, Little Old Man. She soon befriends the children who live next door, Tommy and Annika, with whom she will live many fun adventures. (Finnish National Opera and Ballet, December 14th, 2019.)

Despite its Afro-American origins, the history of disco music, the soundtrack of the seventies, would be inconceivable without a handful of legendary European music producers who conjured up some of the biggest world-wide hits in the anonymity of their studios.

Estados Unidos, 1 de septiembre de 2016. El jugador de fútbol americano Colin Kaepernick se arrodilla durante el himno nacional, en protesta por la brutalidad policial contra los afroamericanos. Parte de la población considera el gesto como una afrenta inaceptable a la bandera. Más tarde, pierde su lugar en el equipo. Sin embargo, hoy en día, muchos le consideran un verdadero héroe.

Un conmovedor relato, en sus propias palabras, de la vida personal y la obra del brillante cineasta checo Miloš Forman (1932-2018): su trágica infancia, su gran contribución al movimiento cultural conocido como la Nueva Ola checa, su exilio en París, sus difíciles días en Nueva York, su ascenso al estrellato en Hollywood; toda una vida al servicio del cine.

Cats are cuddly felines and lovely pets, but also highly evolved predators that hunt huge amounts of small mammals, birds and reptiles; perfect killing machines that threaten delicate ecosystems around the world.

A portrait of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017), a witness of the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989), a dissident, a woodpecker who tirelessly pecked the putrid brain of the Communist regime for decades, demanding democracy loudly and fearlessly. Silenced, arrested, convicted, imprisoned, dead. Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2010, alive forever. These are his last words.

The silent cinema had already created colossal movies based on ancient civilizations, but it is in the 1950s when peplums reach their apogee in Hollywood. Then, peplums take root at Cinecittà studios, in Rome, where cheap cinema is produced with bodybuilders as heroes. The genre decays in the late 1960s, but rises again decades later, when a modern classic is released in 2000.

Janette is terminally ill and wants to die in a dignified way but this is not permitted under British law. She refuses to wait for death in unbearable pain so she opts for a physician-assisted suicide in Switzerland. Before departing on the final journey she has to explain her intention to the family members and close friends.

A finales de los setenta, la música disco, considerada demasiado banal y corriente, había muerto. Pero los DJs y las pistas de baile aún necesitaban nuevos discos y ritmos más rápidos. Construido con sonidos de sintetizador, el estilo hi-nrg (high energy) barrió los clubes gay antes de llegar a las listas de éxitos durante los años ochenta.

The testimony of the men who unwittingly became war photographers on the streets of their own towns in Northern Ireland, when violence erupted around them. Instead of photographing weddings and celebrities, as they expected, they produced the images that crudely show the suffering of ordinary people between 1968 and 1998, the worst years of the conflict.

July 20, 1969. Apollo 11 lands on the surface of the Moon. Such a feat was apparently performed to the greater glory of all mankind, but actually it marked the end of the space race disputed by the two great superpowers of the time in their eagerness to arrive before and the beginning of the spread of the Cold War into space. Nowadays, the struggle continues, but the main competitors and their purposes are others.

The Smurfs were created in 1958 by the Belgian comic author Peyo (Pierre Culliford, 1928-1992) and they are one of Belgium's most recognized exports. From Brussels to Los Angeles, via Dubai, a journey into the tiny world of the famous little blue people, from the story of the creation of the original comic to the account of their huge global commercial exploitation.

A serious crisis has shaken Spain since the referendum on self-determination and the proclamation of the independence of Catalonia by the government of Carles Puigdemont, bold actions firmly fought by the Spanish government by applying the constitutional article that allows it to place a region under guardianship. While Spain is on the verge of implosion, Europe is holding its breath.

An account of the life and work of Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941) narrated by US actress Anjelica Huston.

The greatness, fall and renaissance of Hammer, the flagship company of British popular cinema, mainly from 1955 to 1968. Tortured women and sadistic monsters populated oppressive scenarios in provocative productions that shocked censorship and disgusted critics but fascinated the public. Movies in which horror was shown in offensive colors: dreadful stories, told without prejudices, that offered fear, blood, sex and stunning performances.

In 2017, twenty years after the British handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, young people, more politicized than any previous generation and proud of their land, do not feel Chinese and actively fight against the oligarchs who want to subdue them to China's authoritarian power.

La historia personal y profesional de Ilona Staller, conocida como Cicciolina, es probablemente única: dejó la Hungría comunista y se trasladó a Italia, donde encontró un entorno fértil para una vida dedicada al escándalo.

Moscow, Russia, December 2016. Edward Snowden, Larry Lessig and Birgitta Jónsdóttir meet for the first time in a secret place. Apparently, Russia is interfering in the US presidential elections while it mourns the death of its ambassador to Turkey. Snowden carefully chooses his interviews, so nobody really knows something about him. As the world prepares for Christmas, they gather to discuss the only issue that matters, their common struggle: how to save democracy.

From 1957 —the year in which the Soviets put the Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit— to 1969 —when American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon—, the beginnings of the space conquest were depicted in popular culture: cinema, television, comics and literature of the time contain numerous references to an imagined future.

Three men embark on a journey in search of meaning and happiness in the autumn of their lives: Bob swaps his safe home for a camper van and tries to find himself in the barren Californian desert; Steve, drag queen and stand-up comedian, is fed up of England and makes amends with his past in Benidorm; Yamada rediscovers his smile by reading stories to children in Tokyo.

An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.

An in-depth portrait of British composer, pianist and singer Elton John, pop star and myth of modern culture.