The documentary film dedicated to the life of Nicholas II and his family was edited from chronicle of 1896-1916 from the funds of The Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive.
The action takes place against the backdrop of the meager life of a decaying Russian village, where several women and an elderly alcoholic man remain. Two old women live here, the youngest of whom, Praskovya, devoted her whole life to her older sister Maria, who stopped growing in her early childhood. The only young woman in the village is expecting a child: everyone believes that from an angel.
It was one of the great crimes of the Second World War: from 1941 to 1944, a total of 872 days, the siege and starvation of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht on Hitler's orders lasted. Over a million people fell victim to the blockade, most of them dying of hunger. Countless of these starving people wrote diaries with the last of their strength, and cameramen filmed in the paralyzed city. Evidence from the hell of the siege, many of the film recordings, but above all the written memories on which this documentary on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation is based, remained under lock and key after the war. The voices of those who had suffered through this terrible time should not be heard by anyone, because they did not fit the pathos of the Leningrad heroic song that was officially sung. Most of the recordings come from women. The writers feared neither the enemy nor the Communist Party or Stalin, who often proved incompetent in providing for the population.
The Cold War's wildest dreams of climate control have made a spectacular comeback: from the USA to China, 'geo-engineers' promise to make climate change the way we want. And they have found powerful supporters among lobbyists and entrepreneurs. This film is an investigation into the world-wide boom in geo-engineering. How did a pseudo-science with a controversial past become a planet-wide research subject?
The Katyn massacre, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, was only one of many unspeakable crimes committed by Stalin's ruthless executioners over three decades. The mass murder of thousands of Polish officers was part of a relentless purge, the secrets and details of which have only recently been partially revealed.
