The Viking Sagas

The stirring personal journey of an amazing couple whose story would help shape the 20th century. A small town boy from Illinois with big dreams, Ronald Wilson Reagan began his rise to public life in sports broadcasting and then as a star of film and television. But it was during his years in Hollywood as president of the Screen Actor's Guild that he discovered the two great passions of his life: politics and his soul mate, Nancy Davis. Together, Ron and Nancy forged a legacy as the first couple of California and then the United States of America as they led the charge for the rebirth of conservative values. This candid and intimate portrait captures the Reagans' inspiring journey, historic partnership and touching love story.

In this visually compelling and thought-provoking documentary, author, scholar and modern-day Indiana Jones, Jay Weidner uncovers some of the deepest secrets of the ancient western tradition of Alchemy - the knowledge of the fatal season of the apocalypse, the end of time and the great and imminent transformation of humanity. Using the work of the mysterious twentieth century French Alchemist, Fulcanelli, as his foundation, and his discovery of a three hundred fifty year old Alchemical Cross in the South of France, Jay Weidner describes the experiences, insights and powerful evidence that opens the door to a new view of the intimate relationship between myth, history, science and the true destiny of humanity. In doing so, he reveals the ultimate meaning underlying the resurrection of Christ, the message of the Book of the Revelations, the vision of Ezekiel and the Kabbalistic concept of the "Restoration of the World."

In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.

What if the events in a key era in our history were actually completely different than what our history textbooks try to tell us? What if Master Jan Hus didn't even get warm in Constance, let alone burn up? What if Jan Zizka had more than one healthy eye? This animated comedy from director Pavel Koutský playfully breaks the myths about the Hussite era as the pedestal of history is occupied not by preachers and military leaders but by two unbelievable scatterbrains, who become the heroes of their time against their will.

Every year, tens of thousands don the Red Suit for families, parties and parades, but only a handful of men have reclaimed the connection to childhood magic by turning the portrayal of Santa into a full-time career. They Wore the Red Suit is a documentary featuring the rare individuals who have devoted their lives to keeping that magic alive in the world by actually being Santa Claus 365 days a year.

A group of soldiers are sentenced for the murders of key political figures in the night of October 19th, 1921, in the streets of Lisbon. But the names of the conspirators remain unknown. Berta Maia, a widow of the 1910 revolution hero Carlos da Maia, will fight for the truth…

Click for full movie details & trailers.

Americans refused to be drafted from the concentration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Ready to fight, but not before their rights as U.S. citizens were restored and families released.

The political ad "Peace Little Girl" aired during the 1964 presidential campaign ushered in a new era of the television attack ad. The campaign also reshaped the American political landscape in other significant ways ultimately ending up with the establishment of the contemporary geopolitical map of red and blue states. Includes interviews with historians and participants in the campaign.

Paris, 1884. Bella Fontanges, a renowned ballerina, is married to Georges de Segar. But after just a few years together, the couple slowly sinks into weariness. Bella has forgotten what happiness used to taste like. Then a mysterious squire appears. Aware of the couple's faltering situation, he makes Bella and Georges a most astonishing proposal: he claims to be able to separate Good from Evil in Georges. Reluctant at first, the couple eventually agrees to play along. But it's not long before they realize that in Georges, it's Evil that has prevailed.

During the Vietnam War, the CIA recruited Hmong tribesmen in the hills of Laos to fight the Communists, then brought them as refugees to America. Forty years later in California, someone who might be a CIA operative approaches a Hmong human rights activist about buying weapons to continue the fight.

JEWS excavates a lost world of manners and ritual in home movies shot by several Chicago families from the 1920s through the 1940s. Much as in similar found footage soliloquies by Péter Forgács, Jay Rosenblatt and Ken Jacobs, director Roger Deutsch wrings unexpected pathos from mundane traces of the past. Children mug for the camera with dances of the day, upright mothers march their strollers up the avenue, men smoke, the family gathers around the table to light the candles. The bare title cannot help but raise the specter of contemporaneous events in Europe, lending an extra degree of urgency to the film's meditation on disappearance. - Max Goldberg

The impact of Marx on the 20th century has been all-pervasive and world-wide. This program looks at the man, at the roots of his philosophy, at the causes and explanations of his philosophical development, and at its most direct outcome: the failed Soviet Union.

Huw Edwards presents a documentary examining the relationship between Victorian prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, whose bitter personal rivalry dominated British politics for 40 years.

Stonehenge is an icon of prehistoric British culture, an enigma that has seduced archaeologists and tourists for centuries. Why is it here? What is its significance? And which forces inspired its creators? Now a group of international archaeologists led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzman Institute in Vienna believe that a new state-of-the-art approach is the key to unlocking Stonehenge's secrets. For four years the team have surveyed and mapped every monument, both visible and invisible, across ten square kilometres of the sacred landscape to create the most complete digital picture of Stonehenge and the surrounding area over millennia. Operation Stonehenge takes the viewer on a prehistoric journey from 8000BC to 2500BC as the scientists uncover the very origins of Stonehenge, learning why this landscape is sacred, preserved and has been revered by following generations.

Professor Saul David uses the BBC archive to chart the history of the world's most destructive war, by chronicling how the story of the battle has changed. As new information has come to light, and forgotten stories are remembered, the history of World War Two evolves. The BBC has followed that evolution, and this programme examines the most important stories, and how our understanding of them has been re-defined since the war ended over 70 years ago.

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

Click for full movie details & trailers.

Music documentary about Billo Frómeta by director Rafael Marziano Tinoco from Venezuela.

In Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.