Films about dissidents

Ai Weiwei is known for many things – great architecture, subversive in-your-face art, and political activism. He has also called for greater transparency on the part of the Chinese state. Director Alison Klayman chronicles the complexities of Ai’s life for three years, beginning with his rise to public prominence via blog and Twitter after he questioned the deaths of more than 5,000 students in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The record continues through his widely publicized arrest in Beijing in April of 2011. As Ai prepares various works of art for major international exhibitions, his activism heats up, and his run-ins with China’s authorities become more and more frequent.

The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.

A tragic love story set in East Berlin with the backdrop of an undercover Stasi controlled culture. Stasi captain Wieler is ordered to follow author Dreyman and plunges deeper and deeper into his life until he reaches the threshold of doubting the system.

Avenue, university and even an asteroid bear his name. Academician Sakharov is known all over the world: someone as the creator of the hydrogen bomb, someone as an outstanding public figure and human rights activist. All his life Andrei Sakharov lived between two fires - science and humanism - and this dualism formed the basis of the film. The picture will show the scientist as he saw himself, through his dialogues with the Conscience.

Novocherkassk, USSR, 1962. Liudmila is a Party executive and devout communist who fought at the front of WWII for Stalin’s ideology. Certain that her contribution will create a communist society, she detests any anti-Soviet sentiment. During a workers’ strike at the local electromotive factory, Liudmila witnesses the demonstration being gunned down on the government’s order, seeking to suppress mass strikes in the USSR. During the bloodbath and the ensuing panic, her daughter disappears, which changes Liudmila’s world view. Despite the blockade of the city, mass arrests, and the authorities’ attempts to cover up the massacre, Liudmila searches for her daughter. We don’t know how the search will end, but realize that her life will never be the same.

Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect "bourgeois elements", a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.

A mogul merrily funds terrorists to boost his computer sales, by panicking West German government and industry c. 1980, as the third generation of Western European left-wing activists forms, after crippling of the violent Red Army Faction. International capitalist PJ Lurz's secretary is a gang member, while her police commissioner father-in-law/lover hired Lurz' corporate security force.

The film is inspired by an incredible story of a shepherd dog named Palm who was inadvertently left in the airport by her owner. She befriends nine-year old Nicholas whose mother dies leaving him with a father he barely knows - a pilot who finds the dog at the airport. It's a story of amazing adventures, true friendship and unconditional love.

Igor, who manages a fancy hotel and is on the take, has to juggle several problems at once. He has a two-hour window to get his ill-got gain out of the hotel, he must misdirect and obstruct the inquiries of a Party auditor who suspects that all is not above board, and he must keep out of sight and out of trouble his interloping and troublesome young brother-in-law, who arrives unannounced with barrels of rotten herring.

The story follows the misadventures of a New York City beautician who is mistakenly hired as the school teacher for the children of the president of a small Eastern European country.

Leningrad, one summer in the early eighties. Smuggling LP’s by Lou Reed and David Bowie, the underground rock scene is boiling ahead of the Perestroika. Mike and his beautiful wife Natasha meet with young Viktor Tsoï. Together with friends, they will change the destiny of rock’n’roll in the Soviet Union.

Dovlatov charts six days in the life of brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought to preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky while watching his artist friends get crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.

The wife of the aircraft designer, Olga Pavlova, the head of the Moscow garment factory, and the wife of the director of the opera house, the famous Soviet opera singer Sofia Ter-Ashaturova, meet in the prison car of the train. Together they will go to Akmola camp of the wives of traitors of the Motherland, where there will be representatives of the most different strata of the population. Heroes will need strength of spirit and endurance to pass all the terrible ordeals on their way and remain human.

In this fictional documentary, U.S. prisons are at capacity, and President Nixon declares a state of emergency. All new prisoners, most of whom are connected to the antiwar movement, are now given the choice of jail time or spending three days in Punishment Park, where they will be hunted for sport by federal authorities. The prisoners invariably choose the latter option, but learn that, between the desert heat and the brutal police officers, their chances of survival are slim.

World Chess Champion Akiva Liebskind (Michel Piccoli) faces his former pupil Pavius Fromm (Alexandre Arbatt), who defected to the West from the Soviet Union five years earlier, for the World Chess Championship in Geneva, Switzerland. The tension and strategies between the players draw parallels to the political conflicts and ideologies between East and West during the Cold War.

Drama based on life and stories of one of the most popular Soviet/Russian writers - Sergei Dovlatov.

Young student Nikita suddenly gets into the past where he meets his own young parents, new friends and even a true love.

The film is about the life and death of the outstanding playwright Alexander Vampilov. Life and death, which reflected the era. The two most important meanings are connected in this story. The fate of a simple provincial man who chooses the path of the artist and the love of their native places.

In the 1980s, Anna, a Czech sprinter, starts training for the Olympics. After she collapses during training, she learns she is being given steroids and decides to stop using them until her mother helps the coaches give them to her.

Moscow, 1986, the heat of Perestroika. Borya is an average clumsy teenager who is miraculously admitted to the legendary Bolshoi Ballet School. The boy is convinced that he will become a ballet dancer like his father, Mikhail Baryshnikov. But is this father real or imaginary?

Biopic of Russian ice hockey legend Valeri Kharlamov from early childhood, rising to the pinnacle of the sport and his untimely death

A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.

In 1961, a Soviet medical officer is conflicted about his position overseeing the health of future cosmonauts.

In this hit Russian musical, a group of friends flaunts Soviet authority in 1950s Moscow by embracing jazz. When Communist Mels falls for Polly, a free-spirited jazz fan, he risks losing his party membership by associating with her rebellious crew.

A story of a simple, naive Russian man Konek and the people around him: his love and her sister and a mysterious man. The film is set in 1957, time of changes, time of waiting for something big to happen.

The whole world of a young girl Sasha is changing after she meets Sun - a hippie leader.

This story take place in Moscow during the 1970s and unfolds around the love triangle between two young men and a girl who study at the same university. They argue, make up, and face their first disappointments and victories. While busy with personal lives and loves, they miss foreseeing that the country in which they were born and live will soon disappear from the map.

In the 1940s in the small town of Jupiter Hollow, two sets of identical twins are born in the same hospital on the same night. One set to a poor local family and the other to a rich family just passing through. The dizzy nurse on duty accidentally mixes the twins unbeknown to the parents. Our story flashes forward to the 1980s where the mismatched sets of twins are about to cross paths.

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

The life of a bank manager is turned upside down when a friend from his past manipulates him into faking his own death and taking off on an adventure.

In Havana, Cuba in the late 1950's, a wealthy family, one of whose sons is a prominent nightclub owner, is caught in the violent transition from the oppressive regime of Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro. Castro's regime ultimately leads the nightclub owner to flee to New York.

Based on the bestselling book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, 'Too Big to Fail' offers an intimate look at the epochal financial crisis of 2008 and the powerful men and women who decided the fate of the world's economy in a matter of a few weeks.

Wisecracking mercenary Deadpool battles the evil and powerful Cable and other bad guys to save a boy's life.

An intense new marijuana strain named “Black Forest” is taking Los Angeles by storm, and Gretel’s stoner boyfriend can’t get enough. But when the old woman growing the popular drug (Lara Flynn Boyle) turns out to be an evil witch, cooking and eating her wasted patrons for their youth, Gretel and her brother Hansel must save him from a gruesome death — or face the last high of their lives.

As lawyer and power broker Roy Cohn lies dying of AIDS in a private hospital room, ghosts from his past visit him as he reflects on his life and loves.

When a couple discovers that a brass teapot makes them money whenever they hurt themselves, they must come to terms with how far they are willing to go.

Babies, also known as Baby(ies) and Bébé(s), is a 2009 French documentary film by Thomas Balmès that follows four infants from birth to when they are one year old. The babies featured in the film are two from rural areas: Ponijao from Opuwo, Namibia, and Bayar from Bayanchandmani, Mongolia, as well as two from urban areas: Mari from Tokyo, Japan, and Hattie from San Francisco, USA.

Aspiring actor and hot-dog stand employee Bobby Taylor catches the ire of his grandmother for auditioning for a role in the regrettably titled exploitation film "Jivetime Jimmy's Revenge." When Tinseltown Studios casts Taylor in the title role, he has a series of conflicted dreams satirizing African-American stereotypes in Hollywood, and must reconcile his career goals with his desire to remain a positive role model for his little brother.

Sicko is a Michael Moore documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing peoples lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

After being thrown away from home, pregnant high school dropout Maria meets Matthew, a highly educated and extremely moody electronics repairman. The two begin an unusual romance built on their sense of mutual admiration and trust.

In 1995 Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) returned to rural Southern Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, a troubled young boy he had been an 'Advocate Big Brother' to ten years earlier.

A wagon train heads for Denver with a cargo of whisky for the miners. Chaos ensues as the Temperance League, the US cavalry, the miners and the local Indians all try to take control of the valuable cargo.

Six short stories that explore the extremities of human behavior involving people in distress.

Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how mammoth corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to the chain restaurants and supermarkets where it's sold. Narrated by author and activist Eric Schlosser, the film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan and unsettling footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants.

With the epic dimensions of a Shakespearean tragedy, The Queen of Versailles follows billionaires Jackie and David’s rags-to-riches story to uncover the innate virtues and flaws of their American dream. We open on the triumphant construction of the biggest house in America, a sprawling, 90,000-square-foot mansion inspired by Versailles. Since a booming time-share business built on the real-estate bubble is financing it, the economic crisis brings progress to a halt and seals the fate of its owners. We witness the impact of this turn of fortune over the next two years in a riveting film fraught with delusion, denial, and self-effacing humor.

The story of exploited textile factory workers in Turin, Italy at the turn of the century and their beginnings of their fight for better working conditions. Professor Sinigaglia (Marcello Mastroianni) is sent by (presumably) the Socialists to help them organize their strike and give form to their struggle

Danish soldiers are sent to Afghanistan in 2009 for 6 months, to help stabilize the country against the Taliban. They're stationed on Armadillo military base in Helman province. Unlike other war movies, this is the real deal - no actors.

Approaching collapse, the nation's economy is quickly eroding. As crime and fear take over the countryside, the government continues to exert its brutal force against the nation's most productive who are mysteriously vanishing - leaving behind a wake of despair. One man has the answer. One woman stands in his way. Some will stop at nothing to control him. Others will stop at nothing to save him. He swore by his life. They swore to find him.

After the Cuban Revolution, Che is at the height of his fame and power. Then he disappears, re-emerging incognito in Bolivia, where he organizes a small group of Cuban comrades and Bolivian recruits to start the great Latin American Revolution. Through this story, we come to understand how Che remains a symbol of idealism and heroism that lives in the hearts of people around the world.