Movies: Oppression

After dealing with the Shut in the Balkans, Kara Ben-Nemsi ('Karl the German') receives a firman (precious passport) from the padishah (Ottoman sultan) before he continues his travels through Kurdistan. Achmed El Corda, the son of Halef's Hadedhin Be...

Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban....

New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal...

Solomon Mahlangu is a Mamelodi township schoolboy-hawker who, after the events of June 16th joins the military wing of the ANC to fight against the brutal oppression of the Apartheid regime and ends up becoming an icon of South Africa's liberation....

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s lic...

China, 1930s, during the ravaging civil war. General Pen entrusts O'Hara, an intrepid American adventurer, with the mission of providing a large sum of money to Mr. Wu with the task of buying weapons in Shanghai to help end General Yang's tyranny tha...

In the winter of 2011, after a controversial election, Vladimir Putin was reinstalled as president of Russia. In response, hundreds of thousands of citizens rose up all over the country to challenge the legitimacy of Putin’s rule. Among them were a g...

The lives of three young Middle Eastern women intertwine as they struggle to defy tradition and create their own realities. From an arranged marriage and a lesbian love affair to an abusive family situation, the film delicately tackles some of the is...

In a small farming valley in Austria in the beginning of the 20th century a tyrannical farmer is found dead, and all the farmhands are relieved to be free of their tyrant. But the farmer was childless, so suddenly they all inherit the farm together. ...

40-year Maria is living in a monotonous and deadlocked marriage with her husband. In addition, she has to take care of her ill despotic father. One day, she falls in love with her sensitive neighbour Dieter. But her attempt to leave her gloomy everyd...

The battle-scarred hero of the Greek Revolution, Giannos "Astrapogiannos", returns home after the end of the blood-soaked War of Independence, only to find himself in a new conflict, as he locks horns with a ruthless local Kodjabashis....

On August 15, 2021, Afghanistan descends into chaos. In one day, the completion of the withdrawal of Western forces precipitated the debacle of the regime in place: the army vanished, the leaders fled and the Taliban took Kabul without a fight. The g...

The story of a Kurdish newspaper whose journalists are under the constant threat of being abducted and killed by the state security forces....

Every year hundreds of people - mostly women - are attacked with acid in Pakistan. Follow several of these survivors, their fight for justice, and a Pakistani plastic surgeon who has returned to his homeland to help them restore their faces and their...

In 10th century Norway, a young shaman is forced to hunt down her outlaw sister....

A tyrannical landlady in Hemet, California lords it over her tenants, pitting them against each other in a web of paranoia spun for deadly results....

Emmy Awards nominee for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research: Multi-faceted portrait of the man who succeeded Lenin as the head of the Soviet Union. With a captivating blend of period documents, newly-released information, newsr...

Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption....

England 1905, a letter from Tzar Nicholas to Lord Bartlett recounts the Bloody Sunday Massacre in Saint Petersburg and becomes the catalyst for a woman’s courageous rebellion against her oppressive husband....

Deraldo, a popular poet from Northeast Brazil, arrives in the capital of São Paulo, making a living only from his poetry and pamphlets. All is well until he is mistaken for a multinational worker who killed the boss at a party where he received the t...