Roman Karmen

A feature-length documentary based on film reports from the Spanish civil war.

A Spanish documentary from Jean-Paul Le Chanois & Luis Buñuel made during the Spanish Civil War.

Morir en Madrid brings together several papers on the Spanish Civil War and integrates capturing different points of view, intended to represent the continuity of the suffering of the Spanish during the Franco regime. The death of Federico Garcia Lorca, Guernica, the defense of Madrid, the International Brigades, are some of the items comprised in this document.

This riveting Russian documentary takes you inside the trials of the notorious German war criminals, brought to trial to account for their actions. The footage includes excerpts from the trials of many of the senior Nazis including Goebels and Goring.

A Soviet documentary chronicling the final assault on Nazi Germany’s capital. More than forty frontline cameramen from the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts captured the battle and its aftermath, supplemented with seized German footage. The film records the destruction of Berlin and the symbolic collapse of Hitler’s regime, standing as both a historical chronicle and a work of Soviet wartime cinema.

“The Magic Beam” is a film essay woven together from newsreels and documentary material from different decades, fragments of hundreds of non-fiction and fiction Soviet films of the 1910s-1960s.

On August 24th of 1940 a group of cameramen cross the immense territory of the Soviet Union before it was attacked by Nazi Germany, and capture multiple aspects of life in this new world.

A story of the exploits carried out by the oil technicians of Baku for the exploitation of the black gold deposit of the Caspian Sea.

This communist history film recalls the heroism of Soviet soldiers fighting the Nazis in World War II. Forty of the 236 cameramen used for the feature were killed during their mission filming the Red Army.

Filmed immediately after the Red Army liberated the Majdanek concentration camp, this documentary is regarded as the first cinematic record of Nazi genocide. Shot on July 24–25, 1944, it presents stark evidence of atrocities alongside testimony from surviving prisoners representing many European nations, making it one of the earliest films to confront the scale of the Holocaust.

A documentary about Fidel Castro's visit to the USSR from April 28 to June 3, 1963 and how the Cuban leader traveled throughout the Soviet Union for 40 days, from Severodvinsk to Khiva in Uzbekistan.

Documentary recounting the story of the Cuban Revolution and its impact on the young people of Cuba.

Frustration of the German attempt to capture Leningrad, 1941, the besieging of the city.

This Soviet-made film was screened on February 19, 1946 on the 62nd day of the Nuremberg Trial and submitted as evidence relevant to the indictment for "crimes against humanity." The one-hour film with voiceover commentary shows visual evidence of the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek and appeals to spectators' emotions by emphasizing individual victims. The central argument of the film is that the Germans were the executioners of peaceful Soviet citizens. At the time, it made a very strong impression on both the accused and press. The film is a re-edited compilation of footage collected by the Soviet film team over four years (primarily used for propagandistic ends in wartime Soviet newsreels and documentaries). It was prepared in emergency by the Soviet prosecution team and minister of cinema following the projection of Nazi Concentration Camps presented by the Americans on November 29, 1945.

Following an introduction by Bing Crosby, the Cinerama screen widens for scenes of landscapes, cities, peoples, and entertainments of the Soviet Union. Highlights include the historic buildings and churches of Moscow, as the Kremlin; its subway and streets, a spring carnival, the seaside resorts on the Black Sea, a trip down the Volga River, skiers, a troika racing along a snow-covered road, a helicopter view of the North Pole, an Antarctic whale hunt, the capture of a wild boar in the Moyun-Kum of Central Asia, a race by reindeer-drawn sleds, divers in the Sea of Okhotsk, battling an octopus, the capture of antelopes, rafting logs down the Tisza River, and the development of new towns in Siberia. Other scenes include a visit to the Moscow Circus, where the renowned clown Oleg Popov performs, the dancing of the Moiseyev and Piatnitsky companies, and excerpts from the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater Ballet.

A Soviet documentary by Roman Karmen and Mikhail Slutsky, assembled from 1938–41 footage in Yan’an and at the front, chronicling China’s anti-Japanese resistance—from Eighth Route Army actions to civilian mobilization and daily life in the base areas.

Story of the First Indochina War (1946-1954) in which Soviet Union has actively supported Vietnamese side.

The film is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Roman Carmen. The authors tracked down his former students, whom he brought to the documentary. Almost half a century ago, they, then still children, first crossed the threshold of the VGIK when they passed the exams.

Documentary about East Berlin, commemorating 20th anniversary of German Democratic Republic formation.

Roman Karmen's documentary on the political turmoil of 1970s Latin America.

A documentary television series of the Nazi-Soviet War, edited from over 3.5 million feet of film taken by Soviet camera crews from the first day of the war, 22 June 1941, to the Soviet entry into Berlin in May 1945.