Vichy in the Colonies

How did the human race appear? In Kromdraai, South Africa, the French paleoanthropologist José Braga discovered the remains of two children dating back 2.5 million years. These are the oldest bones ever found. One is human, the other paranthrop, a hominid that is our closest cousin. This archaeological investigation is the starting point of an unprecedented scientific adventure, which could finally lift the veil on the origins of humanity.

A film on the surveillance and the control in East Germany also speaks about it - representing extreme and almost unbelievable image of a society which has acquired one super-narrative and developed a system which makes it impossible to even speak about the possibility of anything outside it.

Vika, who is 84, is one of the eldest DJs in the world. Because of her attitude, she is far from any stereotypes about senior citizens. Bittersweet documentary musical about consistence in following your own path and fighting for your dreams.

A charismatic Indian-Nepali boy, lives a bohemian life in a remote Himalayan village. As he transitions from childhood to teenagehood, his poetic journey of perseverance echoes issues that span across ages and communities.

Sarajevo lived through the longest siege in modern history. The Siege is a film about those who lived through it, about the human experience of the besieged. Through Sarajevo to beyond Sarajevo, it is the story of a surrounded city, of a battle and resistance. It is also the universal story of civilization facing a terrible challenge to its existence, of a struggle for its survival. Sarajevo resisted and survived. The Siege describes a vertiginous descent into war.

The true story of the seven weeks that changed China forever. On June 4, 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations were violently and bloodily repressed. Thousands of people died, but the basis for China's future was definitely planted.

Frantz Fanon alone embodies all the issues of French colonial history. Martinican resistance fighter, he enlisted, like millions of colonial soldiers, in the Free Army out of loyalty to France and the idea of freedom that it embodies for him. A writer, he participated in the bubbling life of Saint-Germain with Césaire, Senghor and Sartre, debating tirelessly on the destiny of colonized peoples. As a doctor, he revolutionized the practice of psychiatry, seeking in the relations of domination of colonial societies the foundations of the pathologies of his patients in Blida. Activist, he brings together through his action and his history of him, the anger of peoples crushed by centuries of colonial oppression. But beyond this exceptional journey which makes sensitive the permanence of French colonialism in the Lesser Antilles at the gates of the Algerian desert, he leaves an incomparable body of work which has made him today one of the most studied French authors across the Atlantic.

La Case du Siècle is a French television program launched in 2010 and broadcast on France 5. Hosted by Fabrice d'Almeida, it airs documentaries every Sunday that aim to shed light on the history of the 20th century, both in France and around the world. Through these documentaries, viewers can deepen their knowledge of a specific subject or simply discover a particular era. *La Case du siècle* offers an in-depth look at the events that changed the course of history.

For Estonian-based filmmaker Volia Chaikouskaya, the 2020 Belarus uprising was not just news – it was personal. While thousands in Minsk rose up against the brutal regime of Alexander Lukashenko and rallied behind opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Volia felt the same pulse across borders. Unable to return home, she became both observer and participant, organising solidarity actions in Tallinn and gradually stepping into her own film as a subject. At the heart of the story are three women – Sviatlana, Nadzeya, and Masha – whose husbands were jailed as political prisoners and who themselves emerged as central figures of the movement. Their fearless defiance against dictatorship mirrored Volia’s own struggle to break free from the inherited fear of silencing, repression, and exile.

A look back at the social movements, revolts and youth subcultures from the post-war period to the present day: after the World War II, the left-bank of Paris became a mecca for jazz and alternative living, youth culture was born with trailblazing American movies, and rock became the soundtrack to a generation that wanted to change everything.

In response to the call of the Front de libération nationale (F.L.N., the National Liberation Front), thousands of Algerians from Paris and its surroundings march on October 17, 1961, to protest against the curfew imposed on them. This peaceful demonstration will be violently put down by the police. 50 years on, the filmmaker sheds light on this still taboo subject. Blending testimony and unseen archive footage, history and memory, past and present, the film relates the different stages in these events and reveals the strategy and methods applied at the highest level of the French state: manipulation of public opinion, the systematic challenge of every accusation, the censoring of information in order to prevent investigation.

Composed exclusively of the footage recorded by Leo Hurwitz during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961, A Specialist is a courtroom drama painting the portait of a zealous bureaucrat who has immense respect for the Law and hierarchy, a police official responsible for the elimination of several million people, a modern criminal.

French current affair show

For 40 years, Ulrich Tilgner travelled throughout the Middle East as a reporter for German television. He revisits this region, devastated with the active support of Western powers.

When Elias returns home, he is informed of the death of his father, Saïd, a former Harki. The family is then torn apart, on one side the elders who want to observe the rites of the Muslim religion by burying Saïd, on the other Elias and his sister who want to respect his wishes and cremate him.

The filmmaker's sister, Nasreen, a housewife with two children, is married to a traditional and often unavailable husband. Despite the restrictions on women in Iran, she decides to pursue her lifelong dream of singing.