Wojciech Jaruzelski

Hammer & Tickle: The Communist Joke Book is a 2006 propaganda documentary film about "jokes" under the Soviet Union.

Warsaw, December 13, 1981. Martial law shuts down the country. Overnight, a country turns into a prison. Taxis have been replaced by tanks. Citizens are treated like criminals. And visiting British Professor Joan Andrews finds herself trapped. After witnessing the murder of a young student by the secret police (the "Crows"), Joan herself becomes the target.

Such changes took place in Poland over a period of several months - from the end of 1988 to the end of January 1990? Michał Bielawski, through the prism of official and underground archives, shows the then state of mind of Poles, their fears, hopes and reflections. Film materials from the 1988-1990 period are in harmony with the photographs and diaries written by Poles at that time, as well as with the messages about the changes taking place. We observe the most important political, social and moral events of that period, confronted or reinforced by the comments of their active observers: ordinary people, politicians of the government camp and oppositionists.

Documentary about the phenomenon of fascism. Filmmaker Emerson Vermaat views secularization as a major cause of the rise of fascist systems. National Socialism, Communism, racism, and the influence of the church are discussed. In the Netherlands, politician Hans Janmaat (between 1982 and 1998) represents the racist aspect of fascism, while in America, it is the Ku Klux Klan. Featuring numerous interviews and archival material.

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

No synopsis available yet.

Katowice, the night of December 12-13, 1981. Military units occupy strategic points in the city. A group of Zomovniks, smashing union security, drags the chairman of the Company Commission of the NSZZ Solidarity in the Wujek mine out of his apartment. The news quickly spreads to the miners. Initially surprised, they soon react with spontaneous protest. On December 14, a strike breaks out at the plant. The miners demand the lifting of martial law and the release of the chairman. When negotiations fail, the army, ZOMO and militia storm the mine.

The history of the phenomenon of Łódź Kaliska presented in a Monty-Pythonesque style. Łódź Kaliska is among the most eminent and original artistic groups in Poland, which has been continuously active on the avant-garde scene for 44 years.

The Katyn massacre, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, was only one of many unspeakable crimes committed by Stalin's ruthless executioners over three decades. The mass murder of thousands of Polish officers was part of a relentless purge, the secrets and details of which have only recently been partially revealed.

The three-hour-long documentary covers 25 years in the life of Nicolae Ceaușescu and was made using 1,000 hours of original footage from the National Archives of Romania.

For years, on the evening of December 12, on the anniversary of the introduction of martial law in Poland, demonstrations have been held outside Wojciech Jaruzelski's house. On such an evening in 2000, Teresa Torańska and her film crew pay him a visit.

They were heroes of a special kind. They came from the steppes, the sons of farmers, of factory floor women. Salt-of-the-earth, strapping young men, model husbands, who believed in communism with all their hearts. Bright futures lay ahead of them. In the name of the Inter-cosmos Program they were about to conquer space. The second they touched down, they were treated like pop stars and worshiped as heroes. And today? What do the heroes of socialism do without socialism?