Propaganda
see all genres ›Nothing dates quite so fascinatingly (or tellingly) as cinema that prescribes for the audience how to live, wage war or view the political power in charge, be they calls to action or inaction. Documentaries, in particular, have long been used to manipulate popular opinion, often inadvertently revealing a great deal about the manipulators.
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Genres / Documentary / Propaganda
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A Film Unfinished
At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film, having sat undisturbed in an East German archive, was discovered. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply "Ghetto," this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw...Watch Movie
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Plus Electrification
The good news: in 1972, certain outposts of the Soviet Union finally got electric power. The bad news: it took that long. This dizzy celebration of that belated triumph offers split-screen imagery, archival live-action footage and animation in myriad styles. It's a beautiful,...Watch Movie
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Propaganda
Controversial to its core, this hard-hitting anti-Western propaganda film looks at the influence of American culture on the rest of the world from a North Korean perspective. As first reported on mainstream new around the world, PROPAGANDA is allegedly a video smuggled out of North Korea....Watch Movie
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The Eye of Vichy
THE EYE OF VICHY is a brilliantly chosen compilation of long forgotten film footage and newsreels produced by the Nazis and French collaborators during World War II. From the small town of Vichy in central France, Field Marshall Petain's puppet government worked with their...Watch Movie
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Shooting Range
The American dream looks a lot like a nightmare in this kaleidoscopic Soviet animated film. A downtrodden man wanders a neon New York City looking for a job. He’s lured into a shooting range by a greedy manager who schemes to drive up entrance fees with the novelty of a human target. The worker...Watch Movie
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Interplanetary Revolution
“Warriors of the Revolution: Save Martian Workers Enslaved by Capitalism!” With that we’re launched into an exotic blend of Bolshevik ideology and H.G. Wells science fiction, made in the forward-looking year of Lenin’s death. The film’s futurist collage generates a riot of...Watch Movie
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Someone Else's Voice
Ivan Ivanov-Vano has been described as the Walt Disney of Soviet animation and this 1949 short does indeed recall the creature comforts of BAMBI but with a decidedly intolerant moral. A magpie returning from abroad complains about a nightingale’s staid song. When the outsider...Watch Movie
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Attention! Wolves!
With shades of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER, this unusual Soviet animation blends symbolic allegory and documentary photographs to warn against the persistent threat of fascism. A feral boy is found in the woods the same day that the Nuremberg Trials’...Watch Movie
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The Millionaire
Decades before Leona Helmsley willed millions of dollars to her dog, this snappy Soviet animated film invented the same premise for an absurdist portrayal of the corrupting influence of wealth. The bulldog heir treats himself to all manner of luxury and finds that money is the only social...Watch Movie
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What Hitler Wants
This quartet of animated Soviet propaganda beats the drum for a merciless response to the Nazi advance. Shrill incitements to war (“Smash the fascist rats relentlessly!”) are coupled with insistent paranoia (“Treacherous fascist vipers are everywhere. Keep your eyes peeled!”).Watch Movie
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Ave Maria
Ivan Ivanov-Vano’s condemnation of the American war in Vietnam trades in some of the crude images one associates with Soviet propaganda: a soldier gunning down a child; clamoring capitalists superimposed over the killing fields. And yet its animation style is surprisingly subtle and its tone more...Watch Movie
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A Lesson Not Learned
Once a Nazi, always a Nazi: that’s the lesson not learned in this animated Soviet propaganda short. A former SS captain gets a free pass from the Allies after the war. Military prison affords many comforts: he listens to his favorite Nazi anthems, hides "Mein Kampf" in a Bible...Watch Movie
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Proud Little Ship
Three young boys launch a toy boat painted Soviet red. It quickly attracts the attention of a Western battleship but manages to elude its destructive technologies with the help of friendly fishermen, desert nomads and African tribesmen. The buoyantly animated fable celebrates...Watch Movie
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Beat the Fascist Pirates
This animated "political poster" grants "no mercy for Hitler's bloodthirsty sharks," which are depicted prowling international waters to sneakily "bite" Allied ships from beneath. Calling for patriots to "Smash the fascist rats relentlessly! In the air, on land and at sea,"...Watch Movie
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Tale of a Toy
The perspective of this animated film is unquestionably nationalistic but it’s not every Soviet propaganda piece that quotes Ivan Turgenev and offers such a mournful picture of violence. A prisoner in a concentration camp fashions a Don Quixote figure who takes up the charge against Nazism (this...Watch Movie
