Elizabeth II: Three days in the Czech Republic

The Queen in Australia

In 1954, recently crowned Queen Elizabeth II and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh embarked on a two month tour of Australia. It involved some 10,000 miles of travel by air and 4,000 miles by land and sea. The couple visited every state in the nation, and turned up at all sorts of events, from tennis at Kooyong to steel mills in Newcastle to woodchopping at Wagga to the Flying Doctor Service Service at Broken Hill. The film production arm of the federal government - the Film Division of the News and Information Bureau of the Department of the Interior - decided to cover the tour in 35mm colour film, sending the footage to England for processing and editing. Six weeks after the tour ended, the film was finished and became the first feature-length Australian film shot and financed by Australians in colour to be given a theatrical release.

My Prague Spring

In its "velvet revolution" of 1989, the people of Czechoslovakia toppled its communist dictatorship and embraced democracy and capitalism. By January 1993, the country had peacefully split in two. In the early 1990s, thousands of American college graduates began flocking to Prague, where they could postpone entering the "real world," and live cheaply in a beautiful undiscovered European city. Throughout that decade more and more tourists crossed the statue-lined Charles Bridge in search of old world beauty previously hidden by communist isolation. But what of the people who cross the Charles Bridge on their way to work every morning? Who are the Czechs? What is their history? What is their future? My Prague Spring is an award-winning film that vividly humanizes a resilient people who have survived a tumultuous history. In the spring of 1990, a Czech-American filmmaker spent four months living with his Czech relatives, and opened an intimate window into an uncertain world.

Milan Kundera: From the Joke to Insignificance

The brilliant Czech writer Milan Kundera has not given an interview in thirty years; nor does he appear in public. How did he become a legendary author? What is so unique about his books?

The Queen: Mother and Monarch

Following the announcement from Buckingham Palace of the death of Her Majesty The Queen, we examine how Queen Elizabeth II balanced her duties as head of both her family and her country

Queen Elizabeth II: A Royal Life - A Special Edition of 20/20

The life and legacy of Queen Elizabeth II after Britain's longest-reigning monarch dies at age 96.

The Queen: 70 Glorious Years

Marking 70 years since the Queen ascended the throne, Britain’s best-loved stars share memories of the changes they have lived through during her reign.

The Rape of Czechoslovakia

Weiss’s classic B&W agitprop short made after his escape to London just ahead of the Nazis. He carried with him three reels of material for his unrealized film ‘Dvacet Let Svobody’ (‘Twenty Years of Freedom’) i.e. 20 years of the existence of independent Czechoslovakia from its 1918 founding to 1938 when the Munich Agreement dissolved it. In English with poetic narration written by C. Day-Lewis (father of Daniel Day-Lewis).

The Queen of Belgium

Impressions of Elisabeth of Bavaria's, Queen of the Belgians, visit to Poland in 1955.

Europe's Deadliest Border: Czechoslovakia's Iron Curtain

During the Cold War, many of those who tried to flee westward across the dangerous and blurred line separating communist Czechoslovakia from freedom were gunned down: the story of Europe's deadliest border.

Die Queen und ich

The Queen and the Coup

Planned by Britain’s MI6 and then executed by America’s C.I.A., the coup d’état which follows will destroy Iran’s last democracy, and relations between Iran and the West until the present day. Most shocking of all, the truth about Her Majesty’s role will be hidden from the Queen herself, and even the all-powerful Shah who will be used by Britain and American to replace Iran’s last democratic Prime Minister. The coup will lead to political upheaval all over the Middle East for decades to come, eventually resulting in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which will end the reign of the Shah, and British and American influence in Iran, inspiring countless other Islamist revolutions around the world.

I'm Not Everything I Want to Be

After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Libuše Jarcovjáková, a young female photographer, strives to break free from the constraints of Czechoslovak normalization and embarks on a wild journey towards freedom, capturing her experiences on thousands of subjective photographs.

Czechoslovakia 1968

Short documentary about 50 years of history of Czechoslovakia, with archive images.

Prince Consorts: In the Shadow of the Crown

No profession, no say, no freedom of expression. Life as a prince consort is not exactly pleasure taxing. No constitution ascribes any function to the husband of a queen. Nowhere does it say what he must or must not do. A life in the shadow of the crown. Can that go well?

Forman vs. Forman

A moving account, in his own words, of the personal life and work of the brilliant Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (1932-2018): his tragic childhood, his major contribution to the cultural movement known as the Czech New Wave, his exile in Paris, his troubled days in New York, his rise to stardom in Hollywood; a complete existence in the service of cinema.

Die Hunde der Mächtigen - und eine Katze

They are the secret protagonists of world history: dogs that became famous alongside powerful masters and mistresses. A four-legged friend helps to cultivate an image and can, depending on the calculations, make its owner appear sympathetic or threatening. In England, however, prime ministers have to get used to a cat...

1968: A Year of War, Turmoil and Beyond

The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the May events in France, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Prague Spring, the Chicago riots, the Mexico Summer Olympics, the presidential election of Richard Nixon, the Apollo 8 space mission, the hippies and the Yippies, Bullitt and the living dead. Once upon a time the year 1968.