"This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba"--Publisher's website.
Sourced from the British Film Institute (BFI), this collection of documentary, newsreel and feature films reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, and Latin American filmmakers. Ranging from the early 20th century to the 1980s, material encapsulates the themes of war, revolution, news, current affairs, culture and society. This project makes available the superb ETV-Plato Films collection put together by the British communist Stanley Forman in the years after the Second World War - produced almost exclusively in the communist world and then versioned into English for distribution in the West. The majority of the footage is previously unseen and provides an essential repository of research material for the study of key political and social events of the 20th century. A crucial resource for anyone studying twentieth-century history, propaganda, communism, the Cold War era and its conflicts, the Soviet Union, film and documentary, military history, media studies, cultural and social history. The films are fully transcribed and available to stream through a specially-developed video player. Users can focus their research through advanced search functionality, and by filtering all footage by country of production, genre or subject area.