Jean-Paul Sartre

The Padilla Affair

Havana, spring 1971: The poet Heberto Padilla has just been set free and appears before the Cuban Writers' Union where he pronounces a statement of "heartfelt self-criticism", declares himself to be a counterrevolutionary agent and throws accusations of complicity at many of his colleagues present at the event, among them, his wife. A month previously, his arrest under the accusation of endangering the security of the Cuban state had mobilised prominent intellectuals all over the world, who wrote a letter to Fidel Castro calling for the release of the poet, whose only sin had been to dissent through his poetic work. The writer's mea culpa, the recording of which is shown for the first time to the public, marks the narrative line of a story including the testimonies of Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jorge Edwards and Fidel Castro.

The Century of Icons

At War for Algeria

North Africa, 1954. The Algerian war of independence begins, a traumatic and extremely violent catastrophe that for eight long years will shake and finally overthrow the foundations of the colonial regime established by France in 1830.

Mario y los perros

An account of the childhood and youth of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, and how the hard experiences he lived during these formative years led him to write and publish his first major work when he was only 26 years old.

The Lévi-Strauss Century

Documentary about one of the greatest French thinkers of the twentieth century, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009).

Hôtel La Louisiane

Hôtel La Louisiane is, at its core, a film about freedom and dignity. Freedom for those who wish to live in a place where they are able to feel inspired. Dignity for the hotel owner to stand by his promise to his father and keep their mission alive: to provide an affordable sanctuary for artists and students in search of fulfilling employment, which they certainly won’t find at other hotels. Freedom, too, to be in an environment of tolerance and rid of prejudice. This film is not just a story about a mythical setting in Paris; it portrays the microcosm of a lifestyle in which collective values reign supreme. A film where what’s real and true is placed above national borders or cultural barriers.

Sartre/Camus: A Fractured Friendship

Sartre and Camus, the two most world-famous, 20th century, French writers, form a legendary and inseparable couple. The two extraordinary thinkers propelled the figure of the politically engaged writer into the limelight.

The Future Is Now!

A journalist meets “Man of Today” who, while a responsible citizen, is disengaged from greater society. He believes once he’s dead nothing more matters. As an experiment to see if she can turn his pessimistic view around, the journalist sends him on a journey of enlightenment to prove that the future does matter. Travelling the globe, he finds himself in surprising encounters with great minds in the arts and sciences. Starting with an unexpected poetry reading and conversation with experimental poet Christian Bök, Man of Today engages with architect Shigeru Ban, activist Francis Dupuis-Déri, philosopher Alain de Botton, artist Marlene Dumas, novelist Rivka Galchen, leading scientists and a ghost. Will the journalist succeed in turning a cynic into an optimist? Will it matter? What can one person do?

Benny Lévy, la révolution impossible

The Russell Tribunal

At the height of the Vietnam War, a group of intellectuals begins a series of hearings in the People’s Palace in Stockholm. (Filmform)

Andreas Baader - Das Leben eines Staatsfeindes

How could the son of a graduate historian and a secretary, who liked to adorn himself with fast cars, fake eyelashes and expensive clothes, who wanted to become an artist, journalist or film director, become the "public enemy No. 1"?

Ernesto Che Guevara - Uomo, Compagno, Amico