Category: Biography

March 6, 2021 / Biography

Movie based on the true story of Helen Keller, now an adult, and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Their close relationship is threatened when John Macy, a caring young professor at the college Helen attends, comes between them. John and Annie fall in love and marry and the two women must choose what is more important — the love between a man and woman or the bond between the two of them.

February 22, 2021 / Biography

A look at artist Mark Hicks of Manhattan Beach, California, a quadriplegic since falling out of a tree at age 14. His work is examined, along with a discussion of his being a student at UCLA, culminating with his first gallery show in San Francisco.

November 21, 2020 / Biography

Based on Bleier’s 1975 autobiography of the same name, it tells the story of how, after becoming a running back for the Steelers in 1968, he was then drafted by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Injured by a bullet to the thigh and a hand grenade to the lower right leg, Rocky is told that he will never walk again. Not only does he walk again after a long rehabilitation, Rocky returns to train with the Steelers. With the sympathy and support of his wife Aleta, Steelers owner Art Rooney, and coach Chuck Noll, Rocky makes the team again, and helps them become Super Bowl champions.

November 21, 2020 / Biography

WWI flyer Eddie Rickenbaker remembers his life which brought him from a car salesman, race driver and pilot in WWI, to an important person in the early years of civil airline service, after his plane crashed in the South Pacific in late 1942.

November 13, 2020 / Animation
August 26, 2020 / Biography

A biographical film, in English throughout, telling the story of film director Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) from his childhood in Riga, Latvia to receiving the ‘Stalin Prize’ in Moscow. Based on his own writings, the film uses actual film clips of Eisenstein at various points of his life as well as photographs, illustrations and archival film of a variety of locations around the world. Eisenstein’s talent as a satirical cartoonist and later an artist is particularly highlighted with many photographs of his work.

August 19, 2020 / Biography

American-born athlete Victor Herman becomes a prisoner of Soviet Russia’s mounting nationalism. At 16, he moves to Russia, where he excels in parachute jumping. As his accomplishments draw praise, Soviet officials ask that he renounce his American citizenship. When Herman refuses, he is exiled to Siberia and imprisoned in a hard-labor camp for 18 years because of his so-called “counterrevolutionary activities.” The film is based on a true story.

May 24, 2020 / Biography

The life and slow death of Communist journalist and Prague City Council member Jozka Jaburkova in the Ravensbruck concentration camp is the focus of this wartime drama starring Jana Rihakova as the tragic Jaburkova. Suffering almost from the beginning as an illegitimate child burdened with extreme moral expectations by her fanatically religious mother, Jaburkova suffered at the hands of the teachers and authorities in her all girls’ school. Her sympathy for the oppressed or those experiencing unjust hardship or discrimination got her into trouble again and again, both as a student and when she went on to seek employment. As the camera focuses on scenes in the concentration camp, Jaburkova’s memories of her past are shown in flashbacks.