The Train to Moscow (2013)

Director
Federico Ferrone; Michele Manzolini

Main cast
Sauro Ravaglia

Genres
Documentary

Description
In the aftermath of Stalin’s death, three Italian communists engage in a trip to the Soviet Union to challenge their utopia with an 8mm camera. In 1957, Sauro, Luigi and Enzo all live in Alfonsine, a small town in Italy ruled like a miniature Soviet Union by the Italian Communist Party. As many communists in the West, they dream of the Soviet Union, and hope for the great Revolution. But with the wind of reform and self-criticism blowing through the Eastern Bloc after the death of Stalin the image of the Soviet Union as the workers’ paradise begins to crumble. They therefore decide to travel to the USSR to find out what is true and what is false in this supposed land of milk and honey. They film their entire journey with their 8mm camera. Through this invaluable personal archive, our film tells the hopes, disappointments and challenges of three young men faced with the reality of what seemed to be a utopia come true.


Similar movies

A series of three documentaries about the use of fear for political gain.
Free Angela is a feature-length documentary about Angela Davis and the high stakes crime, political movement, and trial that catapults the 26 year-old newly appointed philosophy professor at the University of California at Los Angeles into a seventies revolutionary political icon. Nearly forty years later, and for the first time, Angela Davis speaks frankly about the actions that branded her as a terrorist and simultaneously spurred a worldwide political movement for her freedom.
A documentary about militant student political activity at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s.
French essay film focusing on global political turmoil in the 1960s and '70s, particularly the rise of the New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America.
ReGeneration is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Phillip Montgomery that looks at the issues facing today's youth and young adults, and the influences that contribute to America's current culture of apathy toward to political and social causes.
In a behind-the-scenes look at the biggest political upset in recent history, Mark Halperin, John Heilemann and Mark McKinnon offer unprecedented access and never-before-seen footage of candidate Trump, from the primaries through the debates to the dawning realization that the controversial businessman will become the 45th President of the United States.
The film revolves around four female friends (Amina, Safynaz, Shahenda and Wedad) from Egypt with opposing religious, social, and political views in modern day Egypt. The four women listen to one another's views and argue openly, without ever breaking the bond that unites them.
Over the course of a year, film follows Vancouver Pride Society president Ken Coolen to various international Pride events, including Poland, Hungary, Russia, Sri Lanka and others where there is great opposition to pride parades. In North America, Pride is complicated by commercialization and a sense that the festivals are turning away from their political roots toward tourism, party promotion and entertainment. Christie documents the ways larger, more mainstream Pride events have supported the global Pride movement and how human rights components are being added to more established events. In the New York sequence, leaders organize an alternative Pride parade, the Drag March, set up to protest the corporatization of New York Pride. A parade in São Paulo, the world's largest Pride festival, itself includes a completely empty float, meant to symbolize all those lost to HIV and to anti-gay violence.
A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, 'What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?'
From Oscar and Emmy award winning filmmakers, Red Army highlights the Soviet Union's legendary and enigmatic hockey training culture and world-dominating team through the eyes of the team's Captain Slava Fetisov, following his shift from hockey star and celebrated national hero to political enemy. The film turns a unique lens on the social and cultural transformation of the Soviet Union leading up to the fall of Communism, mirroring the rise and fall of the Red Army team. A film by Gabe Polsky and Executive Producers Werner Herzog and Jerry Weintraub.
Biggest name left militancy in Brazil '60s, Carlos Marighella served in the main political events in Brazil between 1930 and 1969 and was considered the # 1 enemy of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Communist leader victim of prison and torture, parliamentarian, author of the world translated "Manual of the Urban Guerrilla," his life was a great act of strength and courage. Directed by his niece Isa Grinspum Ferraz, the feature Marighella is a historic building and affective this man who dedicated his life to thinking about Brazil and transform it through its action.
Political commentator, author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza puts forth the notion that America's history is being replaced by another version in which plunder and exploitation are the defining characteristics. D'Souza also posits that the way the country understands the past will determine the future. Using historic re-enactments, D'Souza explores the lives and sacrifices of some of America's greatest heroes, including George Washington and Frederick Douglass.
American boy Peter and blind minstrel Ivan are thrown together by fate amidst the turbulent mid-30s Soviet Ukraine.
Political thriller about Laine Hanson's nomination and confirmation as Vice President. An allegation that she was involved in a sexual orgy at the age of 19 is leaked to the press. As pressure mounts on Laine, she's torn between fighting back or sticking to her principles and refusing to comment on the allegations.
Set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, a disgraced MGB agent is dispatched to investigate a series of child murders -- a case that begins to connect with the very top of party leadership.
Told in flashback, Depression-era bum Dan McGinty is recruited by the city's political machine to help with vote fraud. His great aptitude for this brings rapid promotion from "the boss," who finally decides he'd be ideal as a new, nominally "reform" mayor; but this candidacy requires marriage. His in-name-only marriage to honest Catherine proves the beginning of the end for dishonest Dan...
Trapped in a loveless marriage, aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky.
Vox Populi is a black comedy about an experienced politician suffering from a midlife crisis. When he comes into contact with the common-man's logic of his new in-laws, this has a far-reaching effect on both his political and his personal life.
Rod Steiger is ferocious as a scheming land developer in Francesco Rosi’s Hands over the City, a blistering work of social realism and the winner of the 1963 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion. This expose of the politically driven real-estate speculation that has devastated Naples’s civilian landscape moves breathlessly from a cataclysmic building collapse to the backroom negotiations of civic leaders vying for power in a city council election, laying bare the inner workings of corruption with passion and outrage.
The owner of a failing cinema and his mysterious boarder are caught up in the political intrigue of Argentina.
Frank Skeffington is an old Irish-American political boss, running for re-election as Mayor of of a US town for the last time.
Max Flatow is a precocious, social miscreant who has a way with home-made explosives. When he tires of these, he runs away from home only to emerge seven years later as Max Frost, the world's most popular entertainer. When Congressman John Fergus uses Frost as a political ploy to gain the youth vote in his run for the Senate, Frost wills himself into the system, gaining new rights for the young. Eventually, Frost runs for the presidency. Winning in a landslide, he issues his first presidential edict: All oldsters are required to live in "retirement homes" where they are forced to ingest LSD, taking the 60s catch phrase "Never trust anyone over 30" to its most extreme consequences.
When a planeload of Pakistani orphans are shipped to his state for permanent relocation, the governor of Idaho (Beau Bridges, who won an Emmy) defies the president (Phil Hartman) and closes the state's border. News Net Television, a cable news program that makes hay by reporting on political scandals, quickly spins the racist act into an overnight media sensation, creating a divide in national opinion over the issue.
The story of an idealist's rise to power in the world of Louisiana politics and the corruption that leads to his ultimate downfall. Based on the1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Robert Penn Warren.
The irreverent host of a political satire talk show decides to run for president. But his stunt to expose Washington corruption goes further than he expects when he actually wins the election. Meanwhile, a software engineer suspects that a computer glitch is responsible for his surprising victory … but will she speak up?
LEE Kang-hee, an editorialist of the influential conservative newspaper puts a congressman, JANG Pil-woo to the position of a leading candidate for President using the power of the press. Behind this, there was his secret deal with the paper’s biggest sponsor. AHN Sang-goo, a political henchman who supported LEE and JANG gets his hand cut as the price when he gets caught pocketing the record on the sponsor’s slush fund. WOO Jang-hoon, an ambitious prosecutor starts to investigate the relationship with JANG and the sponsor believing it is the only chance he can make it to the top. While getting down to the grass roots on the case, WOO meets AHN who has been deliberately planning his revenge. Now the war among the one blind for power, the one hell bent for vengeance, and the one eager for success starts.
A feature film based on the documentary "Our Brand Is Crisis", which focuses on the use of American political campaign strategies in South America.
A portrayal of the lives of the people living in North Madras, focusing on the politics inside the slums and how their plight remains the same, despite the political class luring them constantly during elections.
Naive and idealistic Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, is appointed on a lark by the spineless governor of his state. He is reunited with the state's senior senator--presidential hopeful and childhood hero, Senator Joseph Paine. In Washington, however, Smith discovers many of the shortcomings of the political process as his earnest goal of a national boys' camp leads to a conflict with the state political boss, Jim Taylor. Taylor first tries to corrupt Smith and then later attempts to destroy Smith through a scandal.
Political double-talk, dirty tricks, hidden microphones, spy satellites, bugging the Oval Office and a nuclear bomb for sale are all ingredients in this swift, funny and frightening look at the possibilities in today's political arenas. Sean Connery stars as TV Newsman Patrick Hal on an international chase to track two suitcase sized nuclear weapons and to uncover the twisting maze of apparent involvement of US Government agencies.
Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party's contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.
A popular but naive country singer is elected governor of a southern state and, once in office, decides to dismantle the corrupt political machine that got him elected. Director Daniel Mann's 1961 political drama stars Susan Hayward, Dean Martin, Wilfred Hyde-White, Martin Balsam, Ralph Meeker, Connie Sawyer, William Walker, Ray Teal, Larry Gates and Kathryn Card.
The Manchurian Candidate is a political thriller from American director John Frankenheimer. An American soldier is brainwashed into being a killer for the communist Russians during the Korean War.
A political thriller advancing the theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford who penned Shakespeare's plays; set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her.
An idealistic staffer for a newbie presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail. Based on the play by Beau Willimon.
Pete St. John is a powerful and successful political consultant, with clients spread around the country. When his long-time friend and client Ohio senator Sam Hastings decides to quit politics, he is rapidly drafted to help with the campaign of the man destined to succeed him, unknown and mysterious businessman Jerome Cade...
During the 1970s a student named Gilles gets entangled in contemporary political turmoils although he would rather just be a creative artist. While torn between his solidarity to his friends and his personal ambitions he falls in love with Christine.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, but never stranger than when a sexy, savvy, African-American conservative Republican reluctantly falls for his Democratic counterpart: a beautiful Indian-American Obama campaign volunteer. Sparks fly, tempers flare, heads turn, and romance blossoms for this mismatched pair of lovers in the frantic and intoxicating days leading up to Election Day. Can the politics of love conquer all?
The politically influential Shankar Nagre agrees to back a power plant scheme presented by corporate hotshot Anita Rajan; providing their enemies, which include upcoming political firebrands, an embezzling facilitator and shady businessmen with a unique opportunity to destroy the mass political clout enjoyed by him and his father (Subhash Nagre), the political icon known as "Sarkar".
In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.
Der Baader Meinhof Komplex depicts the political turmoil in the period from 1967 to the bloody "Deutschen Herbst" in 1977. The movie approaches the events based on Stefan Aust's standard work on Die Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF). The story centers on the leadership of the self named anti-fascist resistance to state violence: Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.
The US President and the UK Prime Minister are looking to launch a war in the Middle East. The plot follows government officials and advisers in their behind-the-scenes efforts either to promote the war or prevent it. Spinal Tap meets Strangelove. A satirical demolition of Whitehall and Washington: politically astute, hilarious and terrifyingly real.
A Japanese police unit who use giant anthropomorphic robots (called Labors) is caught up in a political struggle between the civilian authorities and the military when a terrorist act is blamed on an Air Force jet. With the aid of a government agent, the team gets close to a terrorist leader to stop things from going out of control when after the military is impelled to impose martial law.
In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.
A political thriller steeped in illegal oil trading, the Russian Mafia, and governmental cover-ups.
A Swedish-American farmer's daughter leaves the farm to attend nursing school. Penny-less after an acquaintance steals her tuition money, she obtains a job as a household servant for congressman Glenn Morley where she finds politics and romance.
In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.
The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike in which Republican prisoners tried to win political status. It dramatises events in the Maze prison in the six weeks prior to Sands’ death.
Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.
Carnival dancer Lane Bellamy finds herself stranded in a southern town ruled by corrupt political boss Sheriff Titus Semple. Lane becomes romantically involved with Deputy Sheriff Fielding Carlisle, a weakling whose career is being driven by Titus. Seeing Lane as a liability to his own political ambitions, Titus mounts a campaign to get her driven out of town. She finds she can't get a job and even gets arrested on a trumped-up morals charge. Released from jail, Lane finds work as a "hostess" at Lutie-Mae's road house, where she meets Dan Reynolds, another member of the town's political machine. They marry and move to a home on Flamingo Road, the town's social pinnacle. Their marriage is soon marked by scandal when a drunken Carlisle visits Lane at home one evening and shoots himself.
Political Animals is a six-part miniseries. Elaine Barrish's husband Bud was a popular President of the United States during the 1990s despite his extramarital affairs. After leaving the White House, Elaine Barrish was elected Governor of Illinois and ran for the Democratic nomination for President, but lost to Paul Garcetti. The night Barrish conceded the nomination, she asked her husband for a divorce. Two years later, as Garcetti's Secretary of State, Barrish deals with State Department issues while trying to keep her family together.
Prasthanam is a poetic and intense character drama enacted by Sharwanand, Sai Kumar and Sundeep Kishan. The movie is set in Vijayawada with a contemporary political back drop. Though it has some political color, highly existential in it's treatment.
A soldier recounts his relationship with a famous political prisoner attempting to overthrow their country's authoritarian government.
A man accepts a challenge to act as the Chief Minister for one day only, and makes such a success of it that soon he is embroiled in political intrigue.
A fictionalized account of the lives of 1980s Tamil Nadu political icons M. G. Ramachandran and M. Karunanidhi, continuing the tryst between Tamil cinema and Dravidian politics.
Luis Molina and Valentin Arregui are cell mates in a South American prison. Luis, a homosexual, is found guilty of immoral behaviour and Valentin is a political prisoner. To escape reality Luis invents romantic movies, while Valentin tries to keep his mind on the situation he's in. During the time they spend together, the two men come to understand and respect one another.
A "gangster noir" set in the 1970s, when Gangnam, Seoul goes under development. Political powers and darker organizations collide as they seek to grab control of the influential and exclusive area.
Two desperate people have a wonderful romance, but their political views and convictions drive them apart.
The Iron Guard, also known as Legion of Archangel Michael, was a Romanian nationalist and patriotic movement of extreme right; as such, after it rose to power, it supported Nazi Germany and started a fierce campaign of retaliation against its political enemies. As such, in the night of November 26-27, 1940, the Death Teams executed forty political prisoners in the Jilava prison (in the movie, named "Viraga"), and next day, other two Teams arrested and shot the former minister Virgil Madgearu and the world famous historian Nicolae Iorga. To squash down the political outcry, the Police Prefect Stefan Zävoianu conveniently assigns the cases to a commissioner from the "Morals Division" (prostitution, thieves), Tudor Moldovan, hoping that he will fail to get to the bottom of the case. However, Moldovan has communist sympathies, so he quickly comes under the influence of the Bolshevik Pîrvu, who had escaped during the Viraga...
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.

© Valossa 2015–2024