Part 1 of Wajda's trilogy of wartime films, the hopeful one, is set in Wola, a working-class area of Warsaw in 1942, and deals with the graduation of a bunch of semi-delinquent street kids, through individual acts of defiance and courage, into a youth resistance group. The heroism is not simple, neither loyalties nor self-sacrifice are assured, but united they will be. find out more...

Set in the Palestinian occupied territories we follow our central character as he struggles to maintain a meaningful relationship with the woman he loves under the watchful glare of an Isreali checkpoint. "Divine Intervention" is a marvelously offbeat movie, part satire, part farce, frequently surreal, but through it all a perceptive and thoughtful observation of a conflict that as yet defies solution. find out more...

Part poetry, part journalism, part philosophy, master filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's 'Notre Musique' is a lyrical reflection on war through the ages. The film is structured into three Dantean Kingdoms: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. The journey begins in Hell, modern warfare represented by images of battle and devastation gleaned from movies, TV and newsreels. Purgatory consists largely of discussions between writers and journalists drawn to Sarajevo for a literary conference. Finally, Paradise is con find out more...

Guillermo Del Toro's blockbusting tale of a young girl struggling to make sense of the violent world around her was a big 2006 arthouse hit. Continuing his exploration of the impact of the Spanish Civil War on his generation (it was also the backdrop for his excellent ghost story, The Devil's Backbone) Del Toro's fantasy mixes strong horror with fairytale-style aesthetics to great effect, making Ofelia's escape into an imaginary realm a poignant response to the cruel realities of her existence. find out more...

Said and Khaled are good friends living in the war torn West Bank, they are also freedom fighters and have just been given the honoured, if unenviable, task of conducting a suicide mission in the heart of Tel Aviv. Remarkably, given the subject matter, Paradise Now retains a certain, if admittedly surreal, normality throughout much of the film and, though dark, there is a realistic, if doom-laden, vein of humour, even a whiff of romance. Director Hany Abu-Assad provides a welcome and much needed find out more...

Mohammad is a Palestinian teacher and intellectual whose house is commandeered by an Israeli army platoon, him and his family being confined to the ground floor and, at night, the living room. His act of resistance is to stay and continually rebuild his greenhouse as the Israelis smash it. His wife wants to leave and his children all react in different ways, one spies on the soldiers, one wants to kill them, one is traumatised...... The Israelis aren't stereotypically cast either, they also have find out more...

Rossellini's masterpiece of neo-realist cinema. Based on the life of a priest who serves in the Resistance movement, it's triumph is to show the Resistance against a backdrop of everyday wartime life in Rome. The realism is enhanced by the camerawork and locations. A truly remarkable film. find out more...

Anwar Congo and his friends have been dancing their way through musical numbers, twisting arms in film noir gangster scenes, and galloping across prairies as yodelling cowboys. Their foray into filmmaking is being celebrated in the media and debated on television, even though Anwar Congo and his friends are mass murderers. Medan, Indonesia. When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie thea find out more...

Anwar Congo and his friends have been dancing their way through musical numbers, twisting arms in film noir gangster scenes, and galloping across prairies as yodelling cowboys. Their foray into filmmaking is being celebrated in the media and debated on television, even though Anwar Congo and his friends are mass murderers. Medan, Indonesia. When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie thea find out more...

A highly acclaimed and influential account of Algeria's turbulent past made in psuedo-documentary style. The tense plot surrounds the rise of nationalist organisations in '54 and the French government's attempts to quell them. This film was the prototype for most political thrillers of the 1970s. find out more...