Shin Dong-Huyk was born as a political prisoner in a North Korean re-education camp from where no-one leaves alive. Forced to labor in the mines from the age of 6 years he suffered from beatings, torture and permanent hunger, always at the mercy of the wardens and unaware of a life outside the barbed-wire fences. At the age of 23, encouraged by a recently interned work-mate and in order to find out what meat tasted like, he escaped. Staggered by the clothes and freedom he saw that other North find out more...

Bobby Sands was the IRA member who led the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike as part of a campaign to achieve the status of political prisoners and not that of criminals. The first section of film deals with daily prison life, the 'dirty' protest and the violence, the second is a long discussion on the meaning of life with a sympathetic priest and the third depicts the last weeks and death of a man voluntarily dying of starvation. find out more...

Spike Lee's mainstream take on the ex-petty crook turned Islamic preacher and leading 60s Civil Rights spokesman Malcolm X. Washington's performance is riveting in this epic. find out more...

A pretty good dramatization of Nelson Mandela's extraordinary journey from childhood in a rural village through to his election as President of South Africa. It explores the Mandela unknown to most of the world; the lover of fancy cars, a lady's man, the boxing enthusiast and playboy, the skilful lawyer and a freedom fighter. An intriguing portrait of the making of a modern icon.

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A gripping, Oscar nominated, reconstruction of the rise of the Baader-Meinhof Group, a bunch of radical terrorists who rose in the mid-70s using military means, arson, bank raids, assassinations and kidnappings, to attempt the overthrow of the German state, many of whose personnel had their roots in the country's Nazi state. find out more...