Under Cover of Lightness

A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.

Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, takes on the government to recover artwork she believes rightfully belongs to her family.

Irena Sendler is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes saving Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, her idea is met with skepticism by fellow workers, her parish priest, and even her own mother Janina.

British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the Kindertransport.

An American-born Jewish adolescent, Hannah Stern, is uninterested in the culture, faith and customs of her relatives. However, she begins to revaluate her heritage when she has a supernatural experience that transports her back to a Nazi death camp in 1941. There she meets a young girl named Rivkah, a fellow captive in the camp. As Rivkah and Hannah struggle to survive in the face of daily atrocities, they form an unbreakable bond.

A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

Sudan, East Africa, 1980. A team of Israeli Mossad agents plans to rescue and transfer thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. To do so, and to avoid raising suspicions from the inquisitive and ruthless authorities, they establish as a cover a fake diving resort by the Red Sea.

After being expelled from Beecher Prep for his treatment of a classmate with a facial deformity, Julian has struggled to fit in at his new school. To transform his life, Julian's grandmother finally reveals her own story of courage of her youth in Nazi-occupied France, where a classmate shelters her from mortal danger.

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

The true, harrowing story of a young Jewish girl who, with her family and their friends, is forced into hiding in an attic in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.

At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented.

The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.

Berlin, 1930, during the rise of Nazism. Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and chocolate manufacturer, married to the capricious Lydia, loses his temper more and more every day when dealing with his workers and other businessmen; until he meets Felix, a vagrant, who seems to be physically identical to him; a disconcerting fact that leads Hermann Hermann to plot a particular way out of a fake world he actually hates.

As the Second World War breaks out, German freighter captain Karl Ehrlich is about to leave Sydney, Australia with his vessel, the Ergenstrasse. Ehrlich, an anti-Nazi but proud German, hopes to outrun or out-maneuver the British warship pursuing him. Aboard his vessel is Elsa Keller, a woman Ehrlich has been ordered to return to Germany safely along with whatever secrets she carries. When Ehrlich's fiercely Nazi chief officer Kirchner commits an atrocity, the British pursuit becomes deadly.

Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity and life.

The incredible, untold true story of how a group of prisoners attempt a seemingly impossible escape from the first Nazi death camp in order to provide the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust.

While investigating the ruthless murder of an elderly woman, a Jewish police detective unravels a bizarre conspiracy involving a Zionist organization.

During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain.

The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.

This vivid film of Wagner's romatic opera succeeds in conveying what has famously been called "the wind that blows out at you whenever you open the score", including Daland's boat anchoring against the Sandwike cliffs, the red-sailed phantom ship, and the ghost crew rising from the dead. "Scenes that recall classic horror films... Brilliantly successful" (Nürnberger Nachrichten), "Captures the works' essence" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). With a superb cast; conducted by Wagner authority Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Interrupted Melody is the inspirational filmed biography of world-renowned Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence. She’s a foremost Wagnerian, equal to the vocal and physical demands of the composer’s oeuvre. And she’s a beacon of triumph to anyone who fights back when personal tragedy strikes.

Two sisters raised on a charter resort in Gran Canaria. After 27 years, they reluctantly return to their childhood island to deal with their parents death, and end up with a half-finished esoteric retreat center in the Canary Islands.

A sudden gunshot shatters the dream of two lovers on their wedding day. The fate of Orpheus and Eurydice is cruel: on the very day they sought to seal their love, EurydiceΆs soul embarks on its journey to the underworld. Heartbroken, Orpheus embarks on a perilous journey to bring his beloved back from Hades. A journey that will lead the fearless hero to confront the depths of his emotions and face his greatest fears. This journey will take him through strange worlds and into encounters with some of the greatest musical pieces and arias in the history of music. Will love triumph over death?

Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a mid-nineteenth century provincial German town, is the father of an illegitimate child by his mistress Marie.

Soprano Yvonne Kenny turns in a spirited performance as Aspasia in this brilliant staging of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's first notable opera -- penned when he was only 14 years old. The production, set in early Roman times, follows the inner circle of the empire's most formidable foe, King Mithridates of Pontus. Maestro Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts the sterling cast, which includes tenor Gosta Winbergh and mezzo-soprano Ann Murray.

Through flashbacks going as far back as the end of WW1, the story of a Nazi war criminal is exposed during his trial.

A return to its roots for Castor et Pollux, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s lyric tragedy first performed in 1737 at the Académie royale and inspired by the mythological episode of the Gemini. Rarely performed in its original version – the score was reworked by Rameau himself in 1754 –, this daring work plays on contrasts and expressiveness, as in the famous “Tristes apprêts”. The aria is sung by Télaïre mourning the death of her fiancé Castor, killed in battle, before his twin brother Pollux descends into the Underworld to ask his father, Jupiter, to bring him back to life. While this opera celebrates brotherly love, its prologue poses an essential question for director Peter Sellars: how do you stop a war and its attendant hatred and resentment?

Set in Remies, France in 1941 during World War II, a Jewish man tries to escape Nazi persecution and a chance encounter with a woman sitting next to him on the train. Based on a true story.

Starring Jonas Kaufmann as Bacchus and featuring Emily Magee with Daniel Harding conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, Ariadne auf Naxos was filmed at the acclaimed Salzburg Festival in 2012. This release also includes "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme."

In L.A.'s Laurel Canyon, Karen has a dream that her sister Heather is in danger, but Heather seems safe enough, having just moved to a remote spur of the canyon to distance herself from her ex-husband. She's a writer, and she's soon met several men - Marcus, who helps her the day she moves in, neighbors Daniel and Marisa for whom she cooks dinner, and Michael her landlord who cleans her pool weekly. Daniel warns her away from Marcus even as he makes a play for her and invites her to participate in sexual escapades - some enjoyable, some not. Then it becomes clear that Karen's anxiety dream was prescient. Who can Heather trust, and does she figure it out too late?

As Aragon descends into unrest, a count jealously fights for a noble lady's heart. But she has already given it to a passionate troubadour whose mother holds a terrible secret.

March 1945, on the frontlines of the Tatra Mountains, Romanian and German soldiers prepare for battle, bound by the same hidden fear. In the chaos of combat, beyond bullets and grenades, a harsh truth emerges: in war, they are all just humans.

Young María, the embodiment of tango, leaves the outskirts of Buenos Aires and tries her luck in the chaotic downtown, where she triumphs in dark places ruled by crime and debauchery, unaware that a menacing presence stalks her, seeking her doom and death.

Two sisters meet in a Chinese restaurant to reconnect after one went to college and left the other with their abusive parents.

Verdi’s IL TROVATORE again storms the Met stage in a star-studded, anvil-wielding cast , including Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Marcelo Álvarez sings Manrico, the troubadour of the title. The story is well-known already: The gypsy Azucena has harbored a grudge for thirty years, but she is about to have revenge at last. Meanwhile, her son Manrico is in love with Leonora, but so is his arch-enemy, the Count Di Luna. A pot-boiler, where every tune is a hit.

As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.

This is a performance of Wagner's three-act opera Der fliegende Holländer ("The flying Dutchman"), performed by Bayreuther Festpiele, directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov. The staging was notable for two other milestones, as Oksana Lyniv became the first woman to conduct at Richard Wagner’s legendary Festspielhaus since its opening in 1876, and the sensational Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian made her house debut with a standout performance as the opera’s heroine, Senta. The exceptional cast also included John Lundgren (The Dutchman), Georg Zeppenfeld (Daland), Eric Cutler (Erik) and Marina Prudenskaya (Mary).

The legendary director Ruth Berghaus created this staging of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz as a gripping theatrical experience for the Zurich Opera in 1993. Its revival in 1999 was a roaring success. With sets by Hartmut Meyer and costumes by Marie-Louise Strandt, Berghaus’ staging avoids the local peasant colour conventionally associated with Weber’s opera. Chorus and orchestra of the Zurich Opera House are conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, universally celebrated for the structural transparency of his interpretations, his intellectual penetration and his emotional understanding of both music and opera plot. And last but not least an all-star cast made this production a highly memorable event: the dramatic soprano Inga Nielsen as Agathe, one of her best roles, the Swedish soprano Malin Hartelius as Ännchen, the sought-after Heldentenor Peter Seiffert, who gives a convincing passionate Max, and many others.

TANNHÄUSER UND DER SÄNGERKRIEG AUF WARTBURG is a grand opera by Richard Wagner in three acts. After experiencing boundless sensuality and freedom with the fun-loving Venus (soprano), the singer Tannhäuser (Tenor) finds it impossible to conform to the cultured setting of his betrothed Elizabeth (soprano), who loves him. During a singing contest, Tannhäuser describes the affair with Venus as the ultimate love experience and because of that, he is cast out from the established society. Thanks to Elizabeth's intervention, he is allowed to undertake a pilgrimage to the Pope to ask for the Holy Father's pardon. If the Pope accepts to forgive him, he would be allowed to take back his place in society. Tannhäuser accepts. But fate will not allow him to meet with his beloved Elizabeth again in this life. This is a recording of the legendary staging by Götz Friedrich for the 1978 Bayreuth Festival conducted by Sir Colin Davis.