The Trinity Assembly of God Church in Texas has created it's own alternative to the haunted house of dishevelled fair grounds. ‘The Hell House', a comparatively lavish production of horrors, but crucially, ones here on earth; abortions, AIDS, drugs, rape. Everything gets the faithful's naïve but graphic interpretation. Ratliff's documentary is an admirably unbiased look at an agonisingly myopic and intolerant world view, but his skill as an observer leaves you almost as sympathetic for the prota find out more...

After a one-night stand with a military officer, a cabaret singer is imprisoned by the secret police, without ever being informed of her alleged crime. For the next five years, she is subjected to harrowing torture and harassment, which she doggedly withstands in a struggle to maintain her dignity and sanity. Interrogation was banned by the Polish government for being 'inflammatory and dangerous'. Years later director Bugjaski smuggled a copy out of the country where it debuted at Cannes in 1990 find out more...

1994, 800,000 killed in 100 days, a Catholic priest and an idealistic young English teacher are caught, both literally and morally, in the midst of the horror. How can they help the thousands of refugees who flee to their school, where the pathetic (Belgian) UN troops are billetted, in the hope of surviving the bloodthirsty Hutu mobs engaged in the wholesale massacre of the Tutsi minority? Like Hotel Rwanda this is a fully engaging and emotionally disturbing account of the horrors that humans ca find out more...

All twelve episodes from the first series of the classic satirical puppet show. No target was safe from the series' gunsights: Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet, the opposition, the Liberals, Ronald Reagan, the Pope and the Royal Family could all find themselves up for a painful ribbing on any given programme. The series was worked around the current week's news stories and featured a number of famous impressionists, including Chris Barrie, Rory Bremner, Phil Cornwell, Steve Coogan, John Culs find out more...

It's the early 70s and America is in the throes of cultural and political turmoil, the Vietnam War still rages and ‘Tricky Dicky' still clings to power at the White House. In the middle of this confusion sits Samuel J. Bicke, a failed salesman, a failed husband and a failed father. Bicke is one of life's losers, a person incapable of doing himself any favours but determined in his belief that someone else must be to blame. To this end, Bicke becomes obsessed that the president is the cause of al find out more...

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Hawthorne is breathtaking as poor old King George, who, after 30 years reign, has gone completely barking mad. While his evil son plots to steal the throne, the men in the white coats subject the captive King to a stomach-churning array of torturous treatment. Bawdy, shockingly funny and just brilliant! find out more...

Back in 1914 the young Ida Dalsar fell in love with an ardent young socialist, the future Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. She sold her shop to finance his career, possibly married him, had his child, got dumped, but kept coming back for more before being incarcerated in a mental institution. In other words this is the story of a girl who fell for the wrong man (and a country that fell for the wrong politics).
Particularly well received in France this was considered a serious contender fo find out more...