secret police

The Confession

Wed, 29 Apr 1970

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.

Chekist

Tue, 15 Sep 1992

Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand naked facing wooden doors. No one to remember their last words; no martyrs, just anonymous bodies. Daily, the kangaroo court, the executions, the loading of bodies onto wagons. Srubov is cold, distant, sexually dysfunctional, and a deep thinker, hated by former friends and his family. As he tries to reason the nature of revolution and the purpose of CHEKA, he slowly goes mad.

Servants

Thu, 12 Nov 2020

Michal and Juraj, two students of a theological seminary in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, must decide if they'll choose the easier way of collaboration, or if they'll subject themselves to the surveillance of the secret police.

Alien from L.A.

Fri, 26 Feb 1988

When her archaeologist father disappears on an expedition, Wanda sets out to look for him. What she finds is a secret underground world, where no one believes in life on the surface and where she and her father are taken for spies.

To Kill a Priest

Wed, 07 Sep 1988

A young priest speaks out against the Communist regime in Poland and is killed for it.

Adriana's Pact

Thu, 05 Oct 2017

Lissette's favorite aunt Adriana, who lives in Australia, is arrested in 2007 while visiting her family in Chile and accused of having worked for dictator Pinochet's notorious secret police, the DINA, and of having participated in the commission of state crimes. When Adriana denies these accusations, Lissette begins to investigate her story in order to film a documentary about her.

Starring Jerry as Himself

Wed, 06 Nov 2024

Jerry, an ordinary immigrant dad, retired in Orlando, is recruited to be an undercover agent for the Chinese police. Jerry’s family recreates the events on film and his three sons discover a darker truth. True crime meets spy thriller in this genre-bending docufiction hybrid about an immigrant’s search for the American dream. A Slamdance Film Festival Grand Jury and Audience Award winner.

Winter of the Crow

Fri, 27 Feb 2026

Warsaw, December 13, 1981. Martial law shuts down the country. Overnight, a country turns into a prison. Taxis have been replaced by tanks. Citizens are treated like criminals. And visiting British Professor Joan Andrews finds herself trapped. After witnessing the murder of a young student by the secret police (the "Crows"), Joan herself becomes the target.

The Man from Majorca

Fri, 12 Oct 1984

In the aftermath of a daring post office robbery on Saint Lucy's Day, two Stockholm vice cops venture into a world of corruption, cover-ups and murder that takes them from the dirty streets to government officials.

Yolsuzlar

Fri, 01 Feb 1974

Balkan Rules

Wed, 09 Apr 1997

Movie about secret relations between Yugoslavian, Serbian and Croatian secret police during last 50 years. Here in Balkans truth and lies are so much mixed and it lasts so long that no one knows the difference. That is why this fictitious story looks so true.

Conspiracy

Tue, 01 Aug 1939

American Steve Kendall, a freighter's radio officer, discovers seaman Carlson sending an unauthorized message ashore as the ship approaches his war-poised homeland. Carlson is shot in cold blood when he jumps ship and Kendall, implicated in the espionage, swims ashore to avoid arrest. A woman he meets at the dock hides him in her apartment, where he learns Carlson was her brother, and they both work in a sabotage ring. Nedra is a singer at Tio's Cafe, and she approaches Tio for help when both the saboteurs and the secret police try to capture Steve.

The Exam

Thu, 13 Oct 2011

Budapest, Hungary, Christmas 1957. The state, insecure after the defeated revolution of 1956 and increasingly put under the influence of a renewed Stalinist atmosphere, has decreed that all security officials must pass an exam to verify their loyalty. But to be actually effective in a shadowy world where suspicion and secrets reign, the subjects must be unaware that they are being tested.

Walking Too Fast

Thu, 04 Feb 2010

The psyche of a ruthless secret agent in Cold War Czechoslovakia begins to unravel when he obsesses over the girlfriend of a suspected subversive he is tracking. This taut political thriller is a bleak and potent rendering of the emotional destruction wreaked by totalitarianism.

State

Wed, 03 Jul 2013

While scouting locations for a shoot in Belgrade, Jelena, a young director makes up a story about Marija, a professor of political theory, whose dying father has revealed to her some medical files that could be of interest to several intelligence services. Marija has affection for Marko, a student - until she realizes that he had gotten close to her in order to learn her father's secrets. Marko explains that her father took part in Medical experiments in Africa, which led to deaths of many people in the Congo. Marija has no way of checking whether these allegations are true, because her father dies. She is faced with a dilemma: should she give her father's files to Marko or sell them to foreign intelligence services.

Handcuffs

Fri, 06 Nov 1970

Yugoslavia, 1948, the year of Inform Bureau's resolution and Tito's break-up with Stalin. The story takes place during a wedding in the Dalmatian inland in Croatia. Ante marries a much younger woman, Višnja; the groom's godfather is Andrija, the partisan war hero born in this very village, and a member of the new Communist political establishment. Two members of the Yugoslav State Security crash the traditional wedding ceremony. In the growing atmosphere of fear nobody knows who will be arrested.

Never Speak Ill of the Dead

Sun, 01 Jan 1984

Tragicomic story about Communist activist who wants to bring the benefits of Communism to the inhabitants of a Serbian village after WW2.

Young and Healthy as a Rose

Tue, 13 Jul 1971

Young and Healthy as a Rose follows Stevan Nikolic, "Stiv", a petty criminal born in Belgrade, and his rise to power along with drugs, sex and with the help of local police.

The Gestapo: Hitler's Secret Police

Tue, 31 Dec 1991

The rise and fall of Nazi Germany's terrifying secret police force from 1933 through 1945.

Codename Pirate

Tue, 15 Apr 2014

Was my father really a spy, as his file in the former East German Secret Service (STASI) suggests? This question marks the starting point of a son’s journey into his late father’s past which still remains somewhat mysterious even today. Eric Asch is looking for answers – in the Stasi archives, at the NSA and in his own family history. The result is a very personal documentary which reports ironically about the practices of secret service during the Cold War.