Paradise Under The Shade of Swords

Russia, 1917, WWI. This is the story of the 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death, formed as part of an ill-conceived propaganda ploy by the Russian Provisional Government in late May of 1917.

WWII 1942: Rzhev, USSR. Stuck in a crucial strategical position, a small company from the Red Army does whatever it takes to fend off the Nazis.

A Russian military propaganda film about the tank commander Kalashnikov, severely injured in battle in 1941. The accident leaves him incapacitated and unable to return to the front line. While recovering in the hospital, he begins creating the initial sketches of what will become one of the world’s most legendary weapons. A self-taught inventor is only 29 when he develops the now iconic assault riffle — the AK-47. Shot in occupied Crimea.

Russian army recruits complete training and take their posting in late 1980s Afghanistan, where the insurgents are slowly gaining the upper hand.

A group of teenage cadets sheltered from war at the Virginia Military Institute must confront the horrors of an adult world when they are called upon to defend the Shenandoah Valley.

December of 1941, Northwestern Front. A German tank column is moving towards Moscow. During a mission to stop the enemy advance, Nikolai Komlev's IL-2 is shot down. Komlev manages to crash-land his plane in a remote forest clearing. He's alive, but far from friendly territory. Ahead of him is a relentless trial of severe physical and mental endurance. After battling hunger and extreme cold, evading packs of wolves and detachments of Nazi soldiers, the wounded Komlev finally makes it back to safety. But there he faces another challenge, the most life-changing of them all.

Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation. A man is wrongly accused of collaboration. Desperate to save his dignity, he faces an impossible moral choice.

Three different men, three different worlds, three different wars – all stand at the intersection of modern warfare – a murky world of fluid morality where all is not as it seems. A unique and dramatic look at the Canadian Army in Afghanistan.