This Man Escaped the Iron Curtain by Zip Line

Jun 8, 2018

0h 4m

★ 7.0

They cannot defeat a human spirit that wants its freedom

Overview

In 1986, Daniel Pohl was stuck in communist Czechoslovakia, looking for a way to escape life under totalitarian rule. His exit strategy was unusual, to say the least. After realizing that he could not rely on traditional forms of transport, Daniel chose to zip line his way to freedom. After teaming up with a physicist, the two devised a plan using a series of DIY pulleys. Thankfully, his journey proved to be mission possible as he successfully crossed the Iron Curtain, making a safe escape into Austria.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Great Big Story

This Man Escaped the Iron Curtain by Zip Line Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Robert Oswald

Justin Joseph Hall

Kara Robinson Chamberlain recounts in vivid detail being taken at gun point from a friend’s front yard. Forced into in a cramped, dark storage container in her captor’s car, Kara instantly knew her life was in grave danger. In a moment she describes as a divine intervention, the 15-year-old realized she had to be her own victor and take her life back; she had to escape.

0.0

Habouman's Promise

Apr 16, 2025

No overview available.

8.0

Solidarnosc, la première brèche

Sep 16, 2020

No overview available.

0.0

Refuge(e)

Mar 14, 2019

Refuge(e) traces the incredible journey of two refugees, Alpha and Zeferino. Each fled violent threats to their lives in their home countries and presented themselves at the US border asking for political asylum, only to be incarcerated in a for-profit prison for months on end without having committed any crime. Thousands more like them can't tell their stories.

5.4

Disco and Atomic War

Apr 10, 2009

A different history of the Cold War: how Estonians under Soviet tyranny began to feel the breeze of freedom when a group of anonymous dreamers successfully used improbable methods to capture the Finnish television signal, a window into Western popular culture, brave but harmless warriors who helped change the fate of an entire nation.

7.1

Chuck Norris vs Communism

Nov 12, 2015

In late eighties, in Ceausescu's Romania, a black market VHS bootlegger and a courageous female translator brought the magic of Western films to the Romanian people and sowed the seeds of a revolution.

7.3

The Soviet Story

Apr 9, 2008

“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...

3.0

The History of the Civil War

Jun 1, 1921

The epic story of the Russian Civil War (1918-21): the White Terror, the counterrevolutionary uprisings, the guerrilla war, the Kolchak front, the Wrangel front and the Kronstadt rebellion. Chaos and violence, devastation and death.

7.5

Gorging

Jun 20, 2013

Canyoneering is the sport of descending canyons by means of hiking, climbing, rappelling and swimming. Relatively obscure, the sport was brought to the mainstream in 2003 with the news of Aron Ralston who had severed his own arm while trapped in a canyon. Experiencing an overnight spike in popularity by the late 90s - a result of information appearing on the internet - the sport became inundated with thrill-seekers of all backgrounds and skill levels. Facing a new era of off-the-couch recreationalists, three influential participants, a canyoneering instructor, pioneer, and guidebook author each respond to a growing interest in the incredibly dangerous activity. Gorging employs the story of canyoneering to examine larger questions about the pursuit of thrills and the consequences that follow.

0.0

The Birth of Korea 2: Freedom Fighter

Sep 10, 2025

How did South Korea, after liberation in 1945 defend liberal democracy against leftist and communist forces? The door to that secret is now revealed.

6.0

The Beast Is Still Alive

Nov 11, 2016

A young Bulgarian girl digs into her grandfather's turbulent life in an attempt to unravel the past and find answers and explanations for the catastrophic fall of communism.

5.0

3 SISTERS Mia | Uschi | Martha

Mar 11, 2022

Before World War II the 3 sisters Mia, Uschi, and Martha were born in the former German city of Wrocław, which became Polish in 1945. They have been shaped by poverty, National Socialism, war, and escape, but also by peace, reconstruction, and an affluent society of Germany. The detailed stories they tell us in front of the camera, 75 years after World War II has ended, are as individual as the 3 sisters themselves.

5.8

Nowhere Home

Oct 26, 2012

In 2009 the Norwegian government introduced several measures to restrict immigration. One of the measures was to provide unaccompanied asylum seeking children temporary residence permits. They should be returned to their country of origin when they turn 18. In Norway child welfare custody of their children without close caregivers. This does not apply to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children between 15 and 18 years.

0.0

Secret Courage: The Walter Suskind Story

Jul 1, 2005

No overview available.

6.7

High Noon on the Waterfront

Sep 4, 2022

An inventive remembrance of the impact of the Hollywood blacklist on two American classics, rendered as a visually mesmerizing dialogue between Carl Foreman and Elia Kazan.

7.7

Forman vs. Forman

Jul 16, 2019

A moving account, in his own words, of the personal life and work of the brilliant Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (1932-2018): his tragic childhood, his major contribution to the cultural movement known as the Czech New Wave, his exile in Paris, his troubled days in New York, his rise to stardom in Hollywood; a complete existence in the service of cinema.

No Image Available

6.0

East-West Passage

Feb 2, 2010

In the summer of 1989 tens of thousands of tourists from communist East Germany came to Hungary. They were deeply disillusioned because they felt they had no future in East Germany. There was no freedom, no choice in the shops, salaries were low and they could not travel except to Eastern Europe. They wanted to go to a prosperous and free West Germany but they could not get passports, so they hoped that by travelling through Hungary, the least suppressed country of the Soviet Block, they could cross the Iron Curtain into Austria and then travel on into West Germany. For them the Hungary of twenty years ago was the new east-west passage. Written by Czes

4.0

The Birth of Korea

Feb 1, 2024

Since South and North Korea's liberation in 1945, North Korea, a communist dictatorship that suppresses freedom and oppresses human rights, and South Korea, which has entered the path of economic prosperity and advanced countries based on freedom and democracy, have taken different paths. How did the two countries with the same language, history, and race, become divided into two extreme countries? A work that highlights the sacrifices and struggles of President Syngman Rhee and the first generation of founding members who worked to create and protect today's Republic of Korea over the past 70 years of history.

This Man Escaped the Iron Curtain by Zip Line

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

This Man Escaped the Iron Curtain by Zip Line Trailers