Here's Johnny / The Great Communist Bank Robbery

HERE’S JOHNNY, 2008, U.K., Animal Monday Productions, 60 min. Dir. Kat Mansoor. The eloquent documentary enters the surreal world of renowned graphic artist Johnny Hicklenton (the comics Judge Dredd and 2000 AD), who is battling the disease multiple sclerosis. Living in an increasing state of immobility and frustration, Johnny escapes the confines of his front room through his artwork. Through the expression of his brilliant and sometimes troubled imagination, we learn about the disease that he cannot escape from.

THE GREAT COMMUNIST BANK ROBBERY, 2004, Romania/France, 70 min. Dir. Alexandru Solomon. A 1959 robbery of the Romanian National Bank in Bucharest became a chilling piece of proto-reality television -- Stalinist style. Authorities arrested six suspects – all high-ranking members of the nomenklatura – who agreed to re-enact their confessed crimes in a filmed “docudrama.” Despite possible expectations of a pardon, the robbers were executed.