By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-02 18:47:05 | Updated at 2026-10-02 19:31:03
44 minutes ago
Mark Judge speaks during the anti-communist film festival at the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington on Oct. 1, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times
WASHINGTON—The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has launched its first-ever film series highlighting the horrors of life under communist rule.
The Anti-Communist Film Festival, which kicked off on Oct. 1 and runs through Oct. 4, is meant to act as a counterpoise to Hollywood’s sometimes-rosy depiction of communist ideology, festival creator Mark Judge told The Epoch Times.
“They’ve owned cinema for 50 years, and we want to push back on that a little bit,” Judge said. He also told attendees of the inaugural event that he hoped to make it an annual affair and to expand it to other cities.
Tickets are free and can be obtained at the event’s
website, but seating is quite limited. Complimentary popcorn and soda were served on its first day.
The screenings began with Thursday’s showing of “Pilecki’s Report,” which detailed the life, suffering, and brutal torture of a Polish war hero at the hands of the Soviet Union shortly after the close of World War II.
Witold Pilecki voluntarily allowed himself to be apprehended by Nazi authorities so he could be sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. From there, he compiled reports of the atrocities he witnessed, and smuggled them out into the wider world before escaping.
But after the war, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by the Soviets, he came under suspicion of Russian authorities, who accused him of plotting the assassination of local leadership. He was imprisoned and executed.
Friday’s showing will present the award-winning film “The Killing Fields,” which documents the brutal atrocities committed under Cambodian communist dictator Pol Pot. Saturday will feature three films, and Sunday’s showing will be the George Clooney comedy “Hail Caesar!”
Judge said the series was also partly motivated by the memory of his father, who had worked as an editor for National Geographic magazine for 30 years. That work sent him to Soviet Russia, which he later described as a “hellhole.”
Judge said that, after hearing some of his college buddies suggest the United States could learn a thing or two from Cuba and Russia, his jovial, beer-drinking father turned serious.
“Do you guys like that punk rock you listen to? You guys are forming a punk rock band,” he recalled his father saying. “Well, in East Germany, they’re beating the hell out of kids who are forming punk rock bands. You can’t read the comics you like. You can’t watch the movies you like. It’s depressing. There’s rampant alcoholism … a system that does not work.”
