Omar & Pete(2005)

Nada a ver(fr)

Lost for Life(en)

A documentary about juveniles who are serving life in prison without parole and their victims' families.

Man on Wire(en)

On August 7th 1974, French tightrope walker Philippe Petit stepped out on a high wire, illegally rigged between New York's World Trade Center twin towers, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour of performing on the wire, 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan, he was arrested. This fun and spellbinding documentary chronicles Philippe Petit's "highest" achievement.

This Temporal World(en)

A haunting story of the FBI's dark hand in American life. In 2015, Khalil Abu-Rayyan was just a young Muslim man in Detroit, Michigan: to get by, he delivered food for his family's pizzeria. Depressed and lonely, Khalil found solace in smoking weed and looking at extremist material online. Then two young women started messaging him, and he fell in love. But one of them suggested he start doing increasingly violent things. Nothing was as it seemed. And Khalil's life would never be the same. A documentary by Garret Harkawik for the Gravel Institute.

La fuga(es)

The internal journey of eight men, who, through a theater workshop, go through the different prisons they inhabit. Practicing the art of seeing themselves, in Boal's words, this group of men reflects on their masculinity as a representation to hide their true strength: their vulnerability.

Second Lane(fi)

Second Lane is a story about drug addiction, living with it and fighting it. It is a documentary about people who use intravenous drugs and the professionals and peers working with those people. What happens when ‘Vinkki’, a social and healthcare counselling centre in Helsinki, closes its doors due to a lost contract.

Catapult(de)

Norbert Witte, once the king of the only amusement park of the former GDR, today he is behind bars in Germany. When fleeing bankruptcy in Berlin, Norbert Witte and his family secretly shipped their rollercoasters to Peru. Things went wrong here too. In a desperate attempt, Norbert tried to smuggle cocaine to Germany. Three years later his 23 years old son Marcel was sentenced to 20 years in a Peruvian prison. Now the father is doing everything he can in order to free his son.

The Claustrum(en)

Three women are in enclosed psychological zones that function as both refuge and jail.

The Story of Junkie Junior(en)

Junior Rios started using heroin when he was 15. At age 29, Junior is a father of three. To support his $200-a-day heroin habit, he scours the rooftops of the South Bronx for materials he can sell. When he's finally caught, he enters an aggressive rehab program. Meanwhile, his ex has moved on, and is trying to make a better life for herself and their children.

The Trip(en)

In this honest and deeply personal account of living with addiction, a young man talks about the realities and challenges of living in the Anishinaabe community of Kitcisakik and the hope he still harbours for himself and his people.

Amy(en)

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

Nemesis(de)

The film explores the destruction of a unique train station in Zurich and the construction of the new prison and police centre in its place. From the perspective of the filmmaker’s window, and with testimony from prisoners awaiting deportation, the film probes how we deal with the extinction of history and its replacement with total security.

War on Drugs: The Prison Industrial Complex(en)

The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet. Today, 89 percent of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46 percent have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants, which usually involve no-knock entries into private homes.

La cárcel vieja habla: presos de la memoria(es)

Documentary about the "cárcel vieja" of Murcia

Sinister Harvest(en)

Early "shockumentary", apparently shot in Egypt, which documents the habits of opium addicts. The interiors of drug dens are shown, and at the conclusion the film an addict is shown collapsing on a sand dune; the booming voice of the narrator informs us that the addict has perished. Footage used is from the silent film Dope Fiends.

Thug Life in D.C.(en)

Aundrey Burno, a black youth looking down the wrong end of a murder charge -- for which a conviction could result in a lifetime in prison -- appears to be the epitome of an unrepentant thug. Speaking to viewers, he claims to have done whatever was necessary to survive on the mean streets, to earn the respect of his criminal peers. But as his case progresses and his younger brother, Kevin, faces the same choices he did -- to become a thug or not -- a very different Aundrey reveals himself.

The Circle(en)

Produced in 1967, this black and white film is an inmate's view of Daytop, a drug treatment centre on Staten Island, New York, where addicts learn to get along without drugs. Uncompromising, often brutal group therapy sessions are designed to shake loose the excuses a victim makes for himself. The people and situations shown are authentic; only one actor was employed. The results obtained at Daytop are regarded by some psychiatrists as a breakthrough.

Wasted Talent(en)

Pull of Gravity(en)

North Philadelphia, PA – Kev, El and Andy are three men united by one struggle: they are trying to defy gravity. As part of the 700,000 prisoners released into society every year, they find themselves faced with a chilling outlook: 67% of ex-offenders re-offend within three years. What explains this invisible force that keeps former inmates in a seemingly unending cycle of incarceration? Filmed on the street over the course of two years, Pull of Gravity is an intimate portrait of these three men that confronts head-on the gritty details of lives cut short by poverty and drugs, where dealing is seen as the only route to economic prosperity, where using offers an escape from powerlessness, and where prison is too often the next stop. The film’s unfiltered lense captures its subjects as they lay bare their stories, fears, and tentative dreams.

Jailbreak: Love on the Run(en)

An Alabama corrections officer falls in love with a man awaiting trial for murder and risks it all to help him escape.